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)

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.

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.

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”?

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”?

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.

Marketing and Public Relations Continue to Converge

Marketing and Public Relations continue to converge.

This week Johnson & Johnson promoted Michael Sneed to VP—Global Corporate Affairs. What’s significant about this news is that Sneed will oversee both Marketing and Public Relations, which in many companies are totally separate or even siloed from one another. J&J needs to coordinate them, however, given the backlash from recent recalls of Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and some other products. In those crises J&J learned an object lesson on how Social Media is a big force driving the convergence of Marketing and Public Relations.

Don’t Wait for a Crisis

It shouldn’t take a crisis to make companies consider this approach. The very existence of Social Media can accelerate word-of-mouth conversation, whether it’s bad or good for a company, brand or product. Keeping Public Relations close to Marketing can help raise marketers’ sensitivity to what’s being said. Recently I met with one of our U.S. clients, a VP—Marketing, who has the corporate communications people in his department and right down the hall. (He may be an integration all-star because he also shares his own office with the VP—Sales.)

A Seat at the Table

In one of the articles about J&J’s Michael Sneed, there is a negative note. Although Sneed will report to J&J’s CEO, he will not be a member of the executive committee. I’m not going to rant about how Marketing needs to be in the center of things – although it crossed my mind. The bigger question is why a company that had to shut down the Tylenol factory, pay over a hundred million dollars in settlements and defend against numerous lawsuits didn’t learn enough from the experience to keep external communications front and center.

The Role of Creative Production

Exploding Growth in Media Formats Puts More Demand on Creative Production

It’s a cruel quirk of advertising lingo when financial terms creep into normal business practices and hijack their identity.

One such example is “below the line.” In the days of Ye Olde Marketing most agency invoices were simple calculations of a 15% commission. An accountant, faced with expenses that had to be billed as one-time fees, drew a line on the invoices and listed the non-commissionable items below it. The commission structure hardly exists anymore, but the important work of Digital and Promotion gets stuck with a moniker that connotes second-class status.

Production: "Non-Working?"

In a similar way, Media and Production expenses are defined on some budget documents as “Working” and “Non-Working.” Production is said to be “Non-Working.” More than a few agency producers have complained about this term, especially in an era of tight budgets. Anything called “Non-Working” is just begging to be reduced.

At the very same time in history that Production budgets are squeezed, its role is more important than ever. As a colleague succinctly put it the other day: Exploding growth in media formats puts more demand on creative production.

Production costs were predictable in the past. Each discipline, be it Advertising, Promotion or Direct Marketing, knew what kind of programs they could expect to do. The biggest variable was a higher cost for a more elaborate TV commercial, in-store display or mailer.

Two Kinds of Complexity

In modern times you see two kinds of added complexity. One is that there are many new channels of communication, or as my colleague put it, “media formats.” As we’ve posted before, even “TV” isn’t that simple because it entails various online versions on top of the standard broadcast :30.

The second kind of complexity is that if we truly start a project with a channel-neutral or media-neutral approach, we won’t know ahead of time what mix of old and new formats we’ll be producing.

How to Cope with Exploding Growth in Media Formats

Here are a couple of suggestions on how to cope with this new dynamic.

Consistent Brand Voice. If your brand reinvents itself every year or every quarter, you not only risk confusing your consumer, you make creative production less efficient. Even the most routine IMC program these days has many moving parts across Advertising, Retail and Digital. A consistent approach will make it easier to produce things on the fly. To be clear, the goal is not cookie-cutter creative, it’s running a tight strategic ship.

Plan ahead. A digital agency creative director joked to me once that IMC stands for “I already Made the Commercial.” Too often, TV artificially drives the process. Instead, use to your advantage the long lead times demanded by retailers. A good client-agency partnership will plan one year ahead of time for best synchronization of efforts.

Media neutral production. Starting a project with a consistent brand voice and one year of lead time is useless if you then just assign production silo by silo. How can the various specialists help one another? At some point each one has to tend to her own work, but starting everyone from the same place makes it easier to synchronize.

Be a cost-control maniac. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: That’s why God created Procurement. As marketers, however, we have a responsibility to deliver great work at a reasonable budget. Challenge yourself and your colleagues to find new ways to save money. (At some point in the near future we’ll elaborate on this point.)

Any other experiences, suggestions or questions?

Disintermediation II

My presentation to BOLO 2011 is available on SlideShare. Click here to read or download it. The topic was "Disintermediation," or "cutting out the middleman." The presentation defines what it is -- and what it's not -- with some suggestions on how to prevent it. You may also want to read "Disintermediation," my post from last November.

