Views from Finland: Challenges of an unknown tomorrow

What does the advertisers' association of tomorrow look like? What services and functions should we invest in? What skills are needed? What is the advertising environment going to be like? Ritva Hanski-Pitkäkoski, Managing Director of the Association of Finnish Advertisers, shares her views.

This summer, we asked our members what they think of our services. It was no surprise that we got the best scores when compared to other organisations they are working with. Our members know us better than anyone. Lobbying came out as being our most important role, but we've seen very different views on the definition of lobbying. The new free training sessions, as well as the website revamp last year, have been well received.

On the other hand, it looks like our members are still quite unfamiliar with our services. The vast majority had not used the new online toolbox yet; this is a collection of models, guidelines and research information. We also wanted to understand why our members haven't attended more of our paid seminars. And, the survey showed, it was all because of the lack of time and the price, which was perceived to be too high. This, I believe, reflects well the current state of the economy.

We got a lot of valuable feedback through our member satisfaction survey. We have already made plans to increase the flow of information and improve our services. We'll be testing a couple of their suggestions in the near future.

The biggest challenge is, however, to understand how the marketing environment will change in the future; the means we will have to employ greater resources to increase marketing effectiveness. We live in a global digital environment. ICT and marketing are becoming even more interconnected. The role of marketing as an engine for economic growth is becoming even greater.

We cannot predict the future but we know that marketing expertise will increase. Today, our challenge is, amongst others, understanding and mastering programmatic buying, which is very technical and increasingly important for our members. Things certainly won't get simpler tomorrow. We need to make the digital shift and challenge ourselves to be among the best.

And perhaps even more important is to create an environment where we look with confidence towards the future and the growth it can bring.

For more information contact Ritva Hanski-Pitkäkoski