What is Ad Majorem?

Thank you for visiting my blog, Ad Majorem.  When it started in the late 2000s, it was a view on modern marketing from within a large advertising agency.  Now it’s a view on modern marketing from the perspective of a CMO.

The title, Ad Majorem, is part of a familiar Latin phrase and loosely translates to English as “to the greater.”  As in, there is always an opportunity for better marketing: stronger consumer insights, more powerful ideas, channel-neutral marketing plans, and accountability so we know what sells and what doesn’t.

 

There’s also always an opportunity for better marketing people.  It’s important to me that team members keep learning as they go, staying curious and maintaining a perspective of continuous improvement.  We’re happier when we’re learning and growing, so that will continue to be a theme here.

The “ad” in Ad Majorem means all marketing communications, from social media to direct mail to Internet gaming to television commercials. To most consumer audiences all of these are advertising. My professional experience

in these channels provides a perspective that is part specialist, part generalist.

A lot has changed since 2009, not all of it “to the greater.”  We’re at a very inauspicious moment, with uncertainty, threats, deepfakes and divisions.  This blog has always avoided politics, and will continue to avoid politics, because there are too many wannabe pundits in marketing and advertising already.

That said, there’s always hope for the future, so the tone here will be hopeful as well as honest.  Don’t come here for dirt, fear or loathing. The closest I’ll come to that is self-criticism of the marketing business. Occasionally I’ll stray into a review of a campaign but only in service of a larger point.

Please comment. Otherwise this wouldn’t be an honest look at an industry where communication with consumers should be two-way, not just one-way.

One thing hasn’t changed since I started this blog.  Ad Majorem’s reason for being is to keep myself honest on embracing the challenges and changes of modern marketing. My hope is that you, too, will derive some professional growth from it.

Chances Are You're Watching TV While Reading This Post

"Ninety percent of consumers are multitasking while watching TV.  On average, Millennials and Xers are doing three additional activities while watching TV, typically surfing the web, emailing, texting, or social networking."  -- Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey, fielded November 2014.

Source:  Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey
(Click to enlarge)

Happy Twitterversary

Eight years ago today I tweeted for the first time.

To celebrate, Twitter lost 24% of its market value yesterday.

Twitter hatches

Although I didn't remember exactly what I tweeted that first time back in 2007, nor the exact date, I very clearly remembered the circumstances.  Twitter had suddenly taken SXSW by storm the month before.  I was on a business trip to Europe, reading an article about it in The Economist and decided to give it a try.

Signing up back then was very different:  You SMS'd to 40404 and by exchanging text messages you established a username and got started.  Coincidentally, just the other day I discovered a site that will find your first tweet.  I entered @SteveS1 and suddenly it all came back to me:

(Yes, I misspelled "coffee".  So sue me.)

Twitter lays an egg of its own

Yesterday afternoon Twitter's stock price was a fairly typical $51.19, but then their (somewhat) disappointing 1st quarter results came out prematurely and a day later shares are trading at $38.98.  That's about a 24% decline, not far from where it was on Day 1.

Is that bad?  Not really, for two reasons.

First, this news puts Twitter in proper company with the rest of the tech world, subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  Just because Twitter is famous doesn't mean its stock won't go up or down.

Second, they're still racking up some impressive ad revenue, "only" $435.9 million in 1st quarter, which was 74% above the same quarter a year earlier.  Yes, it was a drop from the previous quarter, but their chief sin seems to have been missing financial analysts' expectations, which were more like $456.8 million.

The real question is whether this news represents a real weakness in ability to attract ad revenue.  Or as Twitter CEO Dick Costolo put it, the company had a "demand problem".  Here again, they're in proper company.  Many emerging media platforms have this problem, because advertisers aren't sure how or whether a new medium fits in their overall mix.

I'm not an investor in Twitter, so I can watch this play out with merely professional curiosity — what about you?  Any thoughts on the future of Twitter?

Ad Spending: Pixels are Up, Ink & Paper are Down

U.S. ad spending went up slightly in 2014 because pixels increased more than ink & paper declined.