Marketing Silos

In the fields of marketing communications and organizational behavior, there is nothing more sinister than the silo.

Silos prevent cooperation and coordination. Silos signify self-interest and turf battles. Silos are a comfortable place to hide while we practice our specialties, oblivious to opportunities for working with others.

The Truth About Silos

The silo metaphor borrows equally from the Agricultural Revolution and the Information Age. The agricultural reference is a structure for storing bulk materials, usually grain harvested on a farm. An information silo, according to Wikipedia, “is a management system incapable of reciprocal operation with other, related management systems.”

Silos can be dangerous. “It may be fun,” advises an OSU fact sheet, “to jump in the grain or even bury yourself, but this kind of play is very dangerous. Flowing grain acts like quicksand. Once you start to sink it is impossible for you to dig your way to the top. As you dig, the grain keeps shifting under your feet, pushing you deeper towards the bottom.” Shudder.

Marketing Silos are Surrounded by a Barnyard Full of Manure

One of our clients recently ran a program in a medium we do not handle. Our creative director, always passionate about the client’s business, called me this morning to say “it’s not consistent with the brand voice,” and “it’s not relevant to our consumer.” He was right, because this work was done in a silo.

Silos are surrounded by a barnyard full of manure. That barnyard actually reinforces the silo mentality. We can stay in our silos instead of venturing out of comfort zones into something messy and complicated like interpersonal communication. Or a big pile of…. manure.

Connecting the Silos

Last year Evan Rosen wrote a column with good, practical advice for encouraging collaboration. My only quibble was with the title, “Smashing Silos”. The revolutionary tone is appropriate, but the prescription to me is more like “Connecting Silos”. We’ll always need specialists, and they’ll always need a place to put their grain.

Silos aren’t inherently bad unless we stay inside them. As modern marketers, we not only need to know our specialties, but get out of them and see the bigger picture.

(If you liked this post you may also like this one or that one.)

The Changing Role of TV

50 years ago this week, FCC Chairman Newton Minow called TV a “vast wasteland”.

Today, we can argue if TV is a wasteland but there’s no question it’s a vast – and shifting – territory.

The Death of TV has been Greatly Exaggerated

It’s been fashionable in recent years to say that TV, and in particular the 30-second commercial, is dead. Yet people watch a lot of it, which means advertisers still pay for it and producers keep filling it up with content. Supposedly Digital was putting an end to this cycle but so far the billions of hours of video content available online look more like a wasteland than the five hundred channels of TV available to many households. (Attention, digerati, please keep reading before you flame me in the comments section.)

TV Renaissance

In fact the demand for TV content is stronger than ever because TV isn’t just an appliance in your living room anymore. You can watch TV content on any number of devices, and TV advertising in the form of things like pre-roll video and DOOH displays. Jerry Seinfeld, who just launched a new website, observed: "Why would I talk to a TV executive at this point, and ask them what they think? If I have this idea for a TV show, I can just put it up on the Internet." On top of all this, let’s not forget that traditional TV sets offer not only hundreds of channels but the ability to watch programs anytime via the use of DVRs.

Expansion of TV complicates planning, measurement

Regular readers know about the Gigantic Venn Diagram, which is the collection of all available marketing channels across Advertising, Retail and Digital. TV is almost a Gigantic Venn Diagram unto itself, which means it’s impossible to have a TV media plan considering only TV. The confounding thing is that viewership is also a Gigantic Venn Diagram because people are using more than one media at a given time. During the Super Bowl all my Twitter feeds were moving fast with commentary about the game and its commercials. (Mrs. Ad Majorem watches Dancing With The Stars on two screens at once.)

Supply and Demand

Part of the “TV is dead” narrative has been resentment over continually rising prices for TV advertising. In the U.S., two years of recession are now followed by double-digit price increases. We expect the same in Asia and Latin America. “How can this be,” people ask, “when viewership is down and marketers have so many other options?” Three reasons. One, viewership isn’t down – in fact it’s expanding. Two, TV still offers a familiar ratings system – advertisers understand what they’re buying. Three, many of the biggest marketers still depend heavily on high awareness and TV is actually the most cost-efficient way to reach large audiences.

TV is not King

TV is not king; more like a ceremonial monarch with a big bank account, a lot of influence, and an unclear future. While TV is strong culturally and economically, digital media continue to rise in relevance. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that digital ad rates are also up in double-digits. Social Media will force the development of interactive TV. Mobile threatens TV in another important way, taking away part of TV’s broadcast spectrum.

