Price obsession
A lot of media planners get unduly focused on the CPMs of their plan. They are not to blame for this. Clients increasingly feature downward cost pressure as their goal when buying media, even if the primary goal is to communicate a value proposition and capture market share.
The reason a near obsession with price takes center stage in media planning is because it appeals to one of the two personalities the media planner is required to have: planning and buying. But only one can be dominant.
Unlike broadcast media, online, like print, is typically planned and then purchased by the same person. That means that a strategic, deliberate temperament needed for planning is followed by the direct, hasty, and often brash disposition of the negotiator. While clients certainly love good ideas and strategic thinking, those are less tangible and frequently go unrewarded. When a client gives you little time to put together a plan, and cost-cutting is its most frequently mentioned desire, the negotiating personality is going to come forward, taking over the process from the planning personality. Sure, there are those who can comfortably be both -- but given the realities of the time and space pressures in which the media planner must work, only the shrewd negotiator thrives.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing in all instances. But it can lead to the sacrifice of careful and considered media planning. It satisfies a short-term goal at the risk of neglecting a long-term one -- namely, the most effective media plan that can lead to building deeper relationships between a customer and a brand. In fact, the buying-centric approach doesn't take the brand into account at all. Instead of the planner getting good at solving the mystery of how to affect the client's business, he or she grows adept at quickly putting together the pieces of a media plan puzzle. These are not the same things.
Media strategies editor Jim Meskauskas is vice president and director of online media for ICON International Inc., an Omnicom company.
On Twitter? Follow Meskauskas at @mediadarwin. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.
