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Tina Kaye,
Strategic Planner
Looking
back for a moment we can see that each decade through the second half
of the 20th century brought our predecessors face to face with their own
key issues. Starting in the 50's with the development of the creative
team as we now know it, which then contributed in the 60's to the move
away from linear models of communication to a more humanistic approach,
through the advent of account planning in the 70's, to the break up of
the full service agency in the 80's which, in turn, led directly to the
issue of integration in the 90's.
So here
we are in a new century facing our own particular issue - media-neutral
planning. But what is it? What, if anything does it owe to these preceding
trends? And is it just a passing fad or is it here to stay?
To set
my stall out from the beginning ~I should say that, in my view, media-neutral
planning is probably the biggest issue of all, being a culmination of
all those issues that came before. To put it in its own context, I believe
that media-neutral planning is far greater than merely a creative or 'advertising'
issue. It is not just about the 'big idea' that can span different media.
It is, in fact, fundamental to the way in which a brand does and should
touch consumers' lives. It is the planning of those brand touchpoints
without bias toward or against any particular mediums or channels, from
conventional above the line media, through traditional below the line
options to new media, ambient media, pr, sponsorship, events, design,
point of sale, collateral material etc.
Currently,
planning tends to be heavily media centric dependent on where the planner
sits, who pays his/her wages and what his/her particular prejudices are.
Media-neutral Planning, on the other hand, seeks to put the consumer firmly
at the centre of the planning process, viewing media from his/her perspective
as defined by the particular brand relationship in question.
To understand
fully what media-neutral planning is, and what it is not, I think that
it is helpful to view it in the context of all those issues that went
before:
The creative
team has, in many instances, now become so powerful that it often considers
only itself and its peers when developing new ideas. This has led to media
choice, as well as advertising content, being severely biased toward those
options deemed to show off creative talent to best effect, rather than
necessarily being the best at touching the consumer. Media-neutral planning
would help address this imbalance, by ensuring that the consumer/brand/media
dynamic was placed at the centre of the planning process right from the
start, providing guidelines for creative development rather than the other
way round.
The humanistic
models of creative planning developed in the 60's have yet to be applied
to media planning which still tends to follow the old linear models of
hit them hard, grab their attention and then you're bound to get the result
that you want. MNP introduces the missing humanistic element by having
at its foundation an understanding of how the consumer/brand/media relationships
interact with each other rather than merely relying on 'he who shouts
loudest wins' - an approach which, apart form anything else, is far too
costly to sustain in these days of rampant media inflation.
Account
planners were fundamental to the spread of the 'humanistic' approach to
advertising development in the 70's, and they are clearly capable of doing
the same to media development today. They are far more consumer centric
in their approach than most other disciplines, however they currently
still tend to reside in media centric agencies - i.e. above or below the
line - and as the years have passed there appears to have been a sorry
slide down the 'ad tweaker' as opposed to 'grand strategist' path (to
quote Leslie Butterfield from many years ago!) However, for those account
planners who seek bigger challenges, their moment could now have come
as they more than any one else are best placed to become the champions
of MNP, reclaiming their territory as consumer-centric grand strategists.
The contribution
of the break up of the full service agency to the current debate probably
needs little explanation. Media planners and account planners no longer
meet as a matter of course to discuss brand/consumer, let alone media,
relationships. The planning of media has become divorced from the development
of the idea, and is often based on simplistic reach/frequency/cost per
000 arguments rather than on any real understanding of how best to involve
the consumer with the brand via the media selected. Media independents
have realised the dangers in this and are actively exploring their role
within the media-neutral debate, including the role for account planning
within their portals. So maybe we are on the verge of a new form of 'full
service agency' based around media rather than creative.
Until that
day comes the 'disintegration' of the old full service agency led to the
debate about 'integration' that dominated the 90's. However, this has
become a heavily devalued term with integration standing for little more
than some element of below the line in the mix with a 'matching luggage'
approach to creative development.
