In an interview with Business Insider, five-decade
ad vet and DDB Worldwide Chairman Keith Reinhard thinks it was a mistake for media and creative to separate all those years ago. It was, of course, driven by the notion media was a commodity and that
tonnage and clout where the only things that mattered.
Reinhard sees a shift back to the integration of media and creative like it was back in the good old days.
First positioning the
role of creative, Reinhard said, "We only had two questions to answer in the creative department: What shall we say? And how shall we say it? The research told us what and it was up to our
imaginations to work out how to say it on TV, radio, and press. The question of when and where the ads were placed was left for the last five minutes of the presentation, when we'd hand off to the
media department and they'd place it on the most strategic TV slots."
Of course, when and where are just as important as what and how. Explaining, Reinhard said, "When the media explosion
began in the US with the introduction of cable TV and multiple channels, we moved that when and where right up to the top. We asked when and where the consumer was most likely to engage with the brand
message, and that started to influence the where and how."
While even at the height of the unbundling of media and creative, the two, in many ways, were still intertwined. But layers of
bureaucracy and disparate corporate entities made it more difficult for media (the when and the where) to truly integrate with creative (the what and the how).
Any agency person with
half a brain and a few years of experience will tell you that a media strategy can greatly influence and creative strategy and, in turn, a creative strategy can greatly influence a media
strategy.
That integrated approach led to brilliantly nuanced campaigns. The unbundling resulted in creatives telling clients "We've got these cool ads" and media people telling clients,
"We've got 3 million GRPs for $1." The problem, of course, was that rarely did either side discuss their individual strategies with the other side prior to client presentations. Sure, it worked most
of the time but it also left a ton of coolly integrated ideas on the table.