That's my analysis of fresh data from Kantar Media summarized in this chart:

The pixels were TV (+5.5%) and Internet Display (+0.9%).  Representing ink & paper were Magazines (-5.1%), Newspapers (-10%), Outdoor (-0.2%) and FSIs (-2.8%).  Radio was also down -3.9%.

Like everything in modern media, though, it's never this simple.

Two Questions to Think About

Please consider the environment
before printing this billboard

The "pixels" category above only seems to represent the "First Screen" (TV) and the "Second Screen" (personal computers).  We don't see the Third Screen (mobile devices) and Fourth Screen (digital out of home).  That leaves us with a couple of questions.

What is TV?  As posted recently, TV isn't dead, it's just morphing into a more personalized experience.  If anything is dying, it's Cable TV.  Now, Cable ad spend actually grew +6.8% last year, a big reason for TV growing +5.5% overall, thanks to sports and political campaigns.  But viewers are cutting the cord, or at least shaving it, in favor of new OTT options.  The thing is, it's harder to track the ad revenue, which is there if you're watching The Flash online at CWtv.com, but not if you're watching House of Cards on Netflix.  Kantar says their data doesn't track online and mobile video ad spend.

What is Outdoor?  The vast majority of OOH (Out of Home) inventory is still ink & paper, although many media companies continue investing in DOOH (Digital Out of Home) and Digital Place-based Media.  Kantar pointed out "digital outdoor ad spending has grown six times faster than the overall medium".  So it's reasonable to say that Outdoor's -0.2% decline is probably a mix of pixels being up and ink & paper being down.

The State of TV Advertising on the Eve of the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl has always symbolized the power of TV advertising.  Is that power waning?

Many business journalists seem to think the Super Bowl is the last bastion of TV advertising.  Just this morning as I was writing this post, The Economist daily news digest arrived, calling the Super Bowl "something increasingly rare in television: a programme that people watch live and in large numbers."

Surprise! Most TV Viewing is Still Done on a TV

Now let me explain
"Programmatic" to you

Actually, Live TV viewing is holding steady at about 4-1/2 hours per day.  Yes, 66.8% of Broadband Users Under 35 watch TV on a combination of these devices, but for all age groups most TV viewing is still done on a TV.  

This will shock Upper West Siders who binge-watch Orange Is The New Black on Netflix.  But regular people are watching live sports, NCIS, Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, Judge Judy and Big Bang Theory.  Bazinga!  

But Fragmentation Will Continue

TV was never dying; it was just following audiences to new platforms.  Cable supplanted Broadcast and new devices emerged like DVRs, OTT, Online and Mobile.  There will always be big audiences, but they will continue fragmenting.  In Ye Olde Marketing buying and selling TV was relatively straightforward and audience delivery was measured by Nielsen.  But now audiences are fragmented and sometimes not even measured.  Only Netflix knows how big the audience for Orange or House of Cards really is.  (A Los Angeles Times reporter tried thinking it through.)

The Super Bowl doesn't have this problem.  The marquee advertising will air during NBC's broadcast, and people will see it on TVs, tablets and other places.  The audiences will be big enough that few advertisers will worry about under-delivery against their $4.5 million (unless they're spending that money in the 4th quarter of a one-sided blowout).

The Revolution May Not Be Televised, but TV Will Be Personalized

But even in a big event that almost everyone watches or knows about, we see the future of TV:  Personalization.  For the Super Bowl it takes the form of second- and third-screen programming, i.e. game analysis, ad analysis and social media traffic.  Little of this is driven from broadcaster to audience; it's more of a conversation where both participate.  The famous Oreo dunk-in-the-dark tweet generated very small response:  15,000 Retweets and 20,000 Likes.  (In fact they probably generated more blog posts than that, but I digress.)  But it's OK because they learned how be part of people's conversations.  

