• by Bob Rose , July 1, 2008

Unfortunately, as media planning has gotten more challenging, fewer people seem qualified to do it well.

More than ever, the success of a marketing plan depends on media. And the integrity of a media program depends on someone bringing all he elements together to hit the end business target. That takes specialists and generalists. Our industry has become really good at pumping out specialists. We're losing the generalists.

Put simply, our silo system is not producing enough good young master craftsmen who have the training and vision to create compelling strategies that pull together our burgeoning media choices -- old or new -- toward the best possible outcomes. The master media planner as master strategic craftsmen is in an historic position to lead the communications process and take our profession forward. Alas, they are a breed dying from neglect.

We need to take this on as an industry. Perhaps this feature can be a place where the answers might take shape -- through multiple voices, surveys, feedback and questions.

Silo Trap

Today's senior media planner should be in an unprecedented position to lead the process, shape strategic direction, unite all facets of communication and preserve brand discipline across myriad channels. But media organizations are grouped into specialty silos -- network groups, spot groups, print groups, outdoor groups, digital groups, emerging media groups, conversation groups, DR groups, multicultural groups, sales promotion groups and, no kidding, a lot more. As a result, the planner has a diminished role. Diminished role equals low inspiration and battered morale. You have to be amazingly self-confident to take ownership of the process.

I came up in a time (the 1980s and '90s), when the media planner was the unchallenged driver of the media plan and its execution. We were taught, and mentored, to recognize why and how different media work for individual brands and situations. We were trained to immerse ourselves in a brand's marketing goals, issues and priorities. And we became adept at synthesizing insight from both these sides of the equation to create integrated communications strategies that mix and balance media forms to achieve an aggregated achievement of results.

Today, media people seem focused, rightly, on success metrics for their specialty media, but who's got their eye on the total picture to achieve a global sense of achievement?

Think Small

Let's face it, agency consolidation has a lot to do with the dimishished capacity of today's generation of media people. Big means mass assembly, and mass assembly may make thousands of good car doors, but bad indivdual car designs. Likewise, mass assembly leads to poorly designed communications strategies and execution.

I'm happy to have a little distance from this -- these days, I run media for an agency where we believe that thinking small is a quantum leap toward better, more inspired thinking. As an agency, we think small to get big results. We're invested personally because we're integrally involved at every level of the process. Strategically, we think small to pick the spots where even a little brand can stand out.

This feels like a trend -- there are a growing number of small agencies. Even big agencies are starting to talk about the benefits of thinking small; where you're small enough to keep the focus on the client's entire business. But that's just to start. Are the big guys committed to finding and supporting the best talent and training? Let's encourage them to do so.

Media Masters

Mastery means balancing the dynamics of engagement among different media. That takes education. We're getting great at training media specialists in how to apply their specific media practices. We need to get great again at educating media masters, who have a vision for an entire field. That's particularly important because we don't have measurement standards that work across media. Media is, now more than ever, a variable currency, and we can follow the numbers perfectly into the wrong place.

A master of the art of media understands that the governing dynamics of great work is about gut feel as much as body counts. Each time, it's a new set of variables, a new weighting that needs to be applied to all component parts. It is as the ancient Greek strategist Heraclites said: "You can't step into the same river twice."

Our end game is shaping perceptions and moving product, and it's a new ballgame every time you play it.

First Why and Then How Hopefully, I've begun to make the point that developing the next generation of media masters is necessary and complex. (More thought on this is encouraged). But let's shift "why" to "how." Here's what I know: We can't do it alone; we have to do it together.

Let's get together as an industry. Create a mentorship programs -- within big companies and across the industry. Develop classes for undergrads who are studying advertising that are fun, social and substantive. The technological tools to do this are here. Let's put our will behind it. Let's get people seeing the whole field and understanding how the blocking, tackling, running and throwing come together. Here are initial assignments: Get a network buyer to make the case for not using TV. Get a digital planner to make the case for print.

A lot is riding on this issue. Media careers, media credibility, agency futures ... not to mention the simple everyday contentment in our profession.

What do you think?