UM unveils ‘Full Colour Media’ proposition to fight brand blandness
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UM has launched a global omnichannel media planning proposition that aims to “stand against bland” in the era of AI.
The “Full Colour Media” approach seeks to move against the grain of generic algorithm-driven media planning and towards recentring brand-driven advertising at the heart of media.
It is underpinned by a new body of custom research developed in partnership with University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School professor Felipe Thomaz.
UM analysed a dataset of over 10,000 brands over the past three years with the aim of identifying how unique networks of brand associations, dubbed “brand patterns”, drive brand growth through increased purchase intent and consideration.
Each brand was found to have its own unique brand pattern, informed by an interdependency of various metrics across what UM calls the “3 Vs”: visibility (eg. attention and ad awareness), vibrancy (eg. social engagement, word of mouth) and variability (eg. differentiation through customer intrinsic value).
However, as Thomaz explained, brands are “often using similar media strategies, meaning they are not making the most of their brand pattern”.
Through the new proposition, UM is seeking to rectify this “convergence to the mean”, as global chief strategy officer Dan Chapman explained. According to Chapman, this requires a philosophical reimagining of how to drive effective media.
“We’ve got to fundamentally change the way that we plan and we strategise,” he told The Media Leader on an early-morning video call from New York City.
“It’s about not looking at brands in a binary, black-and-white way. It’s about understanding the full-colour nature of a brand, the full spectrum of what a brand does and, interestingly, how it engages with different audiences.”
‘Sleepwalking into blandness’
Chapman warned that AI, which is increasingly being used via platforms like Meta, Google and Amazon to drive campaign performance, is “leading us into a dystopian world of boring brands”.
He explained that, since tech platform algorithms are “genetic” and therefore “normative by nature”, if brands only work to category norms and fail to find differentiation by identifying and capitalising in their advertising on what makes them unique, they risk “sleepwalking into blandness” by producing increasingly similar AI-driven media plans and creative.
“The secret to driving brands is finding that variance,” Chapman suggested.
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He argued that the industry has become “overly obsessed” with taking a customer-first approach to advertising and audience targeting, noting that while understanding the customer is important, it is only one aspect of the broader work needed to drive strong media strategy.
“You don’t win at Cannes just for an audience insight,” said Chapman. “You win at Cannes because what that advertising has done has struck some level of emotion into an individual or type of audience.”
The new planning model is “not chronological”, Chapman continued. The ambition is to build “a neural network for every brand” that will be used to inform key planning decisions across all existing and new clients.
“We can sit there with our clients’ brands, predict future outcomes and effectively understand how their brand changes over time — not through a linear brand tracker, but through an ever-growing and learning network,” he said.
No linear funnel
Brand pattern data is updated constantly and can be overlaid with brands’ first-party data, with UM able to analyse how brand metrics change seasonally for individual brands. Chapman admitted the energy demands of a constantly updating large dataset will be significant and the agency will actively consider how it can offset its enlarged carbon footprint.
“People don’t create brands to be the same. They create them for difference. And yet what we’ve done is we’ve shoehorned most brands, and the interaction they have with consumers, into a linear funnel, which is crazy,” Chapman continued. “We forget the blood, sweat and tears CMOs and brand managers put into these brands and we reduce them to a funnel.”
He derided the classical sales and marketing funnel as “reductive” and said the media industry is “obsessed with heuristics” to a fault. In an era of big data and improved computational power, Chapman argued, marketing need not require such mental shortcuts.
Through Brand Patterns, UM says it can explain to each brand how different metrics contribute to desired outcomes for the business and pull different levers accordingly.
Major shift
To make the philosophical shift and institute the “Full Colour Media” proposition, UM global brand president Susan Kingston-Brown said the agency has been retraining its staff over the past several months.
The effort has focused on developing “ingenuity” and “higher-level jobs” through emphasising and developing critical thinking skills and bridging media and creative working practices. The goal is to have “brand analysts” examine and consider brand pattern data and feed that understanding into strategists, planners and execution specialists as they build out a strategy tailored to an individual brand’s specific and ever-changing needs.
Kingston-Brown said the “academic training” has been completed and staff are currently applying the new Brand Pattern Model with existing clients. That includes through building the model into UM’s custom version of Interpublic’s end-to-end tech platform Interact so that it is accessible by relevant agency staff.
“We want our incumbent clients to feel this major shift in the agency in 2025,” said Kingston-Brown. “And as we go to pitch new clients, we want them to see it as something that not just differentiates us from a planning perspective, but from a cultural and human perspective — the type of talent that we try to bring into the agency as well.”
Beyond planning
Alice Archer, UM’s EMEA chief communications and culture officer, added: “We’re trying to encourage our workforce not to be scared of change and to adapt to it and see it as an opportunity to develop.”
According to Archer, UM is also in the process of changing how the agency’s physical spaces look to better reflect its new “stand against bland” ethos. She pointed to a new Aladdin Sane-inspired David Bowie mural displayed in London Old Bailey office as one example of a renewed focus on vibrancy.
Kingston-Brown added that “stand against bland” will also apply to how internal meetings will be conducted. Junior members of staff will be given more of an active voice in discussions, with the goal of encouraging creativity by surfacing more novel ideas and ways of thinking.
Through the changes, UM is standing against “bland agencies” by seeking to stand out from competitors, Kingston-Brown continued.
The timing is notable, as parent Interpublic is in the process of being acquired by Omnicom.
Kingston-Brown confirmed that UM was “fully committed” to implementing its “Full Colour Media” approach amid the planned merger, indicating to The Media Leader that executive leadership of both groups have signalled support for distinctive agency brands as well as their initiatives.
The plan, she hopes, is the new philosophy will help make UM a “star” within the merged group.