In the same way, Oreo's latest stunt -- yes, it's a stunt -- using programmatic methods to buy a :15 in the Erie (Pennsylvania) DMA is a harbinger of things to come.  "Programmatic" is one of those words that's taken on too many meanings, but it's generally associated with media buying, just like the online ad world from which it came.  Its real value will be as a pathway to addressable TV, a way for audiences to customize the programs they see -- and advertisers to customize the messages that make them possible.

Enjoy the game -- and the ads -- and know that you'll always have plenty of company watching that first screen.  Keep one eye on those other screens, too, because they're a window to the future.

Mobile Devices Are a Way for Consumers to Reach Brands -- Not for Brands to Reach Consumers

Here's something advertisers and agencies seem slow to understand:  Mobile devices are not a way for brands to reach consumers; they're a way for consumers to reach brands.

Consider that the mobile device — the smartphone especially — is a very private zone in a person's life.  They don't necessarily want ads of any kind invading that personal space.

But the smartphone is wonderful tool for consumers to invade your space as a marketer.  Via Internet searches, shopping apps, social media and conversations with friends, they do it whether you invite them or not.

So why not invite them?

Use Mobile to Invite Customers and Prospects

Customers and prospects can contact you via certain smartphone apps.  The most-maligned is QR codes.  In the picture below is a QR code I saw this past weekend on the back of a service vehicle in Chicago.  I can't think of any better example of consumer-UNfriendly QR codes than this photo from WTF QR Codes which also sums up why I avoid them.

Not much of
an invitation

At the other end of the customer convenience spectrum is Messaging — SMS, MMS, P2P and other emerging tools.  Most of these are built in to a smartphone and very familiar, but there are also newer apps like Kik that would be handy reaching a younger audience (like Ad Majorem's teenage children).

There's also social media, of course, but only invite people to "Follow Us On Twitter!" if there's a darn good reason.

If you are extending an invitation to consumers at retail, it may be time to look again at NFC.  Could it be coming back thanks to the iPhone 6?  I've been bullish on NFC ever since my first project back in 2012 but it's been traveling a stubbornly slow adoption curve.

Ask for an R.S.V.P.

Sorry to torture the "invitation" metaphor a bit, but using "R.S.V.P." as an abbreviation, here are some principles to keep in mind:

• Response is the goal.  You're not going to rack up millions of "impressions" via Mobile (you might) but you may invite millions of customer interactions.  In other words, the quality of your audience, not the quantity, is what matters.  Think app dowloads, not ads served.

• Start with your consumer.  When and where might they be looking for something useful, informative or entertaining?  That's your chance to engage.  This Forrester video describes how American Airlines designed their mobile app around their customers' travel experience.

• Voice must be …inviting.  This past year during a radio interview, a local political candidate invited people to text him for more information — which I did, only to get an auto-reply asking for donations.  Since when do you invite people over and then ask them to pay?

• Perpetuate the relationship.  The old way of thinking is to stage a marketing or advertising event, but the kind of dialogue marketing both permits and requires today is a process, not an event.  The beauty of Mobile is that consumers can reach brands — and brands can keep that conversation going.  

Related: Who "Owns" Mobile?

Tablets Are Not "Mobile". They're "Portable"

This has been bugging me for a while.

Tablets — be it the iPad, the Kindle, the Galaxy or anything with a capacitive touchscreen larger than a Pop Tart — should not be considered mobile devices, like smartphones.

Consumer behavior proves it

All Mobile is Portable but
Not All Portable is Mobile

Sure, tablets and smartphones both run on the same "mobile" operating systems like iOS or Android, but people use them differently.  For example, people report accessing the Internet in their living rooms on both tablets (72%) and smartphones (67%), but in out of home situations, the numbers are quite different.  On the daily commute, for example, 49% use their smartphones and only 9% use their tablets.  In Stores, 75% use their smartphones and very few use their tablets.  (All of this research comes from a 2013 Forrester study; see a nice summary here.)

