Who knew so many people cared about media mixes?

Yesterday morning I stood in front of 80 people at Mediacorp's offices in Singapore and made the case that the media planning industry has a problem.

Not a digital problem. Not a technology problem. An incentives, skills and habits problem — that nobody was talking about.

The motion was: "Media plans all look the same now." 

Try arguing with the data. WPP Media's own court filings show 89% of their tracked digital spend going to just five companies.

This is while TTD research done by Analytic Partners show that five-channel campaigns deliver 77% better ROI than single-channel ones. Val Morgan research shows one cinema ad delivers the same brand fame as ten digital ads. Yet here we are.

We ran it as an Oxford Union-style debate — four respected industry people arguing both sides with genuine conviction. We got what we wanted – Uncomfortable Conversations about a topic that I was slightly worried maybe no one cared about as much as me.  

At the end I asked one question: will you rethink your media mix off the back of this morning? Most hands went up.

That's all I wanted.

A huge thank you to the people who made it happen. To Gita and Brynie at The Marketing Society for backing this format and trusting me to run it. To Raj and Jade for putting it all together on the ground. To Eric at Mediacorp for the partnership that made this possible. And to our four debaters — who brought the argument to life with far more wit and substance than I had any right to expect.

This event was a personal milestone. For the past three months I've been posting here about offline media, media concentration, and the slow erosion of planning craft. Yesterday felt like the moment all of that found its audience.

It's also directly connected to what we're building at Ungu — a platform designed to make offline media planning viable again. Not nostalgic. Viable.

This conversation isn't finished. I'm just getting started.