By Chris Hogg, CRO, Lotame
Thirteen years ago, I was sat on the floor of Milan Malpensa airport with my laptop preparing for the meeting on the other end of the flight. I had been travelling all week, pitching Lotame solutions to publishers across Europe, and my office was whatever free square metre I could find. It’s a blur now and it was a blur then too, best illustrated by trying to buy Paris metro tickets on the Eurostar to Brussels, not realising quite where I was until the seller politely corrected me.
While I don’t miss the travel-induced delirium, that period of jet-setting for face-to-face meetings established a sales foothold I’ve kept to this day, and wouldn’t have built otherwise. I didn’t just land clients, I made friends then that are still friends today, relationships that have ultimately proven more precious than any successful pitch. Never underestimate the value of people who can put in a good word for you.
Now, before I exhaust you with “back in my day” anecdotes, I will acknowledge that it’s a trap to dwell on nostalgia. However, I can’t help but be concerned for the next generation stepping into the media industry today.
After all, why do people join this sector? Whether you work for a publisher, brand, or agency, your efforts ultimately go towards connecting with people. We’ve become so effective at this that we are now at attention saturation, and competing for slices of a pie that isn’t going to get any bigger.
This explosion of channels, formats, devices, and platforms has been enabled by technology, but this same technology has made it harder to build lasting bonds behind the scenes. The world has changed, the age of connectivity turning to one of disconnection, where the network of colleagues, clients, and friends that form the structure of a career is so much harder to establish.
Today, we’re in a period of rapid automation, with AI relieving us of the day-to-day drudgery that gets between us and the good stuff. On this front, I’m immensely optimistic that AI taking on the “busy work” tasks will free people up to meet more in the real world. That being said, we need to be careful about what we automate as some of that “busy work” engenders the opportunity to learn from those with experience and deep context.
The popular wisdom for effective AI use is “outsource the work, not the thinking.” I agree wholeheartedly and would propose adding “or the socialising” as well. So much of human-to-human connection has already become abstracted by emails and instant messaging, and now we can’t guarantee that the person on the other end is a person at all.
The desire to touch grass, or at least a conference floor
Overall, I am hopeful, because I believe we have reached a tipping point in how much virtual socialising we can collectively tolerate. The long cultural hangover from Covid is lifting, and everywhere in professional and private society we see calls to “digitally detox” or “touch grass”. Our fundamental nature as social creatures is breaking through, one that can’t be easily satisfied digitally.
We see it in the surge of experiential marketing, in the surprise resurrection of analogue technologies, and in the social media backlash. The vast majority of young people today intend to attend more in-person events, with a preference for those that provide low-pressure opportunities for organic connection.
Within our industry, we see it in the booming events sector and our packed conference calendars. It’s much more than Cannes now, every country and region seems to have its own Cannes-lite, along with a wealth of sector and company-specific events that never seem to have a problem selling out.
This is how we reach the best of both worlds: all the conveniences and accessibility gains of technology paired with ample networking, community building, and socialising opportunities. As an industry, we need to continue to cater to the next generation’s desire for connection through ample and varied in-person events (while giving us well-connected veterans opportunities for fun along the way too).
It’s a matter of service as well, and being able to provide the personal, white glove experience to clients is going to become a massive differentiator as automation accelerates. If you’ve attended any media event recently you will have heard of the importance of trust in today’s industry, and nothing builds trust more than being able to put a face to a name, and for that person to stake their reputation on the service they provide.
That meeting that I flew to a dozen plus years ago was, despite the state of me, a success. We sealed the deal with a handshake. Two people establishing trust through touch was a powerful gesture then, and it will only become more powerful in the future. Technology can do more than ever for us, but only humans can shake hands.