Why does this matter?  Follow the Money

Likewise, not all mobile ad spending is created equal.  When you hear things like "Mobile advertising spend will be about $18 Billion globally in 2014" you need to think beyond tiny, unreadable banner ads on a smartphone.  Those big numbers also include banner ads and video pre-roll that are better seen on a tablet.  That $18 Billion also includes a lot of Paid Search, which is a natural ad medium on the tablet, and a lot of Messaging, which is a natural ad medium on the smartphone.

Google Agrees:  Tablets Are Not "Mobile"  

In an SEC filing last January, Google admitted that as tablets became more ubiquitous, "their usage had much more in common with desktops than with handsets".  Going further, they said "the meaning of 'mobile' at Google has shifted dramatically to 'handset' from 'tablet + handset'."  Why tell the SEC?  Because it affects how they report their very considerable ad revenue.  It also affects how they might collect revenue in the future:  This was the same SEC filing that grabbed headlines like "Google Will Advertise on Thermostats".  So the definition of "Mobile" also matters to Google, but it goes way beyond tablets to the so-called Internet of Things, or in Google's case, the Internet of Things That Collect Ad Revenue.

God bless them.  As long as they start referring to tablets as "portable" devices.

Small Media Agencies Far from a Dying Breed (UPDATED)

Last week's news about KSL Media going bankrupt sent one trade publication jumping to conclusions.  AdAge.com blared:  "KSL Bankruptcy Calls Into Question Marketer Appetite for Indie Media Shops".  The gist of the story was that KSL had to go out of business because it was losing clients to big, holding-company media agencies.  Indeed, Bacardi left KSL for Mindshare this year.  Could one client loss really kill a small media agency?

If only it were just $8,000

It's actually a much more dramatic story:  Former KSL controller Geoffrey Charness is accused of embezzling tens of millions of dollars.  (We hasten to add he's innocent until proven guilty.)

It’s no crime, however, to be an "indie media shop".  Independent media agencies serve clients that the big agencies overlook, and do it well.

There's no question that scale counts when negotiating low CPMs on a big budget.  But scale isn't everything in media.  

“Media” and “Creative” aren’t mutually exclusive

Media has become more creative in recent years, driven by the development of hundreds of new ways for brands and consumers to connect with one another.  In other words, media isn't just about scale, it's about innovation.  

Large media agencies have no more of a monopoly on innovation than do large creative agencies.  It's interesting to note that TurboTax recently awarded its creative account to Wieden + Kennedy -- and then, two months later, also gave them the media planning and buying assignment.

We'll find out how the KSL-embezzlement-bankruptcy storyline plays out over the next few weeks.  It won't be pretty for the employees who faithfully executed their duties every day, coming up with ideas to build their clients' businesses.

But it’s safe to say that we'll still have "indie media shops" far into the future, continuing to build clients' businesses in ways we can't even imagine.

UPDATED 11 October 2013:

The plot thickens.  Today MediaPost is reporting that KSL Media loaned millions of dollars to senior execs, even in its waning days.

Digital Out Of Home Media is All About Engagement

This past week the Digital Screenmedia Association held a symposium which captured the big trends in -- well, a kind of media that goes by several names.  Digital Out Of Home, or DOOH.  Digital Place-based Media.  Digital POP.  If there’s no consensus on what to call it, you know it’s a dynamic part of the media universe.  Watch this space!  (Literally and figuratively.)

What is Digital Out of Home?

Just to give it a little more definition, DOOH includes electronic billboards, stadiums, in-store video, and place-based networks reaching into doctors’ offices, gas station pumps, public transit, ATM machines, bars, malls and many other nooks and crannies of daily life.  Penetration is especially high in Europe and some Asian cities, and increasing in North America.

Now THIS is consumer engagement!

These screens are popping up everywhere because the technology behind them is getting cheaper to build and install.  Moreover, people are on the move so much that marketers are looking for new ways to engage them.  Still, there’s a sense that marketers under-utilize digital out of home.

That may change when some of the following trends start to materialize.

