Executive Overview

Centro—the provider of Transis, the industry’s first automated digital media buying technology—conducted a survey of the digital media planning community to gauge workforce productivity and efficiency. Although discussed often in the industry, study findings introduce some of the first empirical evidence of the need for greater efficiency and scalability in the digital media planning process. Responses indicate antiquated processes and legacy software contribute to struggles of digital media professionals, including long workdays, outdated technologies and a disproportionate amount of time devoted to the execution of administrative and logistical tasks versus strategic thinking and planning for clients.

Methodology

The survey of questions was distributed via email to a select group of media professionals holding the titles of media director, media supervisor, media planner, media buyer or account executive. Two hundred eighty-seven media professionals responded to the survey, which was hosted on a third-party survey site from May 11-14, 2010 and included an optional entry into an iPad giveaway for respondents that elected to provide their email address. The responses were evaluated to identify trends and discrepancies in their answers.

Results (For the raw survey findings, please refer to the Appendix of this document.)

As demonstrated in the graphs below, the responses reveal that:

• 45% of the industry works more than 10 hours per day on average

• Nearly half (43%) of the industry spends more than four hours per day working in Excel

• Nearly half (49%) of the industry spends more than four hours per day composing or responding to email strictly for work purposes

• 85% of respondents indicated they would like to spend more time on highly strategic work, but are required to devote the bulk of their time to managing administrative or logistical activities

• Of the respondents, over 40% have been in the industry for 8 or more years

Conclusion

The research results point to an industry spending too much time on administrative or logistical activities and not enough time on strategic and high-value activities. The professionals on the front lines of digital media planning are dedicating a significant portion of their workday handling administrative tasks and ongoing communication due to poor workflow tools. An overwhelming majority states they wish they had more time for strategic work, although many are working ten hours or more on average per day.

The results paint a clear picture of an inefficient industry attempting to tackle modern day problems associated with buying digital media with tools better equipped to handle problems that existed ten to twenty years ago. The results also show a strong desire and need to change and improve the way digital media is currently being bought and sold in order to streamline the process and improve the work-life balance of digital media teams. These findings highlight an industry opportunity to create more efficiency and profitability in their digital media organizations by improving workflow tools. The introduction of improved software will allow digital media professionals the opportunity to spend working on higher-value and more strategic activities.

About Centro/Transis

Centro is a digital media services company and the creator and provider of Transis, the first “front-end to back” media automation software to help advertising agencies increase efficiencies, save costs and scale more effectively and profitably. It streamlines the entire media process including research, site selection, media planning and buying, campaign management and billing reconciliation. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Chicago with 13 offices nationwide, Centro has served over 350 agencies and more than 975 national and regional clients. Centro’s commitment to culture, innovation and great customer service has allowed it to receive many industry awards including Red Herring 100, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 500 and Crain’s Best Places to Work award. For more information, visit www.transis.com and www.centro.net.

Appendix: Raw Data