Channel planning: purchase-based vs brand-based (and what that has to do with Pollock)

Media agencies are blessed by current evolutions in communication: not only because media fragmentation requires dedicated specialists that can put together tailor-made plans to harass each and every consumer in more and more ways and places, but also because the growing demand for measurability happily meets media agencies’ familiarity with figures.

And the future holds even better news: with a more complex marketing and a growing need for speed, marketers will need to empower one single entity to manage brand communication, with the legitimacy to take immediate decisions (and risks) in order to ensure a quick reaction on the market.

Big companies can embed that position, smaller companies will have to rely on a partner. (Many marketers have already started doing so, including major companies)

Media agencies are in a better position to take on that role, both for the reasons above, and because creative agencies seems to be so reluctant to change. (As well as to produce some good enough work to help the industry regain that sort of credibility that only a few creative shops retain)

Now, why does it matter whether the leading role is taken on by media agencies or by creative agencies? (I could always move to media, and make sure that I can still pay for my mortgage at the end of each month)

Media agencies have always looked at people as media consumers, and recently opened a second eye to look at people as purchasers involved in a purchase path. It’s common sense: investigate how people go through the purchase process of a given product or service, find out what kind of media/channel gets their attention at each stage, and build a channel plan upon it.

Makes lots of sense. 

Bad news is, it makes sense for consumers, not for brands: if all brands of a given market follow were to follow this model, they would all generate the very same communication plan. They’ld make sure that they’ld be in the place where consumers expects them to be: too bad they’ld be there together with all their competitors.

Creative agencies look at people as people, and look at brands first for their content, that should be unique to them, and only secondly for their purchase process, that is usually the same as their competitors’.

Looking at people as people means that we don’t need to be about to buy a tv, in order to be interested in Sony Bravia. On the opposite, if we’re not within the purchase process, our mind is “clearer”, and we can dedicate Bravia a greater share of mind: and this will make it stand out among the brand clutter,  once we will actually be ready for a new tv.

Looking at brands for their content is the safest way to be consistent and distinctive against competitors: if ads (or any other piece of communication) from Sony Bravia are only found in those media I go through while looking for televisions, I mainly understand that Sony Bravia is a tv. (Big deal.). The piece of communication would really need to be different, unique and engaging to make it stand out, and let me understand that Bravia is “that one kind of tv”, as opposed to all the other I would simultaneously be exposed to.

 If I find a Sony Bravia’s ad at Pollock’s exhibit, I understand that Sony Bravia is about “color”. And if no other tv brand is there, I understand that “Bravia’s color” is “like no other”.  (Assuming that potential consumers of Bravia visit exhibits, that makes quite a difference).

Now, of course Sony needs to be where consumers look for informations on televions: magazines, tech websites, word-of-mouth…

But if communication plans are devised starting from purchase process, Bravia will never meet Pollock. After all, who would visit an exhibit searching for informations on a tv screen? But, wouldn’t it be one of the best places to be for Sony?

Final Burp: In the future, focusing on purchase process might result in many media plans mostly converging to Google: real purchasers in real time. Focusing on people and brand content would result in creative agencies taking care of all the communication that takes place before and after the purchase. It sounds like a lot more.

What kind of account planner is under threat?

An AdAge article (yes, same old source) by Alice Cuneo provides a revealing opportunity to spend a few thoughts on what we all mean by “account planners”.

The article opens up with “pity the poor account planner” because these supposedly former rock stars of the ad business are now faced with sharing the spotlight with other kind of planners: media planners, connection planners, channel planners and the likes…

If the point of all this is to state that sharing the spotlights sucks, and we’ld all want to be the unique superstars of the amazing ad world, well… that’s a discussion that would appeal to our ego: which is clearly too big to fit into this blog’s layout, so let’s dismiss the whole issue.

If instead we’re talking real work, then it’s a whole different story, one that forces us to take a clearer look at what ultimately is our job.

Edward Cotton, director-strategy for Influx Insights, says ”A big challenge is being up to date with what’s going on [...] Six months ago, it’s MySpace. Now it’s Facebook.”