Engagement is the future of digital screens

Throughout the two days, engagement was a constant theme.  Technology permits not only a million screens, but ways for consumers to use those screens to get more information, get entertained or get some useful information.  Many of you know about R/GA’s interactive billboards for Nike.  In the future it might look like this scene from Minority Report, which Tom Fishburne delightfully sent up with one of his cartoons.  We’ll know the technology jumped the shark when Jaws 19 comes out.

Mobile is the tool

Here and now, Mobile will propel consumer engagement with DOOH.  It’s been clear to me for some time that Mobile isn’t a way for brands to reach consumers, it’s a way for consumers to reach brands.  If they think you'll help them shop, save, win, laugh or learn, you’re in.  DOOH gives brands another opportunity to earn consumers’ invitations to their mobile devices. 

DOOH Engagement:  What’s Next?

QR codes are teaching the behavior of holding up your phone to a scannable image, but there are new, easier ways for the consumer to invite you in.  What’s next?

In Chicago, elevate Digital is deploying truly interactive displays in and around the Loop that encourage participation via social media, connecting with consumers via their own experiences.  In New York, Perch Interactive designs point-of-purchase displays that encourage interaction with a product -- and deliver information about it in the ten seconds that a shopper handles it.  Numerous companies, like Ocutag, GroundCntrl and ShopOne, are developing new ways for CPG marketers to connect with shoppers in the grocery and mass retail channels.

In-store is Out-of-Home

DOOH also happens in the retail environment.  Jennifer Nye, retail channel manager for Kohler, pointed out that “the store isn’t dead; it’s where customer loyalty can be built.”  To be sure, she added, “It’s not just a matter of putting up screens.”  There must be a strategy.  

Lindsay Wadelton, the Flagship Customer Experience Manager at AT&T’s new store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, described a store where they don’t dramatize the product, but the experiences the product delivers.  Digital, interactive signage makes it possible.

Hello, Mr. Yakamoto, welcome back to The Gap

We may be a long way from Minority Report, but DOOH is showing us the way there.  Especially in an era of consumer privacy concerns and enhanced government snooping, the key for marketers will be to earn consumers' invitations into their lives.

Consumers, Shoppers and/or People

Consumer or Shopper?

Words mean things.  When you have a choice among two or three words to describe something, the word you choose directs your meaning.  We have a lot of choices in the advertising industry.  Media or Channels.  Media agnostic or Media neutral.  Creative or Content.  Then there’s Consumers and Shoppers.

Consumers and Shoppers

For decades, most advertising people referred to their client’s customers as “consumers”.  There were exceptions, like the mobile phone maker who sold handsets to retailers so they could sell to “end users”.  Of course, every company defines their own target, like the QSR chain who wanted more SHUs (Super Heavy Users) or the brewer who really understood KBDs (Key Beer Drinkers).  The industry generic term, however, was “consumers”.

Not many years ago, the rise of shopper marketing created an industry trend seeking to distinguish “consumers” from “shoppers”.  The thought was that “consumers” see your advertising, but by the time they reach the store, they are “shoppers”, prone to forget what you told them once they see a special offer, display or demonstration.  The store was a medium and its audience was shoppers. 

Mobile Changes All That

We used to distinguish between Consumers and Shoppers but that’s no longer helpful because it’s no longer a distinction.  The shopping process starts at home, when the Consumer sees your advertising and starts researching or even shopping online.  If a trip to the store is involved, the research may even continue at shelf.  The advent of Near Field Communication is going to propel that behavior.

In other words, a Consumer becomes a Shopper much earlier in the purchase process.  (We could go a step further and say that a Shopper was always a Consumer in the end.)

Why It Matters

• Marketing has to be integrated just like the purchase cycle.  In the early days of IMC, marketers and agencies made matching luggage, and in more recent years discovered channel planning.  Often, though, we were artificially connecting the channels.  The mobile device makes that connection more genuine than ever.

• Mobile’s influence will always exceed its budget.  There’s a lot of industry discussion about how Mobile’s enormous usage “deserves” a much greater percentage of the marketing budget.  I would argue for Mobile’s cost-efficiency:  You spend less because it’s targeted to people who ask for the messages.

