Q&A
Generation Media
Evolving opportunities at Generation Media, a leading marketing, media and communications agency specialising in reaching children, families and young people across the globe, certainly hasn’t slowed down over the past year. Recruitment continues apace, new tools and technologies have been added to the existing service offering, and, as MD Lisa Morgan explains, it’s now all hands on deck for the second half of 2021. Rachael Simpson-Jones spoke to Lisa to find out more. Midway through 2021, and with the UK now opening back up, what kind of position does Generation Media find itself in? We’re all feeling very positive about the route forward out of lockdown. We are looking forward to getting back together in the office, meeting up with colleagues and friends as well as our clients and supplier partners. I’m exceptionally proud of how our team has navigated the pandemic; everyone has pulled together and embraced some totally new ways of working that are likely to continue even when we are back in the office. We look forward to rewarding the team for its efforts and energy with a schedule of summer events including away days, training events, socials and more. Our focus remains on meeting the needs of our clients, and they are looking to evolve strategies more than ever, which is exciting. Many toy clients have previously taken quite a traditional approach to marketing, but the pandemic has encouraged people to be more innovative and look for new opportunities in places they may not have considered before to keep pace with the changing landscape.
Has the team been bolstered with new appointments? What do these people bring to the company? We’ve not slowed down on our recruitment at all. One of our first appointments following the initial lockdown was Felix Lewis, our business director of digital. He’s come in and helped evolve our digital offering. Felix’s was a well-timed appointment. With the acceleration we’re seeing in the digital space, we needed someone with his skills and expertise to help us navigate the changes we had to
make as a business. He’s had a big impact already, despite only being with us a short amount of time, and he’s looking forward to meeting clients face to face in the months ahead. Generation Media has also invested in the Entertainment team, which is headed up by Greta Bisetto-Donelan. Lockdown meant we really had to pivot our Entertainment strategy. It had previously been very focused on cinema distribution, which of course dropped off during the pandemic. In response to this, we’ve added two new members of the team who have capabilities in production and channel management, and it’s great to have them on board. The team has gone from strength to strength, expanding the number of services we can offer our client base to provide what is now a full service offering. One of the things we’re known best for within our industry is developing young talent. We took on five new graduates during lockdown, either as work placements or full-time members of the team. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to start a new role under these circumstances. It would be challenging enough as an experienced business person, let alone with no work experience whatsoever. Seeing these guys join the team, and how quickly they’ve begun performing at such a high level, has really been something to witness. We’re still going strong with appointments too. The recruitment landscape is slightly different currently, but we always look to bring on additional graduates for Q4, when buying takes place, and we’re also looking at bringing on another digital manager. While our sister agency Giraffe Insights looks after our proprietary research needs, we’re looking to recruit a research and development
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manager to Generation Media to help us maximise on our use of the numerous industry tools we have in place.
What impact has the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had on the kids and family media space? The school closures were one of the biggest things that happened at the start of lockdown, and everyone’s assumption was that TV ratings would soar as a result. We saw a bit of that, alongside some changes in viewing patterns; Milkshake! has always been a very strong slot, but with families getting up later in the day it lost out to other players. However, lockdown prompted an uptake of new technology that immersed people in new areas of the digital space, changing consumption habits in line with the tech available. The big winners, as we all know, were TikTok and YouTube. TikTok was already a couple of years into its launch, but the pandemic couldn’t have come at a better time. The same goes for Disney+; I don’t think that platform’s numbers would ever have reached the levels they’re at now at if it weren’t for the fortuitous timing of lockdown. Despite the shift towards the digital space, TV still offers two major advantages: firstly, it remains the cheapest way to reach kids (just), and secondly,
