The Flema media creativity competition marks its 20th anniversary this year. In this context, this year’s edition brings several changes. The competition categories have been redesigned with an emphasis on campaign objectives and how media is consumed. New categories have been introduced, and the awards ceremony will also be new (see box at the end of the text).
The media landscape has changed significantly over two decades, along with the ability to engage and reach consumers. What are the challenges facing advertisers, media agencies and brands today? And how does digitalisation, media fragmentation, the growing role of data, or perhaps artificial intelligence affect campaign planning? Hynek Cimoradský, managing partner of the organiser, Flemedia, and Daniel Mansour, head of digital and partner at Flemedia, offer a look back at the market development, as well as insights into current trends and future directions.
The Flemma media creativity competition celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Has the perception of media creativity changed over time? Was creativity previously more about original ad placement, whereas today it is more about the use of data and technology?
Hynek Cimoradský: I don’t think creative thinking or approach has changed. It has always been, and hopefully will always be, necessary to look for solutions that are new or unconventional in order to differentiate ourselves from the competition. Data and technology are only supporting tools from this perspective, and the importance of new perspectives or approaches is ongoing, perhaps even increasing.
Daniel Mansour: What I notice about the campaigns submitted to Flema is that the advertisers are addressing whether various quirky ideas will be able to get a critical hit in a short period. Campaigns then have a chance of going viral, and investments in creative ideas or original placement pay off.
Many brands are rethinking their media mix today as a result of increasing audience fragmentation. How do you think the role of traditional media, such as TV or print, has changed in an era dominated by digital platforms and social media?
Hynek Cimoradský: The fragmentation of audiences is related to the fragmentation of the media consumed, whether in terms of channels, place or time. Logically, advertisers’ approaches and strategies have to adapt to this. The division of media into traditional and new, or any other pigeonholing, has no meaning; what is more important is the ability of each medium to reach either a mass or a special target group in a relevant way and to deliver the intended goal of the campaign. That is why we have decided to change Flema’s competition categories substantially from this year onwards, and to primarily divide campaigns according to their objectives and the way media is consumed.
Daniel Mansour: I think the fragmentation has not occurred in the audience as much as it has in the campaign planning. 20 years ago, which you mentioned in your introduction, it was common for TV and print to plan campaigns to have a high hit rate and frequency during each week that the campaign was active. Logically, this meant concentrating on, for example, only one TV group or two or three major print publishers. Digital media at that time often did not have as large a reach, people did not return to it as often, and so the principle of stacking the reach of a larger number of audiences according to different interests emerged. Today, we increasingly see a move towards planning in digital as we used to with TV and print; otherwise, there is a high chance that an advertiser’s communications on small scales across the internet will get bogged down in the flood of other communications.
Ad spend is falling in some segments, mainly due to economic uncertainty. What do you think is the current trend in media budgets? Are companies cutting back on advertising, or are they rather rethinking their strategy to emphasise efficiency?
Hynek Cimoradský: I believe that advertisers are emphasising efficiency in the long term. Maybe everyone sees or measures efficiency a little differently, but I don’t think that savings have anything to do with efficiency. For me, it can often be the other way around.
Daniel Mansour: The declines are really only in certain segments. Others, on the other hand, which were in decline due to the COVID-19 impact on the markets last year, have seen dramatic increases. For the advertisers whose budgets are declining, we see a focus on key segments and savings primarily on less important products, or consumer competitions, etc. On the other hand, advertisers with increased budgets often spread the money over a much larger number of products, and so sometimes lose their dominant position in terms of advertising investment.
Daniel Mansour; Source: FlemediaThe last year has been marked by a massive development of AI in marketing and media. Can you see AI making a real impact in media planning and buying already? What do you think are the biggest opportunities and risks of using AI in the industry?
Hynek Cimoradský: AI is another one of the many tools being used in the industry. AI is likely to make it significantly easier to get a sense of how a particular problem is perceived and solved elsewhere, or to simplify and streamline work with multiple design options. On the other hand, I am a bit worried about AI (and other tools as well) becoming a kind of holy grail that provides a solution “easily and quickly”, and the advertisers will lose the essential component of this work, which is creative thinking and finding innovative solutions.
Daniel Mansour: In my opinion, the world of media planning is “safe” in this respect so far. But due to the lack of uniform data in media planning and even within digital platforms that still suffer from the existence of Chinese walls, we can’t deliver the kind of information AI needs to generate proposals more valuable than those created by today’s planners and buyers.
The Czech media market is quite specific - strong position of television, less media fragmentation than in Western markets. How does media strategy differ in our country compared to abroad? Are Czech buyers more conservative or more innovative?
Hynek Cimoradský: I don’t know to what extent it makes sense to compare strategies here versus abroad. We are talking about different market sizes, different media consumption, different buying power, different campaign objectives, different budgets, etc. Smaller markets are often strongly influenced by larger ones, and smaller ones have to adopt strategies regardless of local specifics. So, I wouldn’t categorise advertisers by where they are based, but rather by how much influence they actually have, and of course, how much courage they have to challenge established practices, and sometimes the system. Ultimately, this is why we also announce the Bravery Award at Flem, where we recognise advertisers or agencies who have taken risks to push a great campaign.
