Memo to CMO "It's Over". Part Two - Walter Sabo - MediaBizBloggers

What's confusing to many marketers is that these five obstacles used to be positive, helpful and logical management tools. In Part Three we outline an aggressive solution.

1. THE MEDIA PLAN.

This is not to be confused with the media planner. The skills of a good media planner are remarkable and should be coveted. The problem lies in how you create and structure the plan.

Lines on a spreadsheet act like an iron curtain preventing strategic actions. They give birth to phrases like:

"We don't have a budget for that."

"We have spent all of our budget for that medium."

"It's a great idea, it's terrific, but we don't have the budget."

If it's a great idea and you don't have the budget, you have a bad budget.

The result of spreadsheet based media plans is that BILLIONS of dollars are wasted in depreciating properties. Every quarter, viewership and readership is going down at predictable rates. Current media planning enforces the waste of money on media that goes down in value every day because it reaches fewer potential customers.

Most TV and print budgets are not only locked in for 18 months, they are actually locked into a type of thinking created during the 1930's. Most plans still call for the purchase of "magazines" and "shows" rather than audience. I was shocked when I discovered this because my background is radio and we have been selling audience (rather than shows) since the dawn of top-40.

2. THE EXPERIMENTAL BUDGET

In science, an experiment has controls, goals, and measures of success. Experimental budgets spooned out to new magazines, cable stations, or Internet initiatives are rarely grounded in goals for success. The size of the funds, $25,000-$150,000, tests nothing and the spender never says, "If you achieve 'x', the prize is 'y'." The money gets spent, and it will be at least 18 months before the potential for the new medium is re-visited. Which brings us to the biggest obstacle between a product and its customer:

3. THE ANNUAL BUSINESS PLAN

The business plan development you use is derived from an approach invented by MBA's over 50 years ago for manufacturing firms. If you're rolling copper cables it makes sense to have a long term plan for the acquisition of trucks, warehouses, union crews, storage facilities, mileage costs, equipment replacement etc. — does any of that sound like it applies to your business? Of course not.

Your business is about delivering a message to the customer who will most likely buy your, or your client's, product. If 18 months ago the hot medium for reaching your customer is no longer the hot medium, you have a problem. If you've spent all of your money on that passé conduit to the customer, your problem is significant.

In the old days, a business plan was prepared between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Really.) Now the planning starts in June for the next year. There are two very significant problems with this:

First, instead of doing their jobs, for six weeks in the middle of the year, key staff members are asked to plan the future. They do off sites, big PowerPoint's, integrate their thinking with biz dev and strategic planning. All of that is great if you're running a graduate course, but notice how much trouble most businesses seem to have in the third quarter of any given year. Always some bump. Makes sense, take your top guns off the job to visit an imaginary world and the problems you are paying them to prevent emerge. Sounds simplistic but it's true.

Second, no media company can afford to lock in a business plan 18 months out. It ALLOWSthe staff to ignore key trends.

"Hey, it's just not in our plan."

It gives "creatives" permission to take it easy in the face of new marketplace information because they have learned over and over that when they propose course corrections, the response from the business people will be,

"Sounds interesting, let's put it in next year's plan."

What's the purpose of the plan? Do you want to reach more customers, or stick to your plan? Too often the white knights who brought planning to your messy company are far more vested in protecting the planning cycle and process than in selling products.

There, I said it for you. You've thought that for years but were afraid to say it because you need your budgets approved. Your job is to make a profit, not write a plan.

4. THE LONG MEETING

When people don't know what to do in a fast changing world, they have a lot of meetings. In these meetings they have very long, ponderous conversations that make them feel very smart. No actions result from these meetings. An industry is in trouble when the number of meetings and length of meetings constantly increase. Execs are in even more trouble when they stop leaving the office during the day for fear they might miss a meeting.

5. IT'S STILL LIKE IBM IN THE 50'S.

The stereotype of the man in the grey flannel suit still exists. Now he is wearing all black from Kenneth Cole and enjoying a free cafeteria gourmet lunch and nursery on premises. Instead of aisles leading to coveted corner offices, new media companies christen open space in warehouse districts across America.

But whether a company lays out traditional office space or claims their coolness with lofts and industrial columns each physical plant results in the same problem: Only one or two types of people can thrive in any given environment.

Flash: There are very talented people who cannot focus and think on an open floor or in a shared office. There are very talented people who cower at the site of a traditional office plan with one exec per office. Neither is right or wrong. Regardless of the physical plant, each layout excludes a group of people who simply are not wired to work there.

Coming next… we'll lay out an aggressive solution that will put any company in synch with its customer base.

Walter Sabo is the Founder and Creator of the business concept. He is an experienced leader of new organizations and is currently CEO of Hitviews. Walter can be reached at walter@hitviews.com.