The media industry has a creativity allergy and it's not good enough Chris Colter, chief strategy and product officer at Initiative Australia, and Sam Geer, managing director at Initiative Australia, said on stage at MFA EX.
The duo believes media agencies should no longer only be a distribution mechanism for the creative, and media should be as distinctive as the content that it distributes
"That's something the creative agencies are crying out for, we are so much more than the value we create in numbers we can absolutely match it creatively," Geer said.
But the challenge is media agencies have been conditioned to think that logos and pretty pictures are the domain of the creative agency.
“Our role in creating disproportionate gains for our clients is currently strangled by this industry dysmorphia. We think our role is to deliver efficient reach and frankly it's not good enough," Colter said.
When the media is as creative as the creative itself, that is when effectiveness has happens and that's what the industry should be striving for, Geer said.
“We have a label used to describe this pretty simple, distinctive media devices. This should be the ambition for every single person, every brand, and every media practitioner in this country,” Geer said.
“We should be looking at how we create distinctive media devices to invest in now and build equity in over the long term.”
And distinctiveness does drive genuine business outcomes - it draws attention salience and it drives revenue for the bottom line.
But distinctiveness itself is declining - there's over $3.9 trillion dollars spent in marketing assets and media that aren’t distinctive - and it's getting continually worse as the industry continues to prioritise short termism, Colter said.
“No matter what everyone says in this room, it's not all the client's fault, we're as guilty of accelerating this as anyone else. You've got creative agencies creating new films every six months that we have to then distribute," Colter said.
“We want to recommend new platforms, new social media channels, new formats, and we want to try and drive an innovation agenda for our clients.
“Which yes, we should continue to do that, but not at the expense of actually lifting our head above all of the chaos and thinking about how we can use media to grow brands long term.
“We're too obsessed with brand fragmentation, personalization, screen size, all of that sort of stuff that we're diluting our impact.
“In other words, we're actually so focused and obsessed with buying attention, that we're actually forgetting how to create it. And more importantly, give it the time that it needs in culture to realise its potential.”
Geer explained his favourite example of creative media buying is the KFC bucket hat.
“It's such an ingenious use of an asset which they’ve done for 13 years now, creating 350,000 bucketheads a year,” Geer said.
“We all immediately recognize it now in broadcasts and the earnt potential is insane - $83 million in media exposure.”
“What I think is really important is taking these philosophies to think about channels differently and not just the actual unique use of the channel itself but every facet of how you actually plan to buy media,” Colter said.
To ensure the audience of 1600 media professionals can take action, Colter and Geer gave three tools to help them drive distinctiveness in their work.
Plan
“You need to intrinsically understand your brand,” Geer said.
“I think this is something that creative agencies do exceptionally and we are too lazy about it - it's not that difficult.
“What we've built is essentially a distinctive media device framework for expanding out the Simon Sinek concentric circles a little bit further to include some of those media moments that matter.
“So you start with why, the how and we've also included not just the what you say, but where you show up consistently, when you show up consistently, and who with you are showing up consistently because all of those elements can create that distinctive media device.”
Prioritise
“Then you have to think about which one of these devices you are going to back and prioritise and defend over the long term,” Cotler said.
“So this is a framework used for distinctive brand asset prioritisation, where you can find which ideas are more ownable, more distinctive, and therefore warrant greater investment."
Protect
“One thing that is exceptionally important when you're setting this agenda is to make sure that your measurement approach equally aligns with it," Cotler said.
“Because what you can see here is an example of different distinctive media devices, but a lot of these, there purpose is to build emotional memory structures and long term associations with the brands.
“Good ones can do both, they can drive long term association and immediate sales. But the primary benefit of this is long term growth.
“So make sure you set the right measurement agenda with your clients, things like salience over sales, affinity over action, and even just equity over efficiency.”
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