Canadian Ad Insider

In the past few months alone, WPP Media, Omnicom, and IPG Mediabrands announced deep layoffs and restructures — putting entire analytics, buying, and planning teams at risk. Media buyers everywhere are worried: “Will I still have a job next year? And what skills or moves actually matter now?”

And it doesn’t stop there: – Holding companies are consolidating agencies to stay profitable. – Brands are merging and slashing marketing budgets to cope with rising costs and economic uncertainty. – AI and automation are replacing repetitive planning, buying, and reporting work — faster than anyone expected.

What skill, mindset, or habit do you think will distinguish media buyers who keep their jobs from those who are laid off during restructuring?

Scott - The media buyers who survive - and thrive - are the ones who understand how media investments connect to business outcomes - not just impressions or CPMs. Fluency in client KPIs, marketing funnels and revenue metrics are essential. When considering out-of-home in particular, buyers who can connect the dots between OOH exposure and outcomes using measurement tools will stand out. It’s not just buying impressions, it’s about tying placements to performance. 

As well, tools, platforms, and data pipelines are evolving rapidly. Media buyers who are relentlessly data-curious and constantly upskilling to test new platforms to dig into movement data, audience affinities, weather triggering, and dayparting insights to optimize campaigns will be difficult to replace. 

Lastly, budgets are tight and getting tighter, so my advice is to always treat budgets like your own money. Take initiative, challenge bad briefs, question wasteful spending, and be proactive in performance analysis. Understand how to activate audiences across screens, including DOOH, using programmatic logic. If you treat your media buy like a performance DSP rather than a legacy billboard buy, you become future-proof.

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