Media Week Awards 2008

Technology, combined with consumers' enjoyment of the opportunities that technology has brought them, is making the media landscape a much more immediate, exciting and accountable place.

Compared to many categories of spend I am responsible for, the dynamism of the media marketplace is refreshing and invigorating. But at the same time, I am increasingly concerned that the people in the industry aren't having much fun.

Competition for budgets, centralisation of accounts, the reported commoditisation of media trading, the influence of procurement - which is only about trying to get a fair deal for clients - and inadequate remuneration have all been cited as causes of an ongoing malaise.

Going into the judging, I was expecting to see small but telling signs of an industry problem. However, I was pleasantly surprised. There were many examples of imaginative and effective approaches to building brands, driving media understanding forward, and cross-media integration.

Most importantly, the Rising Star category demonstrated that there is an exciting and broad pool of talent coming through on both the buying and selling sides of media.

The finalists demonstrated the drive, breadth of understanding and personality required to ensure this industry is not mechanised beyond the point of any human influence. Their confidence and agility was very clearly shown, never more so than when presenting to 50 of the industry's most senior leaders just before lunch.

So, I'm grateful to all those who took the time and effort to submit their work for scrutiny, to the judges for their time and expertise, and to all the winners.

Media may not be in the rudest health right now, but the future talent looks more than good enough to see it through the current headwinds.

Kester Fielding is global media procurement director for Diageo

The Media Week Awards process this year was the usual mixture of assessing and appreciating great work combined with top industry input from the cream of the media agency, media owner and client worlds.

There is always a certain lag in the work that rises to the top in awards competitions, as the process looks back over activity that was conceived up to 18 months before.

Last year, effective digital work and digital activity that was fully integrated in a wider media campaign was noticeable by its absence. This year, digital seemed to have crossed a Rubicon. There were many examples of digital channels being used effectively and, most importantly, in an integrated way - with the emphasis on real business returns at the end of the process.

The Agency of the Year and Sales Team of the Year categories were once again incredibly difficult to judge. Well before the economic downturn, the discipline of modern media as a business determined that most agencies and media owners were already conducting their operations with the utmost efficiency. They are also well ahead of other marketing services companies in terms of truly integrating digital media into the work they do and the products they put into the marketplace. All the shortlisted businesses for the two showpiece categories gave compelling presentations. The winners - MediaCom and Viacom Brand Solutions - were definitely the cream of a fantastic crop, rather than the best of a bad bunch.

It was also extremely heartening to see the quality of the individuals who fought out the Rising Star category. All five were incredibly driven and on top of their briefs. It bodes well for our industry that there is a generation of inspirational people emerging to challenge existing mores and evolve media to its next level.

I'd like to thank our chair of judges Kester Fielding for his excellent stewardship, our stellar cast of judges, our sponsors, everybody who entered and everyone here tonight for what will be, as always, the media night of the year.
Here we celebrate the best of the last 12 months.

Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week