From Ad Age's CMO Roundtable...

Wanted to present some interesting ideas from a webcast posted today via Ad Age: http://adage.com/print?article_id=125823

Although the use of TV was part of the focus of the CMO discussion, I thought there were a number of useful insights that should be repeated here, primarily on the use of media in today's advertising environment. But first, on the role of TV today, these CMOs believe that:

• TV has always, and will continue, to play an important role in building immediacy and awareness --- and now that there are more media options, the growth rates in "cost per thousand" for TV are starting to slow
• TV is still the only media that can provide truly massive scale and a forum where people can come together and actively experience the same content together (e.g. Super Bowl)
• TV is still the consumption channel of choice for a wide variety of users

But, to segue, as Bob Stohrer (CMO, Virgin Mobile) states "There is a balance between immediacy and awareness that TV still delivers that a communication plan should be architected around." Some other factors that should be considered relative to media spend/strategy:

• CONTENT is still KING - greater specialization in content and media will continue
• People want to interact with your product/brand in different ways --- teens consume media (YouTube, etc.) differently than Baby Boomers (some still read the newspaper)
• Now that there are so many media options it is easier to establish relationships with smaller audiences using more specific methods for fewer $s

From a marketing standpoint, it is a very exciting time. The variety of tools available has never been larger --- the challenge now is to focus on the right ones for your audience. The good news is that, if you pay attention, they will let you know what they want.

Moving media buys back to the agency...

So I'm not getting my usual reading fixes, and posting yet another piece from WSJ, this one on Publicis and their new joint venture Optimedia Inside.

Interview with Publicis USA CEO, Susan Gianinno:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120287513864964733-email.html

According to Susan, the goal of the JV is to reunite media buying with the creative and planning functions that take place within agencies --- disciplines that separated over time as media purchases became more and more specialized.

The interviewer does a good job of addressing a critical issue --- the disconnect that has developed as agencies developed according to discipline, and then collectively began working independently on aspects of large client accounts as members within a larger holding company. After a while, marketers can begin to feel like they are double paying for services, as they pay for planning within digital, media, and consumer areas all at the same time. As a result, unified branding becomes more difficult as agency specialists focus on different consumer insights. But as Susan states, the problem is more complicated than that, and client organizations are often even more siloed --- something that I can attest to.

In my humble opinion, the reality is that substantive change is difficult for "the establishment", and that can mean the "old guard" marketing (or agency) types that have benefited from older organizational structures, and simply don't have an incentive to evolve. Hence, it's not an "agency" problem or a "marketer" problem, it's a complacency issue that plagues both.

Since a large number of marketing groups are not recognized as strategically important functions within their organizations, status quo thinking is allowed to continue. It's only by taking a long, hard look at connecting with customers, and then unifying those insights in a meaningful way --- on both the agency and client side --- that truly ground-breaking work gets done. Here's to hoping that this effort is a move in the right direction.