Post-pandemic media planning: Time for leadership
Media planning is stuck in second gear, with antiquated media trading practices holding it back. What can be done? asks Nick Manning
The last year has been a cliché-fest as the ‘new normal’ follows ‘unprecedented’ times and so on. Podcasts, panels and PR abound as industry players stake their claim to a unique insight into the various ways the pandemic has changed us.
Yet, it’s remarkable how little substance there has been behind the puffery.
Yes, we know that life has changed but how? What is permanent and what does it mean for advertisers?
For example, we know that Radio has always had a ‘drive-time’ to match the morning and evening commute, but in the ‘WFH’ world, what has happened to radio listening patterns and what will the future look like?
If radio listening has increased across all options (linear, digital, podcasts), how should advertisers change their media plans now and into the future, and what combination of audio options works currently?
How should radio airtime pricing, previously highly geared towards drive-time, adapt to reflect the changes and what does a cross-radio plan including traditional, DAB and Pod content look like?
What of Outdoor when lockdown ends? It has also relied heavily on commuting in the past. How should advertisers adapt their use of posters in the new Digital Out-of-Home world when people’s movements are disrupted?
Every media channel has a ‘new normal’.
Television viewing patterns have changed significantly as people watch more and at different times of the day.
Subscription and on-demand viewing have further fragmented the audiences, leading to a loss of advertising opportunity and real challenges in building cost-effective incremental reach across linear, on-demand and online video options.
While the various industry research sources will provide some insight into these trends eventually, these changes have been happening for over a year now and some consumer habits are now ingrained.
The industry bodies do their best, but it’s hard to keep up with the consumer even in stable times as the internet continues to eat away at traditional channels.
The measurement of audiences is harder than ever with multiple platforms and incompatible currencies, not to mention comparing oranges with apples.
Is a six second Facebook video view on a mobile phone on a bus equivalent to a 30 second ad in a high audience live TV show on a 55-inch screen in your living room? (the answer is ‘no’, by the way).
There is a growing mis-match between what people do in real life and our industry’s ability to cope with it. This was happening before the pandemic and lockdowns have exacerbated the problem. While research struggles to keep up, industry practices act as a handbrake.
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My recent column on TV highlighted the absurd way that the TV trading practices, which began in the 70s are still being applied to today’s market.
This is harming media effectiveness and rewarding bad behaviour. But TV is not alone. The ‘print’ market is another case in point where the trading mechanics are Dickensian in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
The noble attempt to make PAMCo a new cross-platform industry tool is arguably doomed if the old ‘print’ trading systems continue and there are no cross-platform currencies.
Traditional broadcasters and publishers are entitled to complain about the lack of a level playing field in an age dominated by the big digital platforms, but their own lack of innovation hasn’t helped. Competition is a spur to new thinking but there has been an absence of it.
So where do the media agencies sit within this picture? After all, aren’t they the ones who advise advertisers on all of this and invent the future?
Looking around the industry it is hard to see who is carving out a proposition and reputation for getting to grips with the divergence between people’s use of media and how advertising should evolve to meet it.
As usual there are pockets of excellence, some great award-winners but little systemic change.
Media planning is still stuck in second gear, with antiquated media trading practices holding it back.
While the industry measurement issues shouldn’t be under-estimated, it is entirely possible to work with individual advertisers to address some of these. This is happening in pockets but not systematically.
Life is tough for the media agencies, with the multiple demands of clients and shareholders to contend with (at least for the networks), but the market lacks a bold, innovative leader who is carving out a strong position in addressing these issues.
It is understandable that agencies want to address the diversity, environmental, social and governance tasks they face, but these in themselves won’t help clients grow in the way they need and they have become table stakes.
It’s also possible to get misty-eyed about the way that media agencies used to routinely aim to gain an edge through consumer understanding, usually via panel research, but this is now sorely needed when people’s media habits are in a state of flux.
Call me old-fashioned but this is what media agencies should do.
Yes, first-party data may tell you a lot about the here and now but is not much of a roadmap.
Maybe the dominance of media trading considerations makes such investments a luxury. But whatever the reasons for the lack of innovation, there exists an opportunity for an enterprising media agency to stand out from the crowd by going back to basics through future-facing and predictive media planning that reflects the industry’s new dynamics – with new thinking in how to execute across paid and organic channels, to include content options.
The alternative is either to remain undifferentiated or indifferent in a market that has become homogenised.
It’s tough but someone has to do it.