360DigitalInfluence

Adweek writes that in five years  any agency worth its salt will have  creative directors that are completely agnostic  of media discipline between  broadcast, print and digital. True that.

I add to that  the same is  true of their counterparts in media  strategy.  After all, media planners are the glue between the message and the people.  As audiences move from being a collective entity to a collection of individuals,  media specialists must be  able to position messages across every conceivable communications opportunity. And they must know how to customize the positioning  for each  individual’s  own place in the buying cycle.

Gone are  the days of the traditional versus digital media planner. So if your planner can give you  a  birds eye view of how  C3  (commericals + DVR) ratings will  forever change the face of upfront buying, but cant tell you how  to optimize your digital ads with  predictive modeling, then  change will eventually be afoot.

Yesterday the NY Times reported on a pending joint venture that will create one national cable network designed to allow advertisers to target their ads and their audiences by demography, geography, etc. The venture, covertly titled Project Canoe, is a meeting of the minds between the six largest cable television companies (Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Charter and Bright House Networks). It is essentially cable television’s answer to the increasingly highly-segmented targeting capabilities of the digital world. The cable platform also takes a page from its existing On-Demand functionalities, as well as that of TIVO, and empowers viewers to use their remotes to download information about an advertiser or interactive brochures. And best of all, everything will be accessible to cable subscribers even if they are watching broadcast TV.

And the world of strategic (media) planning breathes a sigh of relief. Digital platforms are not just the medium to beat in terms of targeting and measurement, they’re the holy grail of “addressable” (targeted) communications. Every medium must find a way to keep it’s pace. Media planners crave the ability to reach our clients’ customers and potential customers efficiently, and not pay for those who have no use for the message. Television in particular must answer this call as it is now, and will remain for the near future, the best way to get a message out to a broad group of people quickly.

Still, it must take giant steps toward the ultimate goal - delivering the right messages, to the right people with no waste. While no medium is perfect, and none may ever uncover the secret to media buying nirvana, digital platforms are taking strides toward it every day, and I’m glad to see television doing it as well.

So now let’s hear about their plans for measurement…