What should you do?

Keep experimenting. Stay abreast of the changes. Continue to take a true channel-neutral approach and use TV in a way that will achieve your own business goals. As we said in a previous post, “How TV fits into IMC”, TV should never be the default position, but neither should it be eschewed. Don’t let labels hold you back. If you shift TV dollars to pre-roll, you can plausibly say you’re “going digital” and that you’re looking at TV expansively.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising

The marketing and advertising world is constantly changing, and so is the way you advance through it.

Recently my business partner and I met with some human resources folks to talk about how our people are faring on the job. Sure, we spent time on performance evaluation, but the real purpose is people development. Nothing enthuses me more than seeing everyone perform up to their full level of potential.

We used to develop people by making them into great specialists, i.e., great advertising people. This meant we taught them to know the client’s business, their competition, their consumer, and of course the ins and outs of how to develop great advertising.

These days the conversation is less about how to make people better specialists, and more about how to make them better generalists. You still have to know the client’s business, but also the ins and outs of advertising, retail and digital.

Put another way, advancement is not so much a straight line through one discipline, but tacking like a sailboat across various disciplines. We will always need specialists, but it’s the generalists who will advance the farthest in agencies of the future.

Some people embrace this approach naturally, teaching themselves about shopper marketing or social media; others purposely change jobs to gain experience. Sadly, some people put their heads in the sand and ignore or even criticize different channels.

My own perspective is that I’d be bored doing the same thing, the same way, for more than a couple of years. I’m grateful that my current job brings new challenges every day, and the chance to try a new way of marketing my clients’ products and services.

The course to growth and advancement

These are some of the buoys in the water that can mark your path to growth and advancement:

Advertising. Yes, advertising. Companies still spend billions of dollars on it. Television is still the fastest way to build awareness of a message, and it’s adapting to a digital world with time-shifting, pre-roll and on-demand programming. A good agency executive gets familiar with all of it.

Retail. Most agency people don’t take the time to understand Retail, whether it’s promotion or shopper marketing. You will perish for lack of knowledge because retailers are gaining so much of your clients’ marketing budgets and this discipline has become much more strategic in the past decade.

Digital. For all the industry trade press coverage of “digital”, the people with practical experience are still a narrow subculture. Your agency may have hired some brand-name experts but you only benefit if you’re working on a digital assignment. You can study Digital but there’s no substitute for experience.

Channel planning. You can only be a true generalist if you know how to combine everything in a way that will drive your client’s business. This seems obvious but it amazes me how seldom it actually gets done, and even then it is not usually done from a true consumer perspective. Just a few years ago, the easy, almost lazy thing to do was draw up a spider chart and “surround the consumer” with as many “touchpoints” as possible. That never really worked.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising

You’ve become a generalist. You understand Advertising, Retail, Digital and Channel Planning. In one of these you’re a specialist. This is how you get ahead in advertising.

Where you work is also part of the equation. Your agency or consultancy may be held back by a traditional view, antiquated organizational structure, lack of capability in specific disciplines, or the lack of a media department that years ago was spun off into a separate agency. The biggest restraint, however, is when an agency loses its ability to know the client’s business, their competition, their consumer, and how to provide business solutions.

The “agency” only loses its ability to the extent its employees lose it. You can control your own development. Familiarize yourself with other disciplines, be a great generalist, but never lose sight of the need to be able to solve a client’s business problems. The path onward and upward isn’t a straight line anymore. You’ll have to be patient and continually improve yourself.

#IMCchat is now bi-weekly

There was another great edition of #IMCchat on Twitter last evening, thanks to moderators Beth Harte and Anna Barcelos. At the end of the session they announced that #IMCchat will now run bi-weekly, so if you want to participate, mark your calendar for Wednesday 16 March at 7:00 p.m. Central U.S. time.

What is IMC?

IMC, or Integrated Marketing Communications, has more than few definitions. Here’s mine: it’s Marketing.

The words “Integrated” and “Communications” are redundant

Any marketer who doesn’t integrate their various marketing communications, in even the smallest way, is so hopelessly siloed they will never survive. There’s simply no excuse in the year 2011 for developing separately your advertising, retail and digital programs. Even in a siloed organization most people acknowledge the need to work across disciplines. Even the most specialized agency acknowledges the need to cooperate with their clients’ other partners.

Thus the word “integrated” is redundant because all marketing must be integrated. I would argue, too, that “marketing” implies some kind of communications, so that word is also redundant.

