Where Once There Was Some Clarity, Now There Is Confusion

The media side of the ad industry has always been good at talking to itself the same applies to planners creatives and account men but they can speak for as well as to themselves Not only do we talk to ourselves at conferences within social media and especially in blog posts but we do so in a language all our ownInvite job candidates to apply live during the Media and Advertising Communityamp8217s Black Talent Outreach Week at MediaVillagecom and AdvancingDiversityorg October 1720 Apply for jobssubmit your resume hereamp160You could argue this is the same the world over Try buying a car employing builders changing your mobile phone all these are activities plagued by the overuse of terms and words that mean little to those outside the magic circleBut the fact that others do it is no excuseOne of the major shifts over the last ten years or so is the growing involvement of advertisers in media decisionmaking There are loads of reasons for this ranging from quotThey should always have paid more attention to how such huge amounts of money were being spent anywayquot right through to direct selling by the giant platforms that disintermediate sorry the agenciesThose of us involved within the media business have long wanted increased engagement from our clients We used to talk about being excluded from the top table and how our skills and thus contribution to the whole ad process were ignoredIndeed this sense of grievance was one large factor in media agencies emerging in the first placeNow we have what we wanted Clients are tuned in and are paying attention or certainly a lot more attention than they used to This has though coincided with life becoming a lot more complicatedNoone doubts the power and influence of the likes of Google and Facebook but the downside of the emergence of such channels is a lack of perspectiveThe media world used to run on verifiable data and numbers Whatever your criticisms of BARB TGI and the rest the data per se was checked and verified to within an inch of its lifeThe gap between a number of ratings and the number actually seeing an ad was comparatively narrowNow with no clarity over what is a viewer or an impression with online bots and ad fraud everywhere you look that gap has widenedIn other words where there was some clarity now there39s confusionMeanwhile the experts in agencies specifically speak of concepts they most likely picked up at a conference or trade show without spending the time fully understanding the backgroundPoliticians call this TLDNR too long did not readTwitter SETR becomes the font of all knowledge and wisdom to be endlessly quoted filleted recycled As the Publicis strategist Keerti Nair put it so well on TwitterSharp writes a bookFelipe critiques the bookRitson critiques on the book and the critiqueRandom folk critique on the book the critique and the critique39s critiqueGive it a rest please Nobody of consequence gives a hoot about thisMake money and help people make moneyTo help clients make money we need to enter their world speak their language and ensure we are understoodIt may have been the case that confusion increased margin but we need to get real and recognize that to help business we must communicate better and banish confusion In truth it was ever thus it was just that our own selfimportance and faux cleverness got in the wayHelp people make money and we will make moneyTake the time to write a shorter letter as someone not Irwin once saidClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Where Once There Was Some Clarity, Now There Is Confusion

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Brian Jacobs

FEMA and the Ad Council Encourage AANHPI Communities to Enhance Disaster Preparedness in New PSAs - Ad Council InSites

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Where Once There Was Some Clarity, Now There Is Confusion

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