Media bosses urge Thinkbox to ‘step up a gear’

Media agency executives have called on Thinkbox to up the ante as it approaches its first birthday.

Media agencies say the television marketing body has not done enough to promote itself or the industry since its creation in February last year, although Thinkbox stresses work has been going on behind the scenes.

MindShare broadcast buying director Andy Zonfrillo believes the marketing body, made up of eight commercial television companies, has not done enough to sell itself to media buyers and planners. He says: “It has not had a high profile at all in talking to agencies and planners about the medium although I know it has done a few client events. It doesn’t appear to have been proactive.”

He says he expects the situation to change once a chief executive is appointed later this year.

PHD broadcast director Adam Turner would like to see Thinkbox executives visiting agencies more, mirroring the procedure of the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) does. “I have never had anything like that from Thinkbox,” he says.

And one television insider admits ground has been lost since the Thinkbox Experience conference was held last summer. But Elizabeth Kesses, marketing director of brand consultancy Ingram, which works alongside Thinkbox, urges detractors to put their concerns to them.

New chairman Andy Barnes, also Channel 4 sales director, says: “I am not going to say the first year has been perfect, because it hasn’t.” He says Thinkbox has been working hard behind the scenes and on small scale projects but admits they must become “a damn sight better at getting our message across”.

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