From media planner to business advisor: The expanding role of planning

Opinion

In part one of a three-part series, Initiative’s Caroline Manning explores how the role of media planners has grown to encompass more consultative work.

Once upon a time, media planners were the sensible ones. The spreadsheet people. The translators between the dreamy creatives and the hawk-eyed buyers. But somewhere along the way, something changed. CMOs stopped asking for media plans and started asking for business impact. And planners, those brilliant, curious bridge-builders, started stepping up.

Today’s best planners are no longer just a safe pair of hands. They’re a hybrid of strategist, analyst, cultural decoder and commercial partner. Half head, half heart. And all in.

They’re commercial collaborators. They understand what keeps a marketing director up at night: not just awareness or attention, but what actually drives business growth. Stock levels. Basket sizes. Retail velocity. Product margin. Revenue. And they’re using that knowledge to shape media plans that do more than deliver impressions — they deliver impact.

A new era

Let’s call this the era of Commercial Planning. And like all good stories, it starts with a mindset shift: moving from media KPIs to business KPIs. It’s no longer enough to optimise for CTR or VTR if we can’t connect those dots to footfall, conversions or increased penetration.

Take the planner who noticed that a high-spending campaign was underperforming in certain postcodes. Digging deeper, they found the promoted product wasn’t stocked in local stores. Rather than tweaking the media mix, they pulled in the client’s distribution team and re-routed supply. Sales followed. That’s business impact.

Or the team that brought media and sales calendars into lockstep — adjusting launch timings based on peak category demand and retail shelf availability. Suddenly, media wasn’t a downstream afterthought. It was driving commercial advantage.

These are not unicorns. These are planners who:

• Know their way around a P&L as confidently as a PowerPoint
• Ask about margin before media budget
• Use tools that link media exposure to real-world behaviours – footfall trackers, retail media data, econometric models

Skill development needed

To do this well, planners need a new set of muscles. Retail fluency. Financial literacy. Category insight as well as good old audience understanding.  Planners also need to link brand storytelling to business performance in a way that earns trust at the top table. The best planners don’t just write slides. They shape narratives. Whether it’s a presentation to a client’s CFO or a campaign narrative, stitching data, insight, and creativity into a story that inspires action.

Empathy, listening, confidence, and presence are also essential and we don’t talk about it enough. These soft human skills matter. Because when it’s all gone a bit mad, clients want a planner who brings clarity, calm and conviction.

So what must agencies do?

First, we need to hire differently. Think less traditional and hire entry level talent who are as energised by sales graphs and understanding motivations as they are by social trends.

Because here’s the thing: AI will automate the grunt work. Platforms will change. But the value of a good planner? That’s timeless. It lies in the people who bring energy, empathy, and edge.

Second, we need to train more boldly. Pair junior planners with client commercial leads. Run workshops on product strategy. Give access to tools that model business outcomes—not just media ones.

Finally, we must champion this mindset internally and externally. Celebrate the planner who challenges a brief based on commercial realities, not just channel norms. Promote the ones who bridge marketing and the boardroom.

In short: our industry’s future planners will be less like postmen, delivering pre-written plans, and more like partners — shaping the roadmap for business growth.

Because in today’s world, the real power of planning isn’t in filling excel sheets with media spots and space. It’s in connecting media decisions to meaningful, measurable outcomes. And that’s a job worth getting out of bed for.