Mediaweek held its inaugural Power Lunch in October, celebrating the successes of the media industry and the people who make it.
Haydon Bray, founder and global CEO of Audience Precision, made the inaugural Agency 50 list in 49th place.
Bray spoke to Mediaweek about leading an elite and talented group of people, the important industry issues on his mind, and his thoughts on moving the industry towards strategic ways of thinking and innovative growth.
Mediaweek: Congratulations on making the #49 spot on our Mediaweek Agency 50 list. What was your reaction to your placement?
HB: It was great to be included in the list as I have essentially kept Audience Precision, and my return to the industry under the radar in Australia for the last 7 years, with our client base being primarily in international markets.
MW: How does your position on the list reflect the achievements made by Audience Precision?
HB: Audience Precision is an agency that is made up of elite individuals with a diverse range of skills and services. I have handcrafted the brilliant team that surround me, ensuring that I have the right people in place to support the vision, and turn it into reality. Each of the units at Audience Precision work harmoniously together, with a strong culture and diversity at the centre of what we do.
MW: What are three industry issues on your mind, and in your opinion, how can they be solved or achieved
HB: Marketing fundamentals being lost at the core of media – after all these years it’s still essentially a ‘cheap wins’ game for bigger brands.
Solution: Priority on skills development to get the balance right between effectiveness and efficiency … not one at the expense of the other … it’s absolutely possible but bravery and skill is required.
Education on the changes in market for strategic tech, there is so much growth but without the proper education from the media teams through to the clients, it won’t be able to have the impact it is capable of.
Solution: media players coming together to educate the industry as a whole, with enough case studies and tangibility to allow teams to take developments into clients with confidence. It is great to see some of this already starting to happen, so consistency of this is the key.
Talent issues & the consequent shift of mindset for the cohort coming through. There has been, and continues to be a mass exit of talent from the media industry, as the shortage and lack of support continues to burn out strong talent.
Solution: we need to remove the laborious work that exists within the media agency roles, the endless excel documents and drowning our talent in old systems and administrative procedures that are begging for an upgrade. The focus on technology and improving this is something that we at Audience Precision have been focusing on for the last seven years, to allow our clever people more time to think, supported by clever technology.
MW: What is your outlook for Audience Precision in the year ahead?
HB: Europe and US are doing it much tougher economically than here in Australia, which is affecting client confidence and budgets. Whilst that will correct itself in the future, we are shifting our focus to Australian based clients and have a number of interesting discussions in play.
MW: What are your hopes for the industry in 2023?
HB: I hope that the industry continues to move towards more strategic ways of thinking, prioritising innovation as a core pillar. It has already begun in a really large way, but the consistent growth across our industry, in particular the Australian media industry is something that I am eagerly keeping a close eye on.
Through our client base, we have a clear view on international markets and the way that their media trading is done more efficiently with programmatic trading tools for OOH, Cinema & Television for example. So I do hope that, as a market, we lean into the innovative growth areas and the Australian media industry can enter it’s next phase of progression.
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Top image: Haydon Bray