Commentary

Media Fiefdoms

For a long time, media folks were not terribly public when it came to what they did for clients. They were the "lesser thans" in an agency, relegated to the nerdery where they would do things with numbers and syndicated research and whatever work they did, made its way to the client via an account executive with a rare outing to see the client.

Creative was what it was all about. Creative product was something that could be seen and heard and, to some extent, touched. And it was something that others would see and that would in turn reflect on those responsible for it, both the producers of the material as well as those who approve it.

Let's face it, at the end of a meeting, a client isn't going to get up and applaud a flow chart for showing weekly TRPs, or get warm and fuzzy about a daypart mix. And besides, isn't the media plan designed just to conform to whatever creative is being produced?

But times, they are a changing. Little by little, media is handling more strategy than it used to. In most cases, media is unbundled, so the mandates given to govern account involvement are not the same as when media and creative were both under one roof. It isn't driving strategy from the highest level, mind you. Account planners and communications directors and those types are typically responsible for that within an agency. But media is playing a larger and larger role in the development of strategy and has garnered greater respect.

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What is driving more strategic responsibilities into the arms of media is brand integration. Those responsible for the media in an advertising campaign have to be concerned with a bigger picture. People use so many different media at so many different times in so many different ways, to create an effective communications plan, media folk have to know more about each possible touch point.

Media people are the ones best suited to address and work with integration and convergence. Media planning, buying, and creative specialists continue to be necessary, but it would seem that in order to best speak to an audience, you must do so in their language. And most audiences any more do not speak just "TV" or "Radio" or even "Online." They are complicated beings using media holistically. Media usage is not in a silo, so why should it be planned as such?

Clients today are treated to a steady diet of talk about integration and convergence and media multitasking. It's hard for them not to get a sense that the order media and audiences once had, have spun out of control. Clients want to reclaim that control and they are looking to media to provide it to them. Over the years, as media broke away from creative, media retained a lot of the data and research resources that full-service agencies once had. Clients naturally turn to media to ply their trade using that data and research to once again bring calm and understanding.

Mind you, most of the integration we read about on the part of agencies is not really seen by clients. Most agencies are still working with a structure built around specialized silos within protected fiefdoms. But if clients ask for something often enough, they might just finally get it.

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