This is an article from the latest issue of Business Week where Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi was interviewed about his views about the changes that are happening in the world of advertising. It talks about the changes and the shifts that have happened in the world of advertising due to the changes in the way clients see marketing and communications, and in the way audiences are consuming media.
It talks about the emerged power of direct marketing companies. It also talks about the emerged power of the media buying companies.
The media buyers are no less powerful. Once consigned by the creative agencies to back-office obscurity, they also have scads of consumer data, which they use to help clients figure out where they should spend their advertising budgets--be it on specific TV shows, magazines, or Web sites. Now they are using their buying power to persuade broadcasters to air television shows chock-full of product placements--a direct threat to the venerable 30-second TV spot.
Here's is the interesting quote from Kevin Roberts - and whilst I do admire him and his tenacity and his never-say-die attitude, I have to say I am bothered by the idea that he suggests of media companies:
Kevin Roberts isn't one to shy away from a fight. This, after all, is a man who, after being kicked out of school at 17, tried to break into professional rugby, a full-contact sport played without pads or helmets. When the media buyers come up, his indignation is visceral: "A media agency couldn't emotionally touch the consumer in a million years," he rails "They have no f---ing idea. They don't have feelings. They're media people." Roberts' position is clear: He still believes in the power of the Big Idea--that emotional connection to the consumer--and he sells it tirelessly.
I am no longer a media planner/buyer. But I came from one. And to suggest that a "media agency couldn't emotionally touch the consumer" in a million years is simply - hmmm - an old, Jurassic view of the world.
I suggest that he review the latest Media Effies Award Winners. Or the Media Cannes winners.
These media agencies who "couldn't emotionally touch the consumer in a million years" are delivering creative solutions to communications problems - it just so happened that some of them didn't need advertising to do it because (all together now) "Advertising is just merely a channel - it is not the only channel available to brands".
