'Taking things apart is easy. It's putting them back together again that's the real problem.'

Tod Norman, Partner, Zalpha

Keeping up with changes in marketing theory has been and will continue to be a wild ride. Over the past two centuries, the study of buying and selling has not so much evolved as exploded. Today's truism is tomorrow's shibboleth and next week's artifact. Another day, another theory. The old turn to cynicism - 'It's this month's buzzword - seen it all before. By Christmas there'll be another fad.'

But, at the risk of being ever naïve, I'll place my bet now; we may not be able to define it, but media-neutrality, or integrated planning, or even some acronym that encompasses both these and more will mark a turning point in marketing. I believe this not because I can see it, can design it, or even have a product that I can sell on the back of it. I believe it because it is essentially common sense.

It is said that there is a sect of monks who have a morning ritual which takes a lifetime to master. It involves rising from their sleeping mats, standing, walking to the door of their cells, opening the door, and exiting. A master may perform this mystical ceremony in a matter of hours; for a novice, it may take days. The challenge, apparently, is to feel each and every movement in all the muscles, nerves, bones and organs during this process. By creating consciousness of all these changes, the monk is engulfed by the wonder of God. This process has a metaphysical goal, a mystical approach, even a scientific exactitude.

What it lacks is common sense.

Common sense says 'Get up and get down to the dining hall before the gruel gets cold.' Our job is to help companies sell things by getting people to want them. It is not to build brands, exceed ROI targets, or buy space cheap. These and all the thousands of other goals, targets, and deliverables are nothing more than nano sized measurement tools. And like millions before us, we all too often forget the real purpose of our jobs.

This lapse is human and forgivable. We are a species that learns by dissection. We believe - or have since the industrial revolution - that progress is created by knowledge and that knowledge is created by specialisation. The concept of a Renaissance Man today is absurd.

So we take things apart, we study them, and we subdivide them again and again. First there is a planner, then there are types of planner; brand, media, data, business, etc. And of course there are types of brand planner; consumer, business, and creative. And among creative planners, there are advertising planners and below the line planners. And so it goes.

Each subdivision allows for greater depth of knowledge. By focussing on an area, and gaining specific experience and insight, more knowledge is gained. The methodology works. I would rather hire a brand/creative/direct marketing planner for my business than any other, because I expect them to be more knowledgeable in the problems my company faces than a similarly bright but non specialist planner will be.

But the problem with this greater and greater specialisation is that it becomes less and less 'common'. It becomes, well, special. And two significant problems arise, both based on simple rules that psychologists and sociologists have been banging on about for years. Put simply, they are the need to achieve social status, and the need to belong.

Specialists gain special knowledge. They're rightfully proud of that knowledge. That knowledge is their status, and defines, protects and enhances them. But this leads, almost inevitably, to a monocular vision of the world. They become defensive about anything that challenges the importance of their specialism. To set out the whole picture would mean diminishing their own importance. So specialists tend to degrade the importance of other specialisms, and ignore their learning. The reality of life is that specialisms drift apart, and the task of integrating the knowledge they create becomes harder and harder.

Specialists are also bonded to groups, each of which have different names, cultures, and profit and loss accounts. I belong to my company, because it pays me. My specialism must contribute to the success of my company, my tribe. And since the client has a limited budget, my specialism must be seen to be preeminent, or my tribe will suffer and I will be tossed out. Its been going on since time began.

Media-neutrality as a concept is, to me, the antidote to this problem. It's rise is recognition that the specialisation of knowledge has evolved to such a degree that the integration of that knowledge is no longer the simple task of a brand manager or even marketing director, but the hardest and yet most valuable challenge of all. We have learned a lot about taking things apart, but can no longer put them together again. It is this skill that will be the most successful in the future.

My 'vision' of media-neutrality is therefore simple to describe, if monumentally difficult to achieve. It is that in each and every client organisation, an individual or group of individuals be tasked with delivering one simple quality. Judgement. Not the 'evil', self interested subjectivity that is passed off in Parliament and the City. But a robust ability to understand the implications of the specialist's knowledge and combine it, with the wisdom, experience and intelligence to make considered, impartial decisions.

Can this happen in any one agency, or indeed any group of agencies? No, nor should it. No matter how much of a partner an agency claims to be, its employees still owe both moral and legal loyalty to its own existence. Show me the marketer who will recommend that his/her own agency's form of media is left off a client's schedule and I'll show you a defendant in a law suit or an independently wealthy fool.

Moreover, the final decision regarding what media to use for what reason should be the clients. As more companies become manufacturing or service integrators, adding value by bringing together the best solutions for their customers, should their marketing departments' pale from the same challenge?

The great challenge of media-neutrality is to find people who know what we are trying to do - sell things - and give them the skills and power to put things together.

Its common sense, really.

(c) Account Planning Group 1995-2002