Why Advertisers Are Now Investing in Media Management Training

Most advertisers do not have a media problem. They have a capability problem.

Your media agency might be smart. Your contracts might be solid. Your dashboards might be shiny. You might even have run a proper pitch in the last two years.

And yet, you still feel the same friction:

• Media briefs that do not land the way you expected.

• Strategies that look impressive but are hard to challenge.

• Media plans that are difficult to evaluate and compare.

• Reporting that tells you what happened, but not whether it was the right thing to do.

• Local markets doing their own thing.

• Global teams spending their life firefighting.

• Procurement and marketing not fully aligned.

• media agencies politely pushing back, then quietly continuing as before.

It is not because people are not trying. It is because media has become too complex to manage on instinct, and too important to leave to others.

That is why media management training is having a moment.

You often rely heavily on media agencies because you do not have a large in-house media department.

That makes capability building one of the highest leverage moves you can make.

This article explains what media management really means, why the capability gap is growing, why traditional training approaches fall short, and what a proven training framework looks like in practice. 

What is Media Management

Let’s start with the basics.

Media management is not media planning. And it is not media buying.

Media management is what the advertiser does to make sure their media agencies deliver the right work, at the right quality, with the right level of transparency, and with the right commercial outcomes.

It covers how you brief, how you evaluate, how you challenge, how you approve, how you track, how you govern, how you enforce what you agreed, and how you improve performance over time.

In a well run advertiser organisation, media management typically includes:

• Writing clear, actionable media briefs that actually guide agency output
• Critically evaluating media strategies and separating insight from storytelling
• Reviewing media plans with confidence, and asking the right questions
• Understanding performance reporting and knowing what to do next
• Managing agency accountability without turning the relationship toxic
• Ensuring consistency across markets and business units
• Making sure contracts, ways of working, and incentive structures are applied properly
• Aligning marketing and procurement on what “good” looks like

If you do not do these things well, the agency will still do its job. It just will not necessarily do it in the way that best serve your business interests.

Not because agencies are bad people. Because agencies are not you. Their incentives, pressures, and context are different.

They also live in a world where complexity can be used as a shield. Sometimes intentionally. Often unintentionally.

That is why advertisers are investing in building internal media management capability.

It is the difference between being a passenger and being the driver.

The Hidden Capability Gap

Here is the uncomfortable bit.

Many advertisers think they have a governance issue, when what they actually have is a capability gap.

They put governance documents in place. They roll out templates. They ask agencies for more transparency. They introduce new processes. They build scorecards. They run business reviews.

Then they discover something frustrating. Governance does not work unless the people using it understand how to apply it.

If your teams cannot confidently evaluate a strategy, the strategy becomes a document you approve rather than a direction you shape.

If local markets cannot tell what a good media plan looks like, they will approve what they are given, or they will revert to habit.

If procurement does not fully understand the operational implications of the commercial model, they will struggle to enforce it, or they will enforce it in ways that damage outcomes.

If marketing cannot see where the agency is adding value versus simply delivering activity, you end up rewarding effort instead of impact.

And the gap is widening, for three reasons:

1. Media has become more complex, not less

• More channels. More platforms. More data. More technology. More trading models. More intermediaries. More ways for value to leak.

• Even senior marketers who grew up in the digital era can feel the ground moving beneath them.

2. Most advertisers are decentralised

• Global advertisers have scale and complexity across markets and business units. You might have a central team, but you rely on local teams to execute. Those local teams often have different levels of knowledge, different priorities, and different agency relationships.

• Consistency becomes hard, unless capability is built deliberately.

3. Media agencies have become more commercially pressured

• Agency margins are under pressure. That changes behaviour. It increases the temptation to prioritise revenue lines that are good for the agency, but not always optimal for the advertiser.

• To manage this maturely, you need people inside your organisation who understand the mechanics, and who can hold the line without turning every conversation into a fight.

• This is why the most forward thinking advertisers are shifting from "we need a better agency" to "we need to become a better client".

Why Traditional Training Falls Short

If training is so important, why are so many advertisers disappointed by what they have tried before?

Because most traditional approaches have three predictable weaknesses.

1. Too Generic

• Generic marketing training rarely reflects the reality of working with media agencies, dealing with trading models, and governing performance across markets. It is often interesting, but not operational.
• People leave inspired. Then they return to work and realise nothing has changed. 

