Brands not channels
The Buggles. 1980. Video didn’t kill the radio star.
Once again media fragmentation seems to be one of the central topics occupying the time of agencies and marketers alike. With a renewed focus on fragmentation comes a resurgence of the discussion and debate about the potency of specific media channels, most notably Television. This debate always seems so incredibly reductive. The answer to questions like ‘Is TV right or wrong?’ almost always results in the answer ‘it depends’.
It depends on the category you’re operating in, the nature of the task you’re trying to address, the budget you have available to you, the audience that you’re trying to influence, the time of year when you’re intending to be active, etc etc etc. In almost every scenario, it’s entirely possible that you can make the case for some form of activity within a channel such as TV on the media plan, even if it is in a supporting rather than leading role.
The discipline of Marketing (should) be concerned with the creation and management of demand. Central to that task - and as patently obvious as it might sound - is a requirement that marketing professionals start their work by thinking about the consumer and that everything they do is informed and governed by the way a consumer interacts with a specific market or category (what we might call ‘audience’ or ‘consumer’ first planning).
The fact that we’re still talking about being more consumer-centric is frankly puzzling. We’re nearly a quarter of a century on from the first wave of media fragmentation brough about by digital media and digital technology. But, despite the fact we’ve had a long time to create the conditions for a more cosumer-centric approach, collectively we still struggle. So many of the structures and systems set up to deliver marketing activities actively encourage businesses (on the advertiser and agency side) not to be consumer-centric, but instead, company-centric.
The rigidity in the way that businesses set up teams and reporting lines (along with the metrics and incentives that these teams work to), the way that budgets are allocated to specific parts of an advertiser’s porfolio (or worse still to specific media channels or types) or the types of systems that companies use to manage marketing (especially when data and the consumer journey is concerned) all create silos within and at the periphery of the marketing function that prevent a ‘consumer first’ mindset.
The customer doesn’t see these walls - and they certainly don’t care. To come back to the starting point for this post, nor do they identify themselves in terms of the media channels they consume. Ultimately, it is this fact which makes the false binary of the ‘this channel vs. that’ debate so redundant. Speak to a person about their media consumption and the mode of access will likely only get a cursory mention. By contrast, the media brands they spend time will be prominent and guide the conversation. People will use the media brands they consume a means of identifying and describing their interests and passions. They will use these brands as a means of projecting information about who they are and who they want to be.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems associated with media planning in the age of ‘programmatic everything’ is the flattening of this vital contextual nuance. Want to reach petrol heads? Reach them everywhere, not just on Top Gear or What Car?
Reorientating around context - and specific media brands and sub brands - is not just going to be vital for dealing with the post cookie future, but is a vital lever in navigating a media landscape that is going to continue to fragment. Don’t get obsessed with the channels you’re using, but instead focus on the media brands - in their broadest sense - that are influential in a specific situation (e.g category, brand task, audience) and use these as the guiding logic for media planning and channel choices. Think about where these media brands appear - and how you might position your brand around them, both through the use of standard advertising assets but also non-standard asssets and activations (like product placement, partnerships, experiences etc). Use data around channel consumption to understand how people interact with these brands in different ways - on ‘the main screen’ vs. Youtube Mobile, for example - and use this understanding to ensure you’re putting the most effective message you can infront of them. Similarly, think about the role that time of day, location etc can have on the way you communicate or the level of ‘purchase intent’ that might exist. Is the audience in a ‘lean back’ or ‘lean in’ mode? What is the role of emotion? What is the role of information?
So often the answer to challenges around silos within an organisations comes down to a shrug of the shoulders… and begrudging acceptance that ‘this is just the way we do it round here’. In these instances it might be useful to think about what Adam Morgan calls propelling questions and ‘can if’ thinking : what are the constrains you’re dealing with , and how might you overcome these by reframing your interaction with the situational components of your approach to work?
The invisible walls that are erected within marketing organisations need to come down for marketers and brand-owners to deal with the challenges they face in the media landscape - and rather than obsessing with the route to market, we all need to get comfortable orientating ourselves around the media brands which are influential and the contexts where these brands appear, if we’re going to successfully navigate the world in which we find ourselves.
So. Some post-script.
It’s March. How did that happen?
Writing has been a struggle due to work committments, but hoping to get back into the habit of posting again now that a big project has been delivered. In other news, i’ve started a substack which I hope will become a home for some writing that it less-advertising and less-brand orientated and instead orientated around books, film and telly… little reviews which you might find interesting. Please sign up here.
