Today's Planners Need to Consider More Than Ads

Way back when media agencies decided it was essential to rise above the perception amongst their clients that their true value lay in buying media cheaply What they needed was for clients to value them differently and appreciate the range of services they could provideOne step was to rebrand media planning as quotcommunications planningquot This was a smart move in that buying media cheaply was something that couldn39t hope to command a premium fee if it was all that the client thought you did Everyone was doing it everyone could claim they were doing it better than the next guy and everyone was undercutting everyone elsePlus the era of greater transparency was dawning and eventually machines were likely to be able to do large chunks of the job Focusing on buying was not a longterm planComms planning on the other hand was all about integration sitting at the center of a wheel with spokes reaching into all kinds of areas and budgets including PR sponsorship product placement events and experiential as well as advertisingThis was the promised land of consultancy sitting at the client39s right hand Respect and fees were high Some agencies sought to draw parallels with management consultancies whilst not hiring at consultancy salariesThere was though one major problem Noone in agencies had a clue how to deliver it nor were the tools there to assistAgencies fully understood the benefits of integration They were great at ensuring that the advertising tied in with other marketing activity And brilliant at stuntsWhat we were and I suspect still are less good at is planning these things once we accept that quotplanningquot is about more than working around the timing of precommitted activitiesPlanning campaigns that involve more than advertising splitting budgets between ads events PR and the rest to arrive at an optimal plan has always involved a mix of the diplomatic and the technical where the technical bit is lackingIntramedia planning is firmer ground which is why building a framework to measure all video or systems to mix print and online versions of print are all the rage It39s also vitalTake video as an example As this week39s Enders report summarized here by Nick Manning suggests whilst TV viewing is doing well TV advertising is not Enders suggests a possible decline by 2027 of between amp163364 million and amp163135 billionEnders make the point that TV advertising is still rooted in trading concepts like share deals station average price and contract rights renewalShare deals and SAP date back at least to the 197039s CRR to 2003If TV advertising is going to flourish it needs to remind those in advertising and their agencies of the effectiveness of the medium Audience size and cost was once a proxy for effectivenessToday we are starting to develop the tools that support the hypothesis that effectiveness has as much to do with how people receive the message where when and on what screen Plus we increasingly link activity to business outcomesTo maximize effectiveness these days involves smart planning supported by great buyingIn broadcast Thinkbox is world class Their masters should listen to them more and to the big buyers with their share deals and their prices v SAP lessMeantime the labyrinthine task of sorting out crossvideo measurement should be seen and promoted as a crucial first step towards integrated communication planningThis is where research businesses like MESH Experience come in MESH tracks exposure to all brand communications and the impact each has on brand perceptions Not just advertising all brand communications across all touchpointsMESH is a cofounder of Crater Lake and Company combining the data they collect with the predictive modelling capabilities of fellow cofounder custometrics The outcomes are narratives that guide those charged with creating integrated plansIntegrated not quotjustquot advertising and based around outcomes not outputs business results not impressions likes or followersPlans based on neutrality not agency infightingDisclosure BJampampA is a cofounder of Crater Lake and Company mentioned in this postClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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Today's Planners Need to Consider More Than Ads

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Brian Jacobs

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Today's Planners Need to Consider More Than Ads

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