Pablo Picasso, Media Theorist
The quote above was on the wall in the first room of the Capturing The Moment exhibition at Tate Modern.
In the context of yet more ‘TV is dead’ style discussion in the last few weeks it’s a useful provocation for communications planners to keep in mind.
Typically, the industry narrative goes something like this: That the arrival of new channels, technologies or routes to market immediately render existing ones obsolete. Whilst this narrative makes for good copy driving clicks and traffic, the reality is somewhat different. My go-to on this topic is Russell Davies, who wrote the following back in 2007:
“The tendency (is) to argue that they arrival of X will cause the total eradication of Y. The internet will destroy television. Phones will destroy MP3 players. Curry will destroy chips (that didn’t happen did it?). We all do this. I do it. You get carried away with rhetoric and enthusiasm and forget that the likely scenario will be that everything will be a blurry munge like it was before, with this new element added in”
Not only is ‘blurry munge’ a lovely phrase, but the broader point is a good one. Lots of things that notionally compete with one another - technological things - are able to live happily alongside one another. This is because whilst they look like they do the same thing in the same way, this usually isn’t true. Each technology will have unique, innate qualities which make them appealing to certain people or uniquely capable of certain tasks in certain contexts.
Picasso’s observation about the impact of photography’s arrival on painting reframes technological advancement as an opportunity for incumbent media channels, rather than a problem.
This reframing provides the potential to apply a new formula to the media plan, namely:
Liberated from having to satisfy X (Comms Task), Y (Channel) can focus on Z (Comms Task)
Rather than lamenting what TV (or any other channel) doesn’t do so well any more vs new channels, why not really focus on what it is absolutely brilliant at? And then double down on those qualities.
The media toolkit at a planner’s disposal has never been more varied or more sophisticated. But, the variety of tools available to us is a feature of fragmentation. As a result there is an obvious need and indeed, opportunity, to renew our focus on craft in media and communications planning. And whilst that thought isn’t as sensational as ‘X is dead’ style headlines - it’s arguably a more radical position to take. One that, as Omar Oakes said in his weekly newsletter this week, not only requires, but demands us to get creative again rather than seeing media planning as a purely numbers orientated game.