• Consumers, Shoppers and/or People.  Consumer insights and Shopper insights all come from people.  It does little good to segregate consumer insights from shopper insights because it's all part of the same, continuous purchase cycle.  You have to understand the whole consumer.

Or the whole person.  As a creative director once asked me:  Why can’t we just call them “people”?

Small Talk and Social Media

Don’t you hate small talk?  I do, too.  But it teaches us something about Social Media.

The most banal of small talk happens in forced encounters.  Co-workers cross paths in the corridor or cafeteria.  Neighbors coming or going in their entryways.  “How are you doing?”  “Fine, thanks, and you?”  “Fine, thank you.”

The next level of small talk is more interesting because it reveals things about people.  Someone ventures a little more, maybe “We’re almost done with a big job” or “I’m hoping to get home in time for my son’s game”.

As that person steps away, perhaps off the elevator, what’s the response?  Nonchalant?  Good luck.  Cynical?  Good luck with that.  Encouraging?  Go for it! 

Small Talk and Social Media

Those exchanges reveal things about both people.  The degree to which the first one shares will tell us what matters to them.  The second person’s response is reflexive, in the moment, telling us if they are encouraging, friendly, sincere, cynical, robotic or humorless.

Much of Social Media is like this.  No one forces you into a how-are-you-oh-I’m-fine encounter.  You engage because you want to, on a topic that matters.  In the above examples, the first person is the one who blogged, tweeted or posted.  The second is the person who linked, retweeted or liked.

How does that work for your ongoing Social Media program?

3 Lessons for Marketers

1. Have a personality.  Social Media happens via technology but humans drive it.  Humans have personalities.  What personality fits your business, brand or product?  If this sounds like social media claptrap to you, consider that your brand already has a personality.  For example, if you’ve ever written a Brand Positioning document, you probably included a Brand Character or Brand Personality.  (Normally these are just words on a page that never seem to come across in advertising.)  More practically, your brand expresses a personality by its interactions with consumers:  calls into the toll-free number or service center, package copy or retail representatives.  Like it or not, these add up to a personality.  Think hard about what makes sense for your business, and apply it to Social Media (as well as other channels).
2. Put the right people on it.  Depending on the size of your business, you may handle the small talk yourself, or have one person handling it for you, perhaps even a department.  Whatever the scale, someone has to set the tone, following the personality you’ve prescribed.  Obviously this person has to be a skilled communicator, which takes emotional intelligence and a sense of judgment.  There will always be some deviations, but over time the personality should be clear and consistent.
3. Figure out what you’re going to say.  The worst kind of small talk is the self-absorbed, it’s-all-about-me variety.  In the same way, few people will engage if you’re just talking about your product or service.  People go places on the Internet to be informed or entertained.  Maybe that’s an oversimplification, but it’s also a good place to start.  How can you make it worth someone’s while to engage with your blog, Twitter or Facebook page? 

To that point, above all:  Be authentic.  If your personality is wrong, everything you do will seem forced.

What have been your best and worst experiences using Social Media?  What did you learn from them?

Spider Charts Are Just Wrong

If you work in marketing or advertising, chances are you’ve seen a spider chart. These are supposed to impress upon us the vast number of consumer touchpoints reached by your IMC plan.

Although actual arachnids have eight legs, most marketing spider charts have many more. The more the merrier! Surround the consumer! I call this spidermania. You can see some examples, here, here and here.

There is a corollary effect to spidermania: Matching Luggage. This is the persistent belief that all marketing communications for a brand or product must look exactly alike.

Where did Spider Charts come from?

In the days of Ye Olde Marketing the media landscape was known territory and easy to navigate for clients, agencies and consumers. Even if your map went beyond broadcast and print media to include public relations or sports marketing or – remember this one? – guerrilla marketing, the task of budget allocation was straightforward.

When cable TV exploded, direct marketing matured, the Internet emerged and shopper marketing was invented, the landscape looked like those parts of Medieval maps warning Here Be Dragons. We tried in vain to organize everything in a way that made sense. Spider charts became a widely used tool.

