The media-neutral debate.

Well its a long time since we started talking about things "media-neutral".  I think we had our first conference during 2002.  Since then we've written a book on the subject - "The Communications Challenge" - and hope to write another one soon, stuffed full of examples of media-neutral campaigns.  It seems to us that many clients have come a long way, as have some agencies . However there are still many stumbling blocks in the way of agencies being able to be truly neutral in their advice, not least of which is finding a way to be paid for ideas rather than what is finally produced.  Perhaps this is something we will address in our next book. 

In the meantime we thought you might like to be able to read the articles that were published, and those that weren't, on the subject.  Any thoughts, comments, answering pieces please send to us for publication.

These contributions were published in a Campaign report, 8th November 2002 (click on author's name to view their article):

Steve Barton, Managing Partner, Leonardo
Richard Butterworth, Joint Head of Planning, BMP DDB
Hugh Cameron, Joint Managing Director, DFGW
Don Cowley, Managing Partner, DLCF Integrated
Neil Dawson, Executive Planning Director, TBWALondon and Michael Ellyatt, Senior Planner, TBWAGGT Direct
Mark Earls, Executive Group Planning Director, Ogilvy
David Fletcher, Head of MediaLab, Mediaedge:CIA
Richard Hartell, Board Account Director, Mediavest
Orlando Hooper-Greenhill, Planning Director, DFGW
Tina Kaye, Freelance Strategic Planner
Rory Sutherland, Executive Creative Director, OgilvyOne Worldwide
Kiran Wood, Brand Planner, Lowe Brand

We are also grateful to the following contributors:

Christian Barnett, Board Account Planner, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R
Anthony Clifton, Planning Director, WWAV Rapp Collins
Peter Crawshaw, Integrated Communication Consultant
Tom Goodwin, Head of Consumer Resarch, Tribal DDB
Penny Harris, Account Director, St Luke's
Rebecca Morgan, Board Account Planner, Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Tod Norman, Planning Director, Zalpha
Rapier Ltd
Kate Waters, Senior Planner, Partners BDDH
Geoff Wicken, TGI Global Product Development Director, BMRB International
John Wigram, Planning Director, IMP
Craig Wills, Strategist, Naked Communications
Alan Wilson, Managing Partner ATG, MindShare