Meet The Disruptors: Matthew Maher, VP, Director of Strategy & Innovation | Media Assembly
Where do you see more opportunities for disruption within your industry?
The largest opportunity for disruption in the advertising industry lies in voice. As adoption of voice continues its meteoric rise and Amazon and Google usher us into this “age of assistance,” media agencies, creative agencies and consultancies are scrambling to provide voice strategy as a key offering. It’s allowed companies like the RAIN Agency to become the “voice agency of record” for major brands, and the strategies they lay forth permeate into almost every other medium that traditional media and creative agencies touch.
What would you define as a successful, disruptive partnership with an ad/marketing agency?
The most successful partnerships are ones where both the agency and partner gain capabilities and knowledge. The “full service agency’ model is hard to sustain in this rapidly-evolving media climate. It takes partners who are experts in specific fields to augment what agencies are able to provide to their clients.
As technologies advance and influencers reign supreme, how are you finding new avenues to stand out in the advertising industry?
The current media and technology landscape has shifted so dramatically that advertisers have to rethink how they approach every medium. Instagram’s new ‘Checkout’ product is the perfect example – it allows users to purchase products from influencers or brands within the Instagram app, never disrupting the user experience or “stopping the scroll.” Overnight, a social media platform with a billion monthly active users transformed into an e-commerce solution. As an advertiser, your brand’s creative, placements, and strategies have to adapt.
*Please Note: All statements are the opinion of the author and may not necessarily represent the views of The ADVERTISING Club of New York.