IMC is just a fancy acronym for Marketing

I confess to having used the term myself, here, here, here and here. In each case the context was a program where we made a specific, dedicated effort to align all the disciplines and deliver for a client a truly integrated marketing program. This effort required a lot of heavy lifting strategically as well as during execution, not to mention the challenge of keeping all the various constituencies moving in the same direction. It’s hard work, especially if you have to wrangle a group of agencies.

We need hard work, because aligning the disciplines doesn’t come naturally. In the days of Ye Olde Marketing, advertising was relatively simple, retail was far less sophisticated, and digital didn’t exist. Today all those disciplines demand attention, so we need specific, dedicated efforts that change our behavior and help make IMC – uh, modern marketing, come naturally.

Stop calling it IMC

The risk in continuing to use the term “IMC” is that some marketers and some agencies will treat only some marketing as “integrated” – which means that other kinds of marketing are what, exactly? Disparate? Traditional? Antiquated? It starts to sound like Ye Olde Marketing.

I’m not starting to a campaign to extinguish the term “IMC”. I’m merely advising caution in using it.

Join #IMCchat Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. Central U.S. time

Just a reminder that tomorrow night is another edition of #IMCchat, which we posted about recently.

Vox Populi

The most-read posts on Ad Majorem

Here are the most-read posts on Ad Majorem, subject by subject:

Channel-neutral planning
1. None of us are “media agnostic”
2. Are you a Specialist or a Generalist?
3. Can One Agency Really Do It All for a Client?

Digital
1. Online Media is a process, not an event
2. Who “owns” Mobile?
3. Hyper Island: Burn the Ships

Retail
1. Reducing Assortment II
2. Reducing Assortment
3. “The changing media landscape” …of Retail

Advertising
1. iPad’s :30 in Oscars was not its first ad
2. The basis of all great advertising
3. TV is dead – long live TV

Agencies
1. Should ad agencies and media agencies re-bundle?
2. The History of the Ad Agency Business – in one easy power point slide!*
3. What does the future look like?

Results and Accountability
1. “Oh – were we supposed to prove the results of what we did?”
2. “I don’t know which half of my ad budget I’m wasting – and I don’t WANT to know!”
3. How to know “which half of my advertising budget is wasted”

International
1. Global assignments are complex, so keep ‘em simple
2. Canada and its consumers
3. Why Global Brands matter

Professional Development
1. 3 keys to (continued) survival in 2010
2. 3 keys to job survival for 2011
3. Why Diversity is important in Marketing, and how you can help achieve it in the workplace

Bubbling Under: 3 posts that didn’t make the lists above
1. 3 reasons you should care about Shopper Marketing
2. Hyper Island II: The Network
3. Have you allowed raisinets in your brand’s portfolio?

Hyper Island III: Hype vs. Results

NEW YORK – This morning’s post touched on the effect digital strategy can have on brand equity. What other results should we watch?

This afternoon we’ve been looking at a range of digital programs and their results: Uniqlo, Old Spice, Kill Zone 2, Fun Theory and others. The results were reported in a number of ways: alleged sales lift, messages generated, downloads made, brand awareness, number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends, or the size of a community one builds.

Two quick observations:

Ultimately, Sales is what matters. All of the measures listed above are important, but if they do not grow the business, none of them matter.

Results can’t be put in silos. I’ve posted frequently about how various media can’t be planned in silos – and the same holds true for results. As Daniele Fiandaca told us, “It’s the combination of all the results.”

An example of both points was Kill Zone 2 in the U.K. The launch drove some six-figure participation numbers, which generated a ton of P.R. in gaming magazines, which drove the sales. The number of online participants alone did not tell the entire story.

Remember: Follow #HIMC on Twitter to listen in on our Hyper Island Master Class.

TSA's Recuitment Advertising

Much has been written about the latest TSA security procedures, including backscatter X-ray machines and, uh, pat downs. But this is a blog about modern marketing, so imagine my delight upon learning about TSA's recruitment advertising. I wonder what the brief looked like (snicker).

The ads are not exactly new news, having been reported by various news outlets last summer. Given the recent scrutiny, however, they're back in the public eye. A typical headline: "A Career Where X-Ray Vision and Federal Benefits Come Standard." (Travellers weren't amused.)

The latest development is the media plan, which includes the tops of pizza boxes and signs at gas pumps. You can see a series of photos on this radio station's website.

Does anyone know if TSA has an ad agency of any kind? All we could find was this 2009 press release about TSA and The Ad Council. One agency looked into it, came up empty, but thought to ask whether the ads produced a result. Does anyone know?

In any case, readers, our best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving.