Influx

There is much talk about fragmented media consumption. If you have ever seen Ellen Degeneres’ HBO special, she captures this brilliantly (rent it or buy it, for a great laugh and exceptional insights). She so correctly points out that, these days, people are simultaneously watching TV, emailing, and on the phone. The consumer is in control not only of what they choose to watch or ‘do’, but more than ever, what advertising they see or don’t see. With DVRs, pop-up ad blockers, and who knows what new ad-blocking concoction they’re developing in the laboratory, how have media strategies and media planning changed to reach this time starved, in-control, multi-tasking consumer?

Media strategy development has changed ten-fold due to this phenomenon. In the days of old, the account team would get direction from the client and, without even a discussion, the creatives would begin immediately to develop a TV campaign and the media team would go off to figure out how much TV weight they could afford given the budget. (OK, a simplification, but you get the point). Nowadays, there is no given answer. Agencies have to ferret out the best way to reach this new consumer. To do that best, it requires two types of collaboration: internal, among the creatives and the media professionals and external, between the media professionals and the ad sales community. No longer can teams work in separate vacuums. A lot of people give Crispin Porter’s media team credit for the campaign developed for the Mini. I applaud that campaign, as it was a beautiful example of where creativity and media merged with opportunity enabled by the ad sales community. I think that the accolades should be shared by those three groups, not just one.

This new world has brought about the need for more creativity among all three of these groups. Every group has its role, but all three groups need to look for ways to intrigue the consumer, in order to get the consumer to pay attention to the messaging. And to do this effectively, it requires a thorough understanding of a target’s behavior, interests, attitudes and needs. With this understanding, reaching a target can be as easy as it was in the old days – in other words, it can be done (not all hope is lost), but it usually will be through multiple media channels that need to be understood in the context of how a specific target interacts with that medium.

I think this makes the world of media strategy development and planning all the more rewarding. We now wear multiple hats – needing to be both creative and quantitative; we are required to have a more thorough understanding of our target audiences; we are planning for a bigger world of media options that extend beyond the traditional media to online, event planning, stunts, guerrilla, viral, and buzz.

Lynda Richardson