• by Jason Heller , May 3, 2011

Imagine for a moment that media and creative were a couple on Facebook. Let's explore the emotional and awkward roller coaster ride of this public relationship.

Relationship Status:

Creative: It's Complicated

Media: In an Open Relationship

The last decade has been somewhat of a rocky road for the media and creative relationship. While the medium is certainly not the message, when it comes to digital media, the mechanisms of consumer engagement and influence have become the driving force of advertising strategy and investment. As media has become the front line rather than simply the distribution vehicle for creative messaging, creative is going through a renaissance of sorts, with an expanding palette of tools and canvases with which to influence consumers. Sometimes it's a match made in heaven, but other times it's a dysfunctional power struggle and blame game.

Behind Every Great Media Plan, There's a Great Creative Idea

Make no mistake about it - media is only as strong as the creative and the brand behind it. Media and creative are engaged in a truly symbiotic relationship in this regard. The two are inseparable. This relationship will always exist. However, the strategies required to reach and influence consumers will continue to evolve, just as the media landscape continues to transform at such a rapid pace before our eyes. If creative and media are in a complicated marriage, then data has been media's seductive mistress who has shaken up this delicate relationship. As data has become intrinsic to the media side of the advertising equation, creative has become the support for a sound strategy guided by media-driven consumer insights and analytics.

Does Creative Get The Short End of The Stick?

Creative today needs to work harder than ever before to convey a story and create an emotional impact among consumers, which in turn is expected to translate into a financial return for marketers. Creative would argue that to do so within the limited ad space and constrained budgets allocated to digital is a challenge.  Most marketers and agencies (and surely consumers) would agree that the average online creative lacks the stopping power to influence. There is some great creative out there, but it seems to be the exception and not the rule. Rather than rehash some great feedback on the topic, I'll defer to my fellow Online Spin columnist Dave Morgan. I agree with most of what he says in "Solving the Creative Problem."

Creative Media

Media has become more creative. There was simply no choice in the matter. This is almost as true for traditional media as it is for digital. In fact, clients demand a new level of creativity from their media agencies. Those who cannot demonstrate creative thinking are often dismissed as not competitive anymore. Every marketer wants to break through the proverbial clutter and make the biggest impact on its respective market. From branded entertainment to the development of new ad units, content marketing, and social integration, the media agency has stepped up to the plate. In the spirit of the open source era, the creative drivers can come from within the media agency or can emerge from collaboration with external partners. The only thing that ultimately matters is that a creative media strategy leads the way and appropriately leverages the most that each digital medium and platform has to offer. As the holding companies restructure their portfolios to respond to market needs, have you noticed which agencies are leading the charge? You guessed it -- the media and digital brands.

Media & Creative Rebundling?

Depending on your view of the ecosystem, one might look at this trend as the rebundling of creative and media, but the digital world has blurred these lines for some time now anyway. We really haven't looked at it as bundled or unbundled -- but rather effective or ineffective. A better way to look at the current state of marketing is that the necessities of the market have spawned collaboration between media and creative in new and exciting ways.

Cultivating environments where ideas can come from anyone, but with structures in place to steward effective collaboration between media and creative groups, allows for the best ideas to bubble up from within. Almost all digital agencies offer both media and creative services today, and all media agencies have digital groups that are constantly evolving to serve the changing needs of the market. Clients want to know that their agencies and resources are working in lock step to make media more creative and to make creative more effective, regardless of whether these resources are under one roof or at separate firms.

So what is the true status of the media and creative relationship? This may be one instance where "in an open relationship" is not just for the freaks and should be universally accepted by all.