Posted by arlene

When I started covering the advertising business nearly thirty-five years ago, the media-buying function was firmly ensconced in the agencies. Although the media department was responsible for generating virtually all of the agency’s revenues, its responsibilities were relegated to newcomers in the business, young people right out of college, or women who had moved up from clerical levels.

The situation was so bad that the New York Times ran a major article years ago about twenty-two-year-olds who were responsible for buying millions of dollars’ worth of media. Television was the biggest recipient of their spending, and the selection was based on how many rating points the programs would produce. That was all pretty easy.

At least these media buyers were generally television viewers and had some notion of the programming. Magazines were a different matter. If you were one of the weekly newsmagazines or Rolling Stone, you were OK. They knew who you were. But if you were selling space in a business publication, especially a business-to-business publication, there was little or no chance that the young media buyers even glanced at the free subscription you sent them.

I admit that this might be somewhat of an overstatement. I did run into several media directors—but far fewer media buyers or planners—who were actually interested in what we were doing in the early days of Crain’s Chicago Business. We were not only trying to sell our publication, but the whole notion of regional business publishing. I can’t tell you how often the first question our salespeople would get from a media buyer was, “So, what makes you different from the

Wall Street Journal?”

All of this has changed, of course, as media buying has undergone the most dramatic transition of any element in the marketing arena. Media buying has largely been pulled away from ad agencies, and media commission levels have been cut by 75 percent or more. More than that, though, media buying has become incredibly more complicated than it was thirty-five years ago, when the three television networks ruled the advertising world. This growing complexity of the media world will make the media-buying function even more important in the years to come as the range of new media continues to expand.

It is certain that media buying will become more strategic as this function becomes more involved in the selection of sales promotion, direct marketing, interactive, and other nonadvertising areas. And clients will increase their demand for integrated marketing communications, a programmed approach that would be directed by media buyers.

The Battle for Consumer Attention

It is fair to say that the arena for the communications challenge of the future will be a battle for consumer attention. No single medium will dominate, as television did. There will always be mass markets, but advertisers will not be able to reach them through mass communications, except for those few events that can draw a huge audience.

This reality will require more emphasis on what were formerly below-the-line activities, such as direct marketing and sales promotion. Except for possible government tightening of privacy laws in the United States, direct marketing will continue to expand, but most of the expansion will be beyond the most traditional forms of mass maili_ngs, telemarketing, and E-mail solicitations. The situation will be different in Europe, where more stringent privacy laws already exist and are not likely to be relaxed.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Mass Media (Television, Magazines, Networking) Buying Advertising Moves to the Forefront

• Mass Media (Television, Magazines, Networking) Buying Advertising Moves to the Forefront continue...
• Get a head start with a reliable web hosting
• Advertising Potential, the Ads have all
• Website Content, Source of or Cure for Literacy Woes?
• Free Offline Marketing (CRM)
• Email Creative Formatting
• Communicating with Graphic Designers
• Dynamic graphics on your Web site is paramount, keep in mind some technical visual design
• Banner ads analysis
• Eco Web Hosting