"The fact is that there is a reasonable chance that interactive media—including the Web—could transform the way we build brands and communicate them to consumers. And that’s enough to go on."
These words were spoken almost 20 years ago by WPP founder and CEO, Martin Sorrell (read news). Described by Harvard Business Review as "a dominant force" in the worlds of media and advertising, Sorrell was the recent keynote speaker at the 50th Anniversary celebrations for IESE’s MBA program in London.
And digital disruption is clearly still front of mind for a man who has built, from the ground up, a media business with billings in excess of $70 billion – some $3 billion of which goes to its largest trading partner, Google.
So when Sorrell says, as he did in London, that traditional media markets are changing and that consumption models are being turned on their heads … it pays to listen.
Media and Entertainment: It’s All Change
We’ve heard it before, but the need to address change in media and entertainment never goes away. And it rarely gets any easier.
Little wonder then, that as the industry continues to flex and change, the IESE Advanced Management Program in Media and Entertainment, which kicks off this week in New York, has evolved to address the issues keeping executives up at night.
Now in its fifth edition, and delivered by IESE in collaboration with UCLA, the Media AMP continues to inform decision-making at the highest level: tackling the tough issues of new revenue streams, the internationalization of markets, the co-existence of traditional and emerging business models and much more besides.
Media AMP: From East Coast to Western Europe
The updated Media AMP spans the East Coast to Western Europe, with a new module for 2016 in Barcelona, which will coincide with the world’s premier mobile event – Mobile World Congress.
Kicking off at IESE New York, the program promises to be an intense journey through a rapidly changing landscape, starting with the big picture - the global economic outlook and its immediate implications for the media industry.
From the New York Campus in downtown Manhattan, executives will tackle the topic of leading corporate strategy in the context of digital change. This year’s cohort will participate in a series of Leadership Forum conversations with the likes of Frank Bennack, vice chairman of Hearst Corporation, and Steve Capus, executive producer of the CBC Evening News, and executive editor of CBS News.
Subsequent modules will take place in Los Angeles, where participants will take a deep dive into consumer behaviors and segmentation.
The program culminates in the adopted home of mobile disruption - the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Here, participants will be encouraged to reflect deeply on the mobile future of the media industry, and how to build, and then lead, their organizations forward with insight and confidence.
Top-Level Peers From Around the World
This year’s Media AMP cohort represents a broad diversity of nationalities, backgrounds and cultures with participants from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Kenya and Nigeria. The class of 2016 represents a range of industry segments, from
TV broadcasting, news, radio, digital media, content production, IP services, market research, to film and music.
Participating companies this year include Viacom, Univision, Canadian Broadcast Corporation, Cisneros Media, Canal Plus and Nation Media Group.
Professor Mike Rosenberg, academic director for the Media AMP, says: "Participants come together from different segments of the industry and regions of the world, each experiencing different facets of this transformation, with a rich variety of perspectives to share. As such, the program opens a window on competitive strategy, decision-making, leading change, digital disruption, intrapreneurship and other essential general management functions, and reveals how these are playing out globally in each of their respective fields."