Latest Online Threat to Big Agencies: DoMedia's Web Market for Local Promo Shops

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Yet another weapon has emerged to threaten big agency networks: DoMedia.com, an online marketplace for local alternative media buys. DoMedia.com allows media buyers to search for street teams, skywriters, stunt performers, lightbox backpack wearers, and other weird media providers by city, at a single site.

Pictured: Segway riders carrying Yahoo! ads, an offering of Street Blimps in Garden City, N.Y., which BNET found by searching randomly on DoMedia.

The site allows clients to find in a single afternoon the kind of local promotion agency staff that used to take days of phone calls to locate. DoMedia is one of a number of largely online services that replace the “centralized clearinghouse” role traditionally performed — at great cost — by large ad agencies.

Others include Spot Runner, PayPerPost, PayPerClip, Current TV, BrightCove, Google’s AdSense for radio and newspapers, and, yes, YouTube, which all now offer cheap, fast, online commercial creation, media placement and public relations services without the need for a traditional full-service agency.

These small, nimble services aren’t without their problems, of course. (Spot Runner, for one, is struggling; and online product placement service Media Matchmaker seems to have gone belly up.) Consistency of execution, quality of account service, billing transparency, creative quality, measurement feedback and ROI are all issues when you spread your ad dollars across multiple, separate smaller services rather than dumping them in aggregate on a large agency.

But they offer one compelling quality for any client in a recession: The ability to do roughly what you were doing before at a fraction of the cost. Worse, they offer your competitors the same thing …

Not answered in Ad Age’s story: How DoMedia expects to make money, and thus survive:

Eventually, the company plans to offer paid subscription services to extend the site’s capabilities for buyers and sellers, said Laura Brooks, director-marketing and public relations. But listings and searches on DoMedia will remain free, she said.

Tags: Web, Agency, DoMedia, DoMedia.com, Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

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jeffrlamb

12/03/08 | Report as spam

Response From DOmedia

Jim,

I wanted to take a quick moment to first thank you for taking the time to write about DOmedia. Obviously you see an opportunity for the centralized online resource we are building. However, I am surprised that you characterize our site as a threat to advertising agencies rather than a tool they can use to improve the service they deliver to their clients.

Since the company???s founding in 2007, we have always positioned ourselves as a valuable resource to both buyers and sellers. Key members within our organization have played a variety of roles in the media food chain and we all recognize the frustrations affecting media providers and agencies when it comes to planning and executing out-of-home and alternative advertising campaigns. Our website is designed to accelerate and simplify the research process and communication streams between two audiences that often have difficulty connecting in a timely manner.

To categorize DOmedia as a threat to advertising agencies grossly underestimates the value these media professionals bring to their clients. Brand managers expect their partner agencies to bring them sound recommendations and fresh ideas based on their years of experience and creativity. Our site is intended to help them do just that. . . to find new ideas and media outlets that are most appropriate based on the client???s needs and objectives. The value we bring to the table is to help this audience be even more responsive to their clients, putting even more targeted and engaging opportunities in front of them, thus further enhancing those relationships.

In fact, our early adopters on the buying side of the transaction have been almost exclusively advertising agencies and media planning/buying shops. They see the value of DOmedia to help them be more creative. Doug Spak, VP Media Director for Northlich, summed it up perfectly in the quote that was included in the Advertising Age article:

[begin quote from article]
???Mr. Spak, who's also a veteran of Grey Global Group's J. Brown/LMC Group, has experienced the problems of lining up local and alternative-media campaigns firsthand for more than a decade.

???I think [DoMedia will] have a tremendous impact, because it was just so time consuming and arduous to track the information down that you'd either do these programs sub-optimally or you just wouldn't do them at all,??? he said.

He's already used the site to develop a test program in Dayton for a client who didn't want to use broadcast media. ???Within a day, I had four vendors back to me with terrific information, cost proposals, creative examples of what could be done,??? he said. ???That would have taken a week to two weeks before.??????
[end quote from article]

Further, you accurately point out that finding and placing the media is just one step towards a successful campaign. Creative development, production, local implementation, proof-of-performance and so on are all integral parts of the process. . . ones we definitely leave to the professionals. DOmedia is not an agency, creative shop, or production house. These functions continue to be managed by agencies and their respective partners.

Finally, regarding our revenue model. Currently we have paid advertising in various locations within our site, similar to many other websites (BNET included). As we work more closely with our partners on both the media supplier and buyer side, we will develop additional web-based tools and resources specific to their needs. Some of these will be site enhancements, others will be available on a paid basis for those that wish to purchase them. We are committed to always supporting free media listings and free database searches. That has been our mission since day one and continues to be a driving force.

I hope that clears up any misconceptions that may have existed about our company. If you have further questions or would like to learn more about DOmedia, please let me know. As you can imagine, I???m more than happy to talk about what we have to offer.

Jeff R. Lamb
President, DOmedia