‘Media should be the sexiest, most attractive business to be part of’: Nick Emery, chairman of judges, Media Awards 2012

The judges: Product Sector Categories - (Back row, from left) Penny Herriman, chief executive, Glue Isobar; Tracy De Groose, chief executive, Carat; Justin Gibbons, creative director, Arena Media; Jonathan Fowles, executive director, head of strategy

The judges: Media Owner Categories - (Back row, from left) David Grainger, head of strategy, Optimedia; Alistair MacCullum, managing director, M2M; Phil Mahoney, head of trading, PHD; Andy Jones, chief executive, UM; John Davidson, head of trading, Starcom

 

 

The judges: Media Owner Categories - (Back row, from left) Alan Hodge, global trading director, Maxus; Stephen Haines, UK commercial director, Facebook; Simon Davis, chief executive, Walker Media; Dan Clays, managing director, OMD; Stuart Bowden, managing

All too often we do ourselves a disservice and sell ourselves short; we groan under the weight of procurement rather than celebrating that we can now map all humankind and that media is the new product development engine of marketing. Data is not the be-all and end-all but it is the key to great ideas, and media holds that key.

Brand reputations go up and down on the stock market of social media and media more than ever before defines a consumer.

If you win a Campaign Media award you should be proud, as we have some tough rules: no partisan agency behaviour that mars our industry with myopic, self-centred voting – these awards are about the work, and not the politics; no hyperbole or outlandish claims of the media effect – in the future, I’d like to see more team awards as no one agency can rule all communications elements, and we need to see an attitude of nobody owns anything but everybody owns everything.

Yes, we wanted to recognise diligence and ROI but, more than anything, we wanted to recognise invention. If the judges had an overall concern, it would be that we didn’t see enough radical thinking or enough of media embodying the truth that all marketing now begins and ends in media.

If you work in an agency it is because you want to create something new and push the boundaries in all aspects – insight, content, analytics, planning and trading.

We need to see more iconoclasts and fewer conservatives. I hope these awards are a start.

Nick Emery, global chief executive, Mindshare Worldwide

Chairman of the judges

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk