Embracing the "And" in Media - Mark Risis - MediaBizBlogger

As I was writing the previous draft of this post, I came across an article about a new study (http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i8071e0d9c25cb6b8846420c085db66a5) that shows that all media channels share a dual role: brand and response. Whoa, I thought, what an impressively obvious conclusion for what was probably a pretty expensive piece of research.

But as I thought about it longer, I realized that the notion of a single piece of media that can both build perception and generate a response is something that is somewhat absent from the way advertising is conceived, created, deployed, and measured today. So much of what appears in market falls into either the Branding or DR bucket, rather than accommodating both. What the conclusion of this study (and for many of us, our intuition) suggests is that this separation of function is artificial, unnecessary and likely creates a vast amount of missed opportunities for all involved.

It would be ideal if every medium could be used toward both purposes, but the reality is that our world is just not set up that way. Even in the newest and (arguably) most advanced media platform - online - the argument around whether the media can serve both roles simultaneously is being played out through the ongoing effort of the IAB to convince the industry that display advertising really does result in an impact that can't be measured through response alone.

When it comes to advertising on TV, the challenges are exponentially greater. Advertisers and agencies that embrace the possibilities and want to take full advantage of TV's current ability to deliver the "And" between branding and direct response are encumbered with a heavy burden. These challenges are rooted in decades of historical precedence and everything that comes with this type of inertia - experience, academia, training, operations, pricing, etc - the system is set up for two parallel modus operandi.

Evolving requires a lot of effort, and a lot of cross-functional cooperation and synchronization. Everyone who has a stake in the process, all those who take part in conceiving, producing, and measuring communications (clients, traditional agencies, digital agencies, production companies, fulfillment houses, lawyers, etc.) are affected.

We at TiVo have seen the demands that are placed on agencies and their clients to evolve from the "Or" to the "And." Our ad units allow for Branding and DR to take place within a single piece of creative through various levels of interactivity. Agencies rapidly assemble new teams, push for new cooperation, manage new pricing models, review new types of proposals, engage in new processes, analyze new results (and get all kinds of new headaches)... you get the point. There is A LOT that goes into developing even a single set of communications that both build a brand and allow for an immediate response on the TV.

And what makes things even more frustrating is the plethora of competing (and hardly cooperating) approaches to deployment. I am not going to name names, but I can count at least a dozen players all vying to solve the riddle of how all this works, what the consumers want, and what business models are ultimately sustainable. Which in turn adds to the headaches, and so unless there is a collective effort amongst ourselves to embrace the challenges and together take the necessary steps to solve them, the frustrations felt by the agencies and clients will persist, and opportunities to fully realize the true dual nature of media will continue to be missed.

There is a great upside for media to embrace its dual and simultaneous role to deliver both Branding and a DR, and plenty of room for new thinking and creativity. We've only begun to explore all the new ways to tell stories, to sell visions and passions, and to create new reasons for consumers to welcome and enjoy advertising in their lives, especially when they can act on it at the same time.

Mark Risis is Director of Interactive Advertising Sales for TiVo, Inc.

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