Trading directors - really so evil?

I had a comment piece in this week's NMA moaning about trading directors in media agencies.

Trading directors act as a central buying or negotiation point for big media agencies.  On behalf of their clients, they often control multi-million pound budgets.  And of course they have a reputation as being pretty ruthless negotiators (although in real life, it's worth saying, they are often charm personified!)

So what's wrong with this?

My point is that by focusing on something easy to measure - like price - it's easy to miss the more important metric of value.  And because value in digital media is often associated with tightly targeted buys, it doesn't lend itself to bulk purchasing models.

In other words, the trading director may commit his or her agency to a large volume buy across Sky.com.  But a particular client may do better concentrating within a specific channel on Sky, or on a particular ad format - which may not form part of the deal.

There's a feeling that those agencies with the strongest trading directors also have a correspondingly weak planning function.  Some of the levers that could be usefully pressed are simply not available.

Is this really a bad thing? To be honest, it depends on what the client is trying to do.  A big brand looking for maximum exposure, essentially using the web as a broadcast channel, will do well with the trading model.  A direct response client, aiming for specific actions like sales or registrations, could well do better elsewhere.