This is
a far cry from what Media-neutral Planning is about. MNP does not merely
'tag on' peripheral media to the core choice of TV, nor does it seek to
use any one medium as the creative template for all others. Instead it
demands a totally clean slate approach, examining without prejudice each
and every media option, identifying those that have a role to play and
clearly identifying what that role is. Developing, in parallel, the 'big
idea' for the brand on a totally media-neutral basis so that this idea
can then be interpreted for each relevant medium in the way that best
optimises the agreed role of that medium.
There can
be no question that this is an exciting and desirable challenge, but is
it achievable?
This is
the point at which we come face to face with the fact that if MNP is indeed
to be more than just today's buzz word, then we may well need a real 'new
world order'. Because the fact of the matter is that MNP cannot possibly
flourish within existing structures and business models.
Not just
physical structures, but also reporting lines, budgets, targets and modes
of remuneration all currently mitigate against a genuinely neutral approach
to media planning. How many of us can afford to hand over large slices
of budget to other agencies, even if they are in the same group? How often
have we all been influenced, at least to some extent, by awareness of
our budgets and targets when making media and/or creative recommendations?
And as planners, we are probably all made aware of the constant need to
'feed the factory', i.e. the actual executors as opposed to the 'thinkers'.
After all the debate about whether planning is a cost or an asset has
raged for decades now. So how neutral can we, or anyone else, be within
this type of environment?
If that
were not enough, we are also all influenced, either overtly or subconsciously,
by the knowledge of how our campaigns will ultimately be evaluated. In
a world where evaluation techniques strongly favour awareness above all
else - 45% of pay by results schemes use advertising awareness as their
basis of assessing performance* - we would not be human if we were not
drawn toward those media most likely to deliver positive research results
even if they are not the best for the real job of persuading the consumer.
So for
media-neutrality to truly flourish we need to find ways initially to circumvent,
and ultimately to fundamentally change not only the prevailing structures
and business models, but also the research techniques that favour one
medium above all others.
To do the
former agencies need to establish media-neutral teams drawn from, but
not locked into, the different disciplines that currently exist. Teams
that would be independent of existing structures, free to do a proper
analysis unfettered by the need to 'feed the factory', raising their own
income based purely on the quality of their thinking rather than on the
media they ultimately recommend. Teams that could help develop new research
techniques that would be capable of evaluating the effect of multi-media
campaigns in the real world.
This approach
means that clients would have to be prepared to pay realistic fees for
the advice they receive, as only in this way can they be sure of avoiding
any risk of that advice being tainted by the need for its outcome to 'pay
the bills'. These fees do not, however, need to represent any extra cost
to clients as analysis shows that a significant proportion of media budgets
tend to be 'wasted' on the basis of diminishing returns**, and agencies
rarely identify the real cut off point for media effectiveness.
Therefore, by spending a proportion of this 'wasted budget' on obtaining
best advice from a media-neutral team, brands will in fact see a far better
return on their budget overall.
However,
there is a possibly even more painful area that clients need to address
as they must also look to their own structures to find ways of overcoming
existing silos. Only by doing this will they enable a genuinely media-neutral
approach to planning through the way in which they control budgets and
brief agencies.
Finally,
I believe that in this 'new world order' there will be a real and important
role for both the neutral 'diagnostician' sitting outside any specific
media centric discipline, and the biased specialist sitting within their
particular media centric areas. The former will be responsible for the
overall review of the consumer/brand/media relationships making their
recommendations in the light of both these and the brand's business objectives,
budgets etc. These recommendations would encompass both the proposition
for the big idea and the optimum media/channels to convey this idea, together
with an outline of the specific role for each medium/media cluster. The
latter would then be responsible for ensuring the optimisation of their
particular media should that be selected as relevant to the brand's communication
needs.
The 'biased
specialists' clearly exist in abundance at present. There is now a real
need for the APG, along with similar professional bodies, to put in place
training programmes for the new breed of 'neutral diagnostician', as without
these people to populate the 'new world order', all of the structures,
theories and hypotheses will ultimately come to nought.
* Paying
for Advertising - ISBA/ARC Study 2000
** ATG MindShare Model of Diminishing Returns
(c) Account
Planning Group 1995-2002
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