Today I had a meeting with the nice people at PhD, a media agency, to discuss the possibilities of having a more innovative approach for one of our client’s media setups.
Conclusion: while it is possible to tweak media formats, you’re basically stuck with these if the client has paid for certain number of impressions. In other words, reallocating the media budget towards developing new-to-the-world contact points (such as the Whopper facebook utility) is tough if there are no figures on this (a.k.a. the discussion about impressions vs engagement).
A company that invests millions in media will simply want a return on it, and what it ultimately comes down to is risk – something that clients hate.
As long as we don’t have industry-level measuring standards to fuel the risk discussion, traditional bought media will unfortunately be the standard for larger media investments.
Unless somebody out there has an answer to either the measurement problem or a different approach to risk in marketing management, I don’t see how innovative communications can be anything else than small one-off search-of-excellence projects or nothing-to-lose scenarios such as pro bono work.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. The pursuit continues anyhow…
Previously: Risk, creativity and innovation
May 21st, 2009 at 05:55
Great stuff – I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis.
As an industry, we seem to be embracing metrics and tools that offer *any* answer, regardless of whether that answer actually helps.
One problem is that we keep forgetting that people are inherently irrational. People’s actions are all heavily influenced by emotion, and emotion isn’t easily quantifiable or predictable.
Attempting to model and predict that emotion only makes things worse, because the emotions of the analyst influence the subsequent conclusions (as this article highlights)
I won’t pretend to have any answers, but I’m confident they will be more about psychology than maths
May 21st, 2009 at 19:44
Thanks for sharing the links.
You’re right that people are ultimately irrational, and that’s probably why some campaigns work while others fail miserably.
Hopefully research into the irrational side of human decision making will provide us with the answers.
As for now, “the answer is 42″.
May 26th, 2009 at 00:32
I think the basic problem is that communications/media planning is (at least) a three-dimensional problem (how many, how often, how much/well) measured with a two-dimensional yeardstick (how many, how well). In other words, too much focus is on the quantity of media/contacts and not enough on the quality of media/contacts. And add to this the further complication caused by the fact that each communication challenge is different and therefore means different priorities between the three dimensions.
I have often used Edward de Bono’s thinking on analysis and innovation, which basically is: “You can analyze your way to a problem, but you can’t analyze your way to a solution. A real solution requires creativity, experience, intuition etc. With this, you can develop any number of possible solutions – and now you can analyze them for their respective potential for success, as well as what the risks and critical success factors might be.”
One solution to the risk issue is to treat it as an investment in learning. One solution could be to apply an 80/20 principle – 80% in “safe” (i.e. traditional) media and 20% in “exploration” (or learning). Another solution is the “competitor envy” – i.e. “how would you feel if the competition tried this?”. Neither are scientific approaches but are more based on persuasive psychology – so good luck!
May 26th, 2009 at 00:48
Good points. Thanks.
June 4th, 2009 at 13:12
I am with Mats. I did work for one organization that encouraged experimentation.
Yes, the experiments were for low budget, low profile projects. But when they were successful, it was easier to make a case for expanding on them for bigger budget, higher profile projects.
I saw a couple of these experiments work their way into becoming the foundation of the company’s largest, highest profile projects. But it didn’t happen overnight.