Creative & Media Re-Integration: Together Again, For the Very First Time - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

Let's say creative and media aren't meta-components of business communications but sentient beings who used to be a couple. They still work together, but aside from the occasional text or tweet, they're no longer very close.

Then one day one calls the other. Neither realizes that you and I have hacked their mobile units and are listening in. Here's what I think we'd hear:

"Hello, stranger. Yeah, it's me, creative.

I'd ask you how you were doing, but I read the blogs. I see how media agencies are captaining all of these client integrated marketing teams, rubbing elbows with thecelebratiin Hollywood and making like marketing oracles in C-suites and media interviews alike. Impressive.

Me? Yeah, thanks, I'm real good. The Old Spice thing was cool, yeah. Great work everywhere, actually. You're not the only one who thinks this may be the most exciting time to be in the business. Every channel is a canvas, and there are probably 100 more now then there were when I started this sentence.

Anyway, I called because I was cleaning out the closet and I found your old jacket. You left it here when you moved out.

Yes, I know that was 15 years ago.

Keep it? Why?

Oh.

Well, okay, I guess we could have a cup of coffee and talk about it."

Yes, if creative and media were people, they'd be talking about getting back together. And they should.

Influential marketers like Johnson & Johnson's Brian Perkins and agency leaders like McCann Worldgroup's Nick Brien have taken this position forcefully. In fact, the former was quoted in Ad Age this month praising the latter for trying just that.

Nobody wants to return to the rigid old analog model, a simpler structure for a simpler—and far less crowded—marketplace whose time has come and gone. Clearly, it makes strategic sense for media to lead the communications process now, as opposed to merely supporting it as it previously did. And content creation is an entirely different animal these days.

But increasingly, we hear arguments for some kind of what Ad Age calls "reintegration" presented as a client need, and that makes the idea much more real—and urgent. We probably won't see wholesale "rebundling." But communications is a team sport these days. It has to be, if marketers are going to have any hope of keeping up with a fast-moving and shape-shifting target.

The other new thing about this old idea is that media is not only among the first experimenters with the trend, the discipline is also usually tapped to lead these mash-ups, whether they are holding-company groups or advertisers' integrated marketing teams.

We might be witnessing a nascent trend taking its first steps here. A retro revolution, similar to what we saw with the idea of television sponsorship. Eventually, I think every client is going to demand reintegration.

So keep that old jacket hanging in the back of the closet and keep checking the ex's relationship status on Facebook. The former's not going anywhere and the latter may change again before you know it.

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing, advertising, media, entertainment and digital technology. Michael can be reached at michael@medialinkllc.com

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