Spider Charts illustrate how Clients and Agencies Use Media

The problem is that spider charts represent how marketing and advertising people use media. This perspective distorts your view in three ways:

1. You can’t guarantee a consumer will see all these things. They may look nice on the conference room wall, but what if the consumer only sees one or two executions? Will you still achieve your goal?
2. Assumes a “push” approach to marketing communications. Reach. Frequency. Penetration. These are important but we can no longer succeed with them alone. Some legs of the spider don’t work that way.
3. Misses the role of dialogue among consumers. Word-of-mouth has always outperformed any advertising, it was just hard to know how – until now. Social Media is not “push” nor “pull” but friends recommending things to friends. Spider charts miss that.

So what’s a better way?

Gigantic Venn Diagram Illustrates How Consumers Use Media

Marketing communications today is like a Gigantic Venn Diagram, its design constantly shifting from client to client, and from project to project. It would be nice if all the various media would just stay still for a moment and let us plan a client’s marketing communications. But it won’t. There will always be some new medium, platform or tactic bubbling up in the minds of programmers, entrepreneurs or venture capitalists.

By the way, this is wonderful. The Gigantic Venn Diagram may be confounding, but it should also be exciting. This is the best time in history to work in marketing communications.

It’s also reality. Consumers use these different media interchangeably and simultaneously. TV and Social Media. Mobile and Retail. QR codes and Direct Mail.

So what looks good on the conference room wall?

You may like spider charts for presentation purposes, and if it works for you, at least proceed with caution. Here are three other ways.

· Divide according to the purchase cycle. Many of you use the path to purchase or a funnel diagram to describe how the different media work together. We have been working with McKinsey for the past three years utilizing their Consumer Decision Journey.
· Organize according to media usage. Imagine a chart that divides advertising (communication that interrupts and/or persuades) from information or entertainment (communication that invites participation). Consumers use these very differently and so should we.
· Draw a Gigantic Venn Diagram. Honestly I am not sure yet if the GVD is a good presentation tool or maybe just a way to think about things during the planning process. It has definitely helped immerse me in a particular project, but only after I’ve done my homework.

That homework is critical. The same consumer insight that drives a creative brief should drive a channel plan. If you haven’t done that work, then you won’t get anywhere.

In any case, my hope is that phony spidermania has bitten the dust.

Account. Creative. Planner. Client. Um, Media?

You may have the seen the above chart already; it’s making the rounds of social media among advertising people this week. Summarizing some stereotypes about account people, creative, planners and clients, it also cross-references how they all perceive one another. (Click the image to enlarge it.) It’s funny because it’s true.

In fact it first came to me via an email from Mike Keeler saying, “Sent from my brother. True.” Then someone else replied pointing out that it’s also incomplete: “Genius! But yet again media has been left out!” Ouch. It isn’t funny because it’s true.

The same thing happened last year with another bit of agency satire, an infographic called “The Anatomy Of An Agency”. The roles in that case were accounts, art director, copywriter, developer, and finance. Media was left out there, too.

Do these ads even run anywhere?

Recently we asked if Creative and Media have forgotten each other. Perhaps it comes from the spinoff of media agencies back in the 1990s. Perhaps it’s too much focus on the steps required to get an ad out the door. But at some point you’ve got to ask yourself where is a consumer going to see this creative work?

It’s not an academic question, and it applies equally to SEM copy, Direct Mail, banner ads and TV commercials. In fact that’s why the question is even more important than it was in the days of Ye Olde Marketing. The media landscape is such a Gigantic Venn Diagram that Media, or Comms Planning, is absolutely vital.

In fact, not only is it vital, it’s fun. As we traded comments on this subject, Keeler reminded me that “In this rapidly developing world of new media, the planning and buying of media is one of the most creative aspects of any campaign.”

A Modest Proposal

Anyone want to take a crack at how Media fits into “Perception in the Advertising World”?

