Media planners face unconventional media challenges

“Consumers don't want to be told what to do anymore. They want to be involved. Many of the conventional media channels don't acknowledge this,” he says.

Media strategy developments today have to include ideas for consumer engagement. “It's no longer a matter of simply supplying a regular touch point analysis and media selection. We have to match the behaviour of the brand to the media space in which it is expressed. Successful brands worldwide are taking note of this paradigm shift,” says Odugbemi.

Workshop

Ogilvy Africa recently gathered its media brains from across the continent – Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mayotte, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia – to workshop unconventional media challenges and find ways of engaging the consumer that transcend traditional thinking.

Odugbemi says the annual workshop is critical for Ogilvy Africa. “In addition to identifying media strategy trends and showcasing unconventional media ideas from across the continent, we review the media management process for the network and highlight key deliverables,” he says.

One of the issues addressed was buying media that doesn't have rate cards. Nigeria facilitator, Austin Enwemasor, shared insights on how to engage with the various media channels to determine what the different types of media are worth and how to cost them out. He used the example of branding programme previews, which was done on a television station in Lagos.

“We were doing something that had never been done before. It meant we had to engage the television station media sellers and determine a value based on various criteria we identified,” says Enwemasor.

Client resistance

Odugbemi says one of the major challenges with unconventional media ideas is overcoming client resistance. “Because many of the ideas have never been tried before and no media statistics exist, they are more difficult to sell to clients,” he says.