• by Mark Green , Op-Ed Contributor, December 29, 2006

Independent companies have been trying to start up ad auction exchanges for years. Remember the famously flamboyant endeavor of the now-failed Enron? Well, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) thinks it's time to get serious and tapped eBay to create the first successful ad auction platform. The initiative faces resistance from media agencies. Martin Sorrell, CEO of the WPP Group, summed up the feeling by coining the new term "frienemy," concisely expressing his combativeness toward the automated, Internet-focused ad placement services promoted by Google and Microsoft.

Behind the scenes, the big story is that while the media buying shops retreated to their purchasing silos to hunker down and fight off the latest wave of ad auction startups, the traditional media planning discipline died. The art of planning sufficient media exposures to reach a certain target irrespective of the message is no longer relevant. The harbingers were there. The increasing demand for a single source made clear that generic age/gender targets were becoming ineffective.

Media planners began to evolve when they introduced the engagement debate and laid bare the weakness of counting exposures. Tragically, they made a wrong turn and fell off the cliff by focusing on media vehicle engagement instead of advertiser message exposure. It was a sad day. It appears that the strategic focus of defending the buying-shop business model has kept planning operations from evolving.

Last month, this column alluded to the death of media planning by pointing out how "the relationship between the message and the media is becoming more important again," and that media shops with no message, such as IPG Media, were imploding.

Other industry sirens have also been speaking out. Shelly Lazarus, the CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, called for integrating media back into ad planning. Steve Greenberger, executive vice president/media director of SLG Advertising, put out the placard announcing "Marketers Wanted." He wrote that selecting media was no longer a standalone decision but an interdependent component of marketing decisions.

The evolutionary dimension of engagement is not about comparing media efficiencies to improve mass communications; it's about building holistic marketing campaigns to connect with consumers. Accordingly, the metrics are not reach, but recall and involvement. Planning is now the generalship of communications with sales to manage brand image and experience. Strategy encompasses events, promotions, and trade in addition to new and old media to engage, as well as CRM to maintain and grow.

As with all good planning, it is back to the data. Do you have all the pertinent information? Is it related in a way that it can be analyzed and prioritized for intuitive creative thinking and representative business development? Can you execute with it and track responses to it?

As with all good planning, it is back to the data. Do you have all the pertinent information? Is it related in a way that it can be analyzed and prioritized for intuitive creative thinking and representative business development? Can you execute with it and track responses to it?

Agencies that bill back market research on brands to their clients still have the financial structure to develop the resources to lead brand marketing in today's data-intense world. Shops with direct heritages, such as Draft FCB Group, already have data cultures, so they're starting with an edge. On the other side of the ring are thematic marketers, such as Crispin Porter + Bogusky, who understand the importance of connecting on brand image and managing the experience.

Agencies that bill back market research on brands to their clients still have the financial structure to develop the resources to lead brand marketing in today's data-intense world. Shops with direct heritages, such as Draft FCB Group, already have data cultures, so they're starting with an edge. On the other side of the ring are thematic marketers, such as Crispin Porter + Bogusky, who understand the importance of connecting on brand image and managing the experience.

Mark Green is senior vice president of VNU's MMI Group and a founding partner of the Media Learning Institute. (mgreen@vnuinc.com)