 I say: Who cares?

The beef of account planning has always been the content of the message, not the place where this message is delivered. Ok, MySpace is a different place than Facebook, but what really matters to us are the insights behind social network.

The needs, aspirations and behaviour of people are what will enable us to produce insightful ideas: let channel planners tell both us and the creatives if those ideas would be better off on MySpace or Facebook, and what kind of shape they’ld have to take.

Now, I’m obviously being a bit radical here, and we do have to know that MySpace and Facebook are around, and how they work, but that’s because their presence gives us insights into people, and not much because of the opportunities for communication they provide.

On the other hand, we know that in order to deal with the changes that are taking place, more professionals will sit around the table. Edward Cotton again asks:  “How do you [prepare a] brief if there’s 10 on a team?”

My first answer would be: you make 10 copies instead of 2.

My second answer is of course a bit more thoughtful, but it’s not far from that. The whole building and managing of communication will be more complicated, but everything will keep steaming from one relevant piece of idea. And luckily that first relevant piece of idea is most of our job.

Of course we’ll have to work with more people and keep an eye on more activities, but the core of what we do (and what defines our value) will stay the same.

As for me, I’ve been working with a channel planner based in London and our roles were pretty clear: I was in charge of the “what”, he was in charge of the “where”. Of course the “where” influences the “what”, but that only happens at a later stage (ie. creative execution)

On the other hand, it’s amazing how many different views people have on strategic planners, to the point that they should be endangered by pretty much anything: blogging, channel planners, and maybe global warming will come up as our next big threat.

Perhaps the reason for such an undefined idea of what we’re supposed to do is that “planning” doesn’t mean much, and “strategy” even less so. Or maybe it’s that planners are usually schizofrenic dudes with loads of different interests. Or that our work is built upon crossroads: between creatives and account handlers, between advertisers and consumers, between visionaires and researchers…

Whatever those reasons may be, it seems that communication getting more complicated is actually providing a chance for us to stick with what we were originally meant to do. Come up with relevant ideas that can be a fertile seed for communication. Period.

Final Burp: are strategic planners confused with channel planners because they both rely on research? If that is so, what happened to generating powerful ideas as the true essence of our job?

Media vs Creative

I think we can all agree that the advertising world is failing to innovate and comply with the full potential of the evolution in communication, to the point that already many marketers are ahead of us.

To make things worse for our side, there’s a growing opinion that media agencies are better fit to understand and take the lead in the new paradigm of communication, whatever that will be in the future.

The dumb reason to believe so is that media agencies are more accountable and can “get” numbers, as if creative agencies don’t have to make both ends meet at the end of each year (or quarter). It’s weird how people seem to forget that creative agencies are run by managers, and not by dope-addicted weirdos, and that lots of them have been profitably around for much longer than their client companies.

The more pertinent reason to say that media agencies will take the lead is that what’s going on is seen as a revolution in media (less tv, more web) to the point, for instance, that social networking is seen as a media. And it is, but it’s not just that.

What’s going on is seen as a media revolution, because media consumption can be summed up in statistics, and stats are easy to deal with because they’re numbers: everyone understands numbers (more or less), numbers can be stated, shouted, compared. It’s easy to be fascinated or scared by numbers. Numbers are straight.

But along with changes in media (the where), there’s changes in content (the what): there’s a larger, wider, more various kind of content that is broadcasted and shared; new languages are getting popular; opportunities for true interaction between content-and-content, and content-and-user arise.

Now, though this latter is revolution is harder to track because it can’t be summed up in stats, it’s actually more relevant than media shift: after all, people keep being attracted by the “what” (content and/or other people), and the “where” is subsequential.

If this is true, then creative agencies are facing a tougher task than media agencies, because they must address even more complicated issues, but if they tackle that, they can mantain, and even increase, their key role in communication development.

Final Burp: Even if you don’t buy this, would it be easier to endow creative agencies’ staff with number-savyness, or to gift media agencies with creativity and a sense of humanity?