Stories About Media

Accountability
Buying advertising is like buying a melon; you have to spend the money before you find out if it’s any good. It’s one of the very few high-risk purchases a careful corporation will make. These essays look at the growing problem of measuring advertising performance and, by the way, showing the accountants that it actually pays to advertise . . .

Mad Men
Mad Men is set in the 1960’s, the decade of the creative agency. I visited the One Club exhibit out of nostalgia and curiosity. Nostalgia because I ran media at two of the 60’s most creative shops, Papert, Koenig, Lois, the first agency to go public. And Carl Ally the only agency that fired clients. As I remember the experience it was like being Accountant to the Mob. . . .

Media History
Singular events explain the past and shape the future. Media has its share of singularities. A country club speech to the Association of National Advertisers that announced the media buying services and changed the industry. The ABC selling strategy that turned into the TV upfront. An Arbitron rating book that helped television to define the marketing geography of America . . .

Optimizers
Optimizers show advertisers how to buy more reach for less money, something especially welcome in a weak or strong economy. But Optimizers are not without critics. Andrew Ehrenberg, the Dean of advertising research, argues “Optimize” is a bald over-claim. “Make it better,” he says, will do quite nicely . . .

Planning
More needs, more choices, less money, less time. No wonder planners look frazzled. These essays discuss the basic issues: The failure of targeting. The price of fragmentation. Strategic planning. Media-mix, guerilla media, agency structure. If you are a planner, it’s a Chinese Banquet. If you know a planner, it will start a conversation . . .

Recency
Recency isn’t about radio or television or reach and frequency. It's about how we think advertising operates in mature consumer markets. It’s relevance, not repetition that makes the message work. That’s why recency has transformed media planning in such a short time . . .

Research
What Samuel Johnson observed about Dictionaries holds true for surveys, “…like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.”

I have no patience with theoreticians. There hasn’t been a true probability sample in decades. That said, we often don’t have the courage to fully use the data we have. These essays look critically at Nielsen, Magazine Research, agencies and the media. Everyone wants a piece of research. The piece that helps them look better . . .

Technical Papers
Stories are fine for bedtime reading, but a straight chair and reading light will work better here. These scholarly papers (all published) are deep and narrow: Fusion, Adstock, modeling, response functions. The real stuff. Long sentences, footnotes and all . . .

The Media
MEDIA is, and are, becoming more plural as planners discover life beyond television. These stories take a hard look at the positioning and posturing of our many media. Why advertisers like TV sponsorships (celebrity is more certain than sales). Why magazines plans seldom get the dollars to reach critical mass. How the Internet wants to sell interactivity and yet avoid being priced on response . . .

The TV Upfront and Media Buying
After the meetings, the strategy, the planning, it’s all up to the buyer. Here it’s the art of the deal and being “plugged-in” and relentless. But negotiation can also turn into a private club where buyers and sellers forget there’s a client. These essays discuss the subtleties of the media marketplace from the TV upfront to Cross-platform dealing . . .