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Following the success of the second How-Do Awards dinner on 30 April, How-Do brought together the Awards winners to meet up and share ideas and discuss how the North West is generally doing in matters media and marketing.
The gathering, which was held in the dedicated marketing suite at Media City in Salford Quays on a recent sunny June evening, was supported by MMU Business School and Northwest Vision & Media.
Paul Newman of Media City offered a greater and more detailed insight into the physical development of the site and the sheer scale of the site clearly surprised the group.
In addition, the group was joined by Richard Deverell, the BBC's incoming chief operating officer at Media City. Deverell will report directly to Peter Salmon, Director, BBC North and he will be responsible for developing and implementing the strategic and operational infrastructure for BBC North. He was keen to explain to the group just how enthusiastic and determined the Beeb is to engage with the broader media and creative services communities across the north, and the opportunities, he reiterated, would be substantial as the BBC develops what will be one of the world's most advanced and sizeable media complexes.
The discussion session itself was led by former MEN and Mail on Sunday business journalist Andrew Moody, back in his native North West for a short break from his new role with China Daily in Beijing.
A select group of winners...
The winners who attended the informal gathering included Cat Lewis/Nine Lives Productions, Rob Morrice/IASb2b, Nick Howe/Uniform, Gary Frielick/Telegraph Media Group, Matt Tiller/Channel K, Andy Carter/GMG Radio and Dougal Paver/Paver Smith.
Moody kicked off the discussion by saying he strongly felt the region seemed more confident in itself, despite the challenging times, and was this something the group had a view on?
Rob Morrice was the first to respond saying he believes the North West is beginning to compete head to head with London in certain key cutting edge media sectors.
Morrice, whose Bollington, Cheshire-based agency IASb2b won the best advertising agency category, said the North West now had a dominant position in business to business advertising- with three of the top five specialist UK agencies being based in the region.
“For the first time, the North West is beginning to compete head to head with London, certainly in business to business advertising,” he said.
The London attitude is now old fashioned  Morrice
“If you gave a London account manager, the chance to work on a small niche beer brand or the biggest manufacturer of, say, insulation, in the country, he will want the smaller beer account. He would not grasp the commercial possibilities of the latter.”
This bullishness about the North West was reflected by others, particularly against the backdrop of the construction of Media City which will create 2,500 new jobs.
Andy Carter, North West managing director of GMG Radio, whose Smooth Radio won the best radio station category at the Awards, said Media City is likely to provide a major boost to the north west media industry.
“It is an incredibly exciting time for media in the North West. There is going to be a huge input of resources and expertise coming into Manchester. It is good to be here and see it happen. It is something to boast about to my colleagues across the UK. There is going to be a huge demand for talent, ” he said.
 Lewis Manchester can reclaim its status as a centre of world class TV “We are hopefully going to get back to the stage where more world class television is made in Manchester. I think that is important because television has become so London centric, ” she says.
“The move of BBC departments and TV commissioners out of London is going to cost Richard Branson a lot of money because we all spend a fortune on Virgin trains at the moment.”
Matt Tiller, director of programming at Manchester comedy production company Channel K, which won the independent production company category, says Media City has already had an impact.
“There will be new departments and more business done here. It has already made a difference, having your projects supported here, rather than having to go down to London to pitch.
“The biggest thing that has effected our business was the commissioning editor of comedy for the BBC moving up here.”
One of the key challenges for the North West media industry is how to deal with convergence and making the most of the opportunities provided by the Internet and new media platforms.
Dougal Paver, managing director of Liverpool-based Paver Smith, winner of the public relations agency category, said the Internet was both a threat and an opportunity.
“It depends where you are sitting really. Clients are struggling more than ever to reach their audiences by traditional means. As a result, everyone has to work harder because audiences are so much more diffuse, ” he said.
“Some clients are still fearful of it, some are right on the money and pushing us very hard and others are unaware of it. Some don’t care because they believe their customer base can only be reached by print or broadcast.” The challenge is how to build a viable business model across all media platforms  Carter Carter at GMG Radio, said his parent media organisation, Guardian Media Group, now had to build a viable business model across all the media platforms. “We own local newspapers, we have a website presence, we have got radio and television and the operation is going through a converged experience, as we speak”
“We have journalists who now work across all platforms. We have just brought a reporter back from Afghanistan and he has been reporting for radio, writing for the Manchester Evening News and doing features for Channel M (GMG's TV station) as well.”
Paver said a threat to media organisations like GMG is that public relation companies like his can now by-pass traditional media to gets its message out.
“We had a business editor from a major regional newspaper round and I think he was on his eighth pint when he took me into a corner and said we are watching you guys because you are a threat to us, ” he said.
“Because of the Internet we can use newsrooms and forums and in certain circumstances start to set the news agenda ourselves. We can then become both the source and distribution of news, like a quasi news agency without the need of journalists. This can happen more and more.”
 Frielick
“We went on line in 1994 and have since invested massively in the Internet and we do have major audiences on our website. However, where we might be getting £1 for advertising in the paper, we are just getting 10 to 20p on line so it is a big issue,” he said.
“I think you will see publishers charge for content and that Murdoch is going to do this with the Wall Street Journal is a start.”
Frielick is quite clear that making money from the Internet is the biggest challenge for the whole industry, particularly for the traditional media
“I don’t have an answer. It is like the big question, where is the golden egg? We talk 95 per cent of our time about on line but it is 8 per cent of our business,” he says.
However, he insists that people should not make the mistake of writing off newspapers, pointing to the phenomenal increase in Daily Telegraph sales generated by the long-running MPs expenses story. But...if you have a really good story...people will still go buy newspapers
“We have proved ourselves over the last three weeks that if you have got a really good story people will still go out and buy newspapers, ” he said.
Convergence is the biggest issue our How-do winners have to contend with but the current economic downturn, which is hitting revenues and squeezing margins, is leading to some media organisations closing altogether.
Carter at GMG said some estimates suggest that 50 commercial radio station licenses would be handed back nationally this year and he believed there would be retrenchment in the North West too.
“There are 37 commercial radio stations in the region and if you go back ten years there were only six. Every town now has a commercial radio station but most can’t support one during a downturn. Barrow-in-Furness closed down a couple of weeks ago and I think we are going to see quite a significant shake-out, ” he said.
Paver believes that some rules apply in advertising or public relations whether you are in a recessionary environment or not.
“Advertising works really well if you know where your tipping point is, whether you are spending enough to influence opinions and attitudes. If you spend below that level, advertising has always been a waste of money and that doesn’t change in a recession, ” he says.
“If you don’t have that budget to cross that tipping point the PR and online media have much more of a place.”
 Howe
“The recession hasn’t affected me yet or our company. That is because our biggest buyer is the BBC. We have never had much joy with ITV, ” he said.
“Even with the BBC you have to go in with a reasonable price to get commissions. We are small enough to be able to do that but some of the big companies find it quite hard.”
While the How-Do winners were braced for difficult trading conditions as long as the downturn persists, many were excited by the opportunities thrown up by an ever growing media sector in the North West.
Nick Howe, managing director of Uniform, the Liverpool design agency which won that category in the awards, said the growing number of regional media companies made it possible to work with other firms.
 Tiller
This critical mass in terms of new media companies, which will receive greater impetus from the opening of Media City, excited many of our winners.
Lewis at Nine Lives said it meant that many would be able to cut out a successful media career for themselves here without the need to go to London.
“It is incredibly important to companies like us that we have critical mass and a big talent base here because we employ freelance programme makers on short term contracts. With Media City more people will say to themselves they can have a great career outside London,” she said. Something to add? Then leave a comment below or email us now.
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