In the marketing and advertising landscape, media agencies face major challenges to their business model as a result of technological disruption, its effects on the media and on clients’ own business models. At this moment, the transformations brought about by the use of artificial intelligence in the planning of advertising investment, the need to deal with big tech and the processes of adapting to changes in privacy policies and data regulation require great agility and capacity for innovation.

In reality, this is a business traditionally based on data and analytical tools, which is why technological immersion has always been significant. However, the generalisation of digital access to media has profoundly changed the way advertising is done, as information relating to the measurement of impact on audiences has come to be based on real data. For marketers, credible audiences are now needed for all media, with ever greater potential for segmentation and precision in the algorithms that make it possible to forecast and evaluate campaign performance. Brands have become much more demanding in terms of information: the media must produce relevant data and media agencies must have the capacity to integrate and analyse audiences, consumer behaviour, preferences and trends, as well as market and client data. Only in this way can they produce relevant insights that truly add value.

It therefore becomes clear that media agencies have a very important role in this advertising ecosystem. In terms of the media, preserving their independence alongside their sustainability is only possible through transparent funding models based on advertising, but which promote its quality. On the other hand, agencies are essential to brands’ communication strategies, as only they have the technological capacity to provide the information needed to support decisions from a fully data-driven perspective. It is therefore very important that they have an institutional and interventionist voice among the various stakeholders, ensuring efficient and accurate audience measurement models, the quality of advertising spaces and best practices in the industry.

It was with this purpose that APAME (Portuguese Association of Media Agencies) was created, bringing together all the media agencies in the market until 2013. However, that year GroupM and the OMD Group left to create APEIP (Portuguese Association of Advertising Investment Management Companies), following a split over its governance methodology. Subsequently, in 2019, Nova Expressão ceased to be part of APAME due to some divergences within the scope of relations with stakeholders. As a result, media agencies ended up without an obvious interlocutor in some important discussions for the industry.

It is always worth revisiting an organisation’s mission in order to better understand its objectives and the way it operates. In the case of APAME, its wording remains the original one, from when all groups and agencies were members, and tells us that: “The mission of the Portuguese Association of Media Agencies is to contribute to the recognition of the value of its members’ activity, seeking to improve the quality and sustainability of the sector, ensuring the exchange of experiences between members and promoting dialogue with the remaining stakeholders, creating favourable conditions in the markets in which it operates, within the framework of promoting healthy competition, which it supports, and disseminating best practices.”

I sincerely believe that the various media agencies still fully identify with this mission and that it will not require a major effort for them to come together again around a single association, with all the advantages this brings in terms of capacity for intervention.