2. Too Theoretical

• Media management is a practical discipline. It is learned by doing, and by applying judgement to real documents, real plans, real reporting, and real agency behaviours.

• If training does not include application, it does not stick

3. Too Episodic

• A single workshop can be useful. But if it is not reinforced, it fades.

• Media complexity changes quickly. People move roles. Teams change. New markets join. New agencies are appointed. New commercial models appear.

• Capability building needs continuity, not one off bursts.

• That is why the most effective programmes feel less like training, and more like building a system. A learning ecosystem. A way to embed a consistent approach and keep improving.

What Media Management Training Should Have

What matters is what changes inside the organisation after the training. Effective media management training should deliver four practical outcomes:

1. Stronger media expertise across teams

If you want teams to work effectively with agencies, they need confidence in the fundamentals. This includes knowing how to brief properly, how to assess strategies and plans, and how to spot when something is missing or weak.  

When expertise is stronger:
    •    Briefs become sharper, which improves the quality of agency thinking
    •    Strategy conversations become more meaningful
    •    Planning becomes more aligned to business goals, not just media goals

2. Consistency across markets and business units

This is one of the biggest drivers for global advertisers.

A consistent “way” of managing media is not about control for the sake of control. It is about reducing waste and improving decision quality across the organisation.

When consistency improves:
    •    Local teams apply the same principles, even when market conditions differ
    •    Governance standards can be scaled
    •    It becomes easier to compare performance and identify best practice

3. Stronger media agency accountability

Accountability is often misunderstood. It is not about policing.

It is about being able to challenge, collaborate, and incentivise the right behaviour.

If your teams cannot hold agencies to account effectively, agencies will default to what is easiest, what is safest, or what is most commercially beneficial for them.

When accountability improves:
    •    Agency output quality increases, because the bar is clearer.
    •    Performance conversations become more constructive.
    •    Incentives can be used intelligently, rather than as blunt instruments. 

4. Reduced dependency on a small group of experts

This matters hugely for emerging and mid-sized global advertisers.

If everything relies on two or three people, you create bottlenecks. You also create risk.

When those people are busy, the organisation slows down. When those people leave, capability disappears.

Training that scales capability reduces this dependency and frees up central teams to focus on higher value work.

The Abintus Media Training Framework

At Abintus, we built our media management training framework for one reason. Because governance fails without capability.

Our framework combines four complementary components, each designed to solve a different part of the capability problem, and together designed to build lasting capability at scale.  

1. ONLINE COURSES (ABINTUS ACADEMY)

• Our proprietary online training platform, with self paced learning modules that deliver core knowledge quickly and consistently.
• This matters when you want scale and consistency across markets. It also matters when people have different schedules and time zones.
• Our online courses follow a proven learning design approach, include quizzes to reinforce learning, and provide templates and checklists so students can apply concepts to real situations.  

2. VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS

• Workshops are where confidence is built.
• Online learning builds knowledge. Workshops build judgement and application.
• Our virtual workshops are interactive, led by senior media experts, and designed to make teams practise. People work on assignments, apply templates, and present their thinking.

3. MEDIA GUIDEBOOKS

• Training is not just about learning. It is about remembering.

• Media guidebooks provide practical reference materials that support teams long after the training session ends. They help define the new way of working internally with media, and the new way of working with agency partners.  

• They are also critical for consistency. When staff change, when agencies change, when markets change, the guidebook protects the operating model.

4. ONGOING MEDIA SUPPORT

• This is the difference between learning and behaviour change.

• Ongoing support gives teams real time guidance as they apply best practice. It also provides reassurance, coaching, and problem solving in the moments that matter, when you are dealing with a live plan, a live issue, or a live negotiation.

• It is flexible, and it is designed to integrate with your organisation, rather than sit outside it. In plain terms, it helps advertisers keep momentum, and avoid slipping back into old habits.

Conclusion and Next Steps

If you take one thing from this article, take this. Media governance is not a document. It is a behaviour. And behaviour changes when capability changes.

That is why advertisers are investing in media management training. They have realised that the biggest performance lever is not always a new agency, a new tool, or a new report.

It is building the confidence and competence of the teams who manage the media agencies.

If you recognise any of the challenges described here, and you want to explore what a practical training programme could look like for your teams, we would be happy to help.

Contact us to discuss your objectives, and we can share a recommended training framework and a cost proposal tailored to your organisation.