More Unusual Overlap on the Gigantic Venn Diagram

Often on Ad Majorem we discuss the Gigantic Venn Diagram, a concept that captures how the media landscape continues to change all the time and how consumers use media in a lot of different combinations.

This morning I’d like to direct your attention to a good article that should have been datelined from “An Unusual Overlap on the Gigantic Venn Diagram.” No, not The Twilight Zone. The QR code.

Yes, the QR code. It’s been criticized for a number of reasons, mainly due to its misuse by clueless marketers who insist on putting it in useless places like 30-sheet billboards along major highways.

David Henkel points out, however, that a QR code can be an effective direct mail tactic. Now that U.S. smartphone penetration exceeds that of feature phones, it's easier to imagine someone using a QR code to get more information about the product or offer they see on a piece of paper.

I hasten to add that like all technology, QR codes are not a solution unto themselves. Consumers will only respond to them if marketers communicate something relevant enough to cause a response.

So, here’s an overlap on the Gigantic Venn Diagram to think about: Direct Mail, Mobile, and Websites. It hits all of the Three Ds (Digital, Direct and Data) but better still, it recognizes how consumers use media.

Thanks to my colleague Patrick Moorhead for pointing out Henkel’s article.

Creative + Media = Comms Planning

Have Creative and Media been apart so long that they've forgotten each other?

Some will say, "No, how could that be? We hear every day about the changing media landscape, so how could anyone in advertising ever forget media?”

There's a difference, though, between what we hear every day and what we do every day. While it is absolutely false that legions of agency people robotically write only TV storyboards every day, it's equally true that few creatives get guidance on where and when their work will engage a consumer. Why? It could be lack of vision, adherence to a routine, or the artificial separation of Creative and Media from the spinoff of media agencies in the 1990s.

The Creative Brief is not enough

This week we had a group briefing for a new project. There were many great questions about the consumer, how she shops the category, and her decision making process. Suddenly the creative director asked an important question.

"Have we thought about Comms Planning?"

The very same question was on my mind, but it meant so much more coming from the creative director. She was clearly thinking about all the different ways to engage the consumer, and high on her list was how consumers could engage with their friends. (As I've written before, Social Media is just word-of-mouth + technology, allowing us to drive it better than we ever have.)

I'd like to think she asked this question because we're one of the few agencies that still has a media department, but that's not it. There wasn't a Media person in the room at the time. Besides, "Media" may not even be the right word. (I almost put it in scare quotes in the title of this post.)

Call it what you will, but there’s no point in calling it anything unless you’re going to do something about it in day-to-day business. “Media agnostic” is a bad term, partly because it describes a philosophy instead of something practical. “Comms planning” is better because it says we’re going to do something. (Notably, this was the first time I had ever heard an American ad person use the term "comms planning" in a regular, day-to-day meeting. It comes up in punditry all the time but as a business term it's rare.)

5 Steps to Comms Planning

If your normal practice is to just write the brief and hope that a media agency doesn’t prescribe 100% :15 TV ads when you thought shopper marketing was important, try taking these steps.

1. Leverage your work on consumer insights for the creative brief. It’s the same consumer and if you’ve done your homework, you know this person. That insight can help you understand how he or she uses media.

2. Apply that insight to how the consumer shops the category. At some point “the consumer” becomes “the shopper” and along that journey she uses different media. Think about how to engage her along the way.

3. Learn about channels outside your comfort zone. Technology is driving all the changes in the media landscape, but not all of those changes are digital. Retail disciplines like shopper marketing are important, too.

4. Prepare yourself to adjust the creative message according to channel. This is just common sense; a great TV spot drives awareness, talk value may be expressed via social media, and retail promotion may close the sale.

5. Think in terms of a business solution, not just a media solution. "Media" and "Channel" are both words describing a conduit, a means to an end, or the delivery of something. They don’t, however, just deliver messages or conduct word of mouth, they help you achieve a business objective.

You achieve your business objective on the strength of both Creative and Media. Don’t let them forget about each other.