Daniel Mansour: On the contrary, I think that in online media, Czech advertisers are not taking advantage of the little fragmentation. Perhaps because of the expectations of their central marketing and procurement, they often invest in a large number of media types, even though it doesn’t make sense for them in terms of value for money. We see advertisers with smaller budgets shifting more and more of their TV budget into digital advertising each year, even though TV advertising would cost them significantly less to reach, say, one per cent of their target audience.
Due to the lack of uniform data for media planning, we can’t deliver the kind of information AI needs to generate proposals more valuable than those created by today’s planners and buyers.
Daniel Mansour
The role of corporate procurement in media buying is getting stronger. What impact does this have on the quality of media planning? Is there more pressure on price at the expense of creativity and long-term effectiveness?
Hynek Cimoradský: The role and approach of procurement vary significantly from company to company. On the procurement side, I see an increasing understanding of the specifics of buying media and marketing services, and with that, a much greater willingness to include creativity and efficiency in the buying evaluation, even though both of these components are much more difficult to evaluate than price or business terms. I believe that most companies already understand that the role of the agency is not only to secure favourable terms, but also to design an innovative and effective strategy. And fortunately, everything can be relevantly evaluated today.
In recent years, the “attention economy” - the battle of brands for consumers’ attention - has been frequently mentioned. What new formats or approaches are proving most effective in media planning for capturing audience attention?
Hynek Cimoradský: The fight for consumer attention is not new; it’s just that the means and methods change at different times. In my opinion, there is no single, best, universal recipe. If I go through our Flema archive on the web, and compare award-winning works over time, their common denominator is a unique idea, combination or approach. An approach that is new and effective today or in relation to one target audience may be old and dysfunctional tomorrow or in relation to another audience, and vice versa.
Daniel Mansour: Increasingly, we are seeing strategies that use attention planning approaches in Flema’s campaign submissions. In practice, this means that instead of just getting estimates of reach and frequency in each medium, advertisers are also getting estimated attention values. On the one hand, we are happy for this approach; we have had the data to do this for a long time, so it’s great to see it being used. On the other hand, honestly, with few exceptions, there is no massive change in realisations. Of course, senior buyers and planners at agencies have long known which media and formats users spend more time on, or which platforms are already so stuffed with advertising that the user is having a hard time distinguishing what is article text and what is advertising.
On the procurement side, I see an increasing understanding of the specifics of buying media and marketing services, and with that, a much greater willingness to include creativity and efficiency in the buying evaluation.
Hynek Cimoradský
How do you see the future of media agencies? Will they still play a key role in campaign planning, or will commissioners increasingly try to insource this expertise?
Hynek Cimoradský: From my previous answers, I think the role of agencies is irreplaceable. It is evolving, and will continue to be, but the resources, data, and experience that can be leveraged through work for a broad portfolio of clients can be difficult to replace by working for a single, albeit large, company.
Daniel Mansour: Insourcing media planning can only pay off economically for the largest clients in the market, and we are only talking about the comparison in the salary cost vs. cost of service table. If we take into account other things like replaceability, constant evolution of the market and trends, sharing of innovation across segments, etc., there are really very few advertisers where I have seen insourcing, and I’m convinced it’s the better way to go.
If you were to advise a company looking to optimise its media mix today, what would you recommend it focus on? What key factors should it consider to achieve maximum effect?
Daniel Mansour: With regard to the previous question, I would advise them to choose well the agency that will be their partner in the optimisation process.
Finally, we will come back to Flema’s anniversary. When you look at the winning campaigns over the years, what shifts do you see in the approach to media and creative? Can you mention any trends that seemed key in the past but have now been surpassed?
Hynek Cimoradský: Flema is celebrating 20 years this year. In that time, we have seen a lot of great campaigns, and if we have to find common denominators, it was an original approach to reaching the target group, linking the media channel and creativity, and execution excellence.
The role of media agencies is irreplaceable. Insourcing media planning can only pay off economically for the largest clients in the market.
Daniel Mansour
Changes to Flema 2025
This year’s Flema competition brings more room for creativity and an emphasis on innovation and courage.
- The FLE Media Awards and Grand Prix recognise the best media campaigns, while Best Advertiser highlights the most prominent advertisers, and Best Author recognises the best campaign authors. New this year are the Innovation Award - recognising truly innovative media ventures, and the Bravery Award, which highlights bold and novel ideas.
- The competition entries can be submitted until 30 June 2025. The expert jury will evaluate the entries in two rounds. The first round will be conducted online, with nearly 100 marketing experts representing advertisers, media, and agencies evaluating the entries. The resulting shortlist will be announced on 17 September 2025.
- The second round will bring a major innovation - the evaluation will be public, open to all and will include a ceremony to announce the winners.
Source: mediaguru.cz