Media jealousy makes for marketing mayhem

I'm not holding my breath on this, however, because when it comes to trashing each other, our media don't pull any punches. Their level of competitiveness is surpassed only by their pettiness in competing.

While it all sounds very healthy and free-marketish, it doesn't make any sort of marketing sense. After all, the very basis of marketing is the premise that it is not at all about what the marketer wants to say but what the consumer wants to hear.

Piece by piece

And in terms of what consumers of mass media advertising space and air time want to hear it is certainly not one medium trashing another or more importantly, that advertising packages have to be bought piece by piece.

The situation in the media market right now is precisely the same as if motor car manufacturers insisted on telling their customers that they had to buy gearboxes, engines, seats, windows, wheels and heaven knows what from different companies and then assemble the whole lot themselves.

Packages

I am constantly having to deal with situations where my clients are being pulled in all sorts of different directions.

What they desperately want is a package of advertising, not bits and pieces from all over the place.

Many of them do not have highly skilled media buyers but simply relatively inexperienced advertising managers who are subjected to a barrage of approaches from media owners on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

It is extremely difficult trying to make a judgment call on an advertising idea or media offer on a piecemeal basis. It is equally difficult to create any sort of cohesive advertising policy or programme when one is dealing with bits and pieces.

One size fits all

To make matters worse, the majority of media sales reps continue to promote the fact, especially among lesser skilled advertising managers, that their medium is a one-size-fits-all solution. Which is as inefficient as it is expensive and downright dangerous.

Interestingly enough, while television reps still push their luck with regard to claiming that their media will do the whole advertising job, they seem, these days, a lot more ready to accept the concept of media synergy than their counterparts in the radio and print industries.

I don't know whether it's because of the massive wakeup call that newspapers got in the mid 1990s when their circulations started going south, taking ad revenue along for the ride, or whether the people who purport to be in charge of marketing newspapers are naive and unskilled in what they do. But, newspapers and magazine people are paranoid to the extreme when it comes to their opposition. Almost as bad as the radio industry.

It is this kind of petty jealousy and narrow mindset that is hindering most media.

Half the needs

Now, I am not suggesting for a minute that newspapers, radio and TV along with magazines all start colluding with each other. All I am suggesting is that they co-operate. That they all understand that individually they can at best supply less than half of an advertiser's needs.

Intelligent media owners and sales reps will be those who are able to identify who will best be able to supply that other half and then get them to go along with them to visit clients and offer a package that works.

My own experience tells me that even the most naive of advertisers is getting to the point where advertising needs to be subjected to the same return on investment criteria as other aspects of the business.

Advertising has become so perceptively expensive that it is having to prove itself to even the smallest advertiser.

And even these advertisers are getting sick and tired of the barrage of phone calls, faxes and emails from media owners, promising them one-stop solutions.