The Americanisation of Media

In my office hangs a six-word, framed message. It was given to me in 1990 at a Leo Burnett company strategy meeting at which I had spoken about the threat to the traditional advertising ecosystem posed by what were then known as media independents. The message was written by the agency’s creative leadership, after Ogden Nash. In its entirety it reads:

“Don’t worry media. We need ya.”

The history of media agencies began with an arrogant lack of interest in the media process by those leading full-service agencies, mainly account handlers who considered (with some justification) that their clients couldn’t care less about the boring detail on how their media money was spent.

Today we have an industry unrecognisable from those days, shaped in large part by technology and the social media platforms constructed with it.

There is another rarely commented-on change from back then.

In the last century the UK punched above its weight when it came to advertising thought leadership and creative excellence. Account planning started here, promoting advertising effectiveness started here, collaborative audience measurement via the JIC system started here.

The discipline of media planning may not have started in the UK (depends on what you mean by the term) but it was certainly further advanced here than in most other major advertising economies.

The way we have ‘done’ media in the UK has changed from being all about the buys (the original media agencies were and, in many cases, still are referred to as media buying agencies) to add strategic thinking, communications planning, effectiveness measurement and so on. Certainly, we can argue whether all of these are well-done, or whether recent buying initiatives have denuded planning but there’s no doubting the innovation, the progression, the desire to understand more and to do better.

But now we, like everyone else are bit-part players in an industry shaped by the US platforms. How come?

In the US, by observation (full disclosure: my time spent actually working full-time in the USA was limited and a long time ago) media has been about the buys. The numbers. The bigger the better, the cheaper the better.

It’s the land of the gross impressions. Any light and shade is tolerated only if the gross numbers are unaffected, or if they go up.

Anecdotes are dangerous but in 1993 it was common practice in the largest media department in the US to add TV GRP’s to print and radio GRPs, unweighted, to arrive at a huge gross number. When this was questioned the answer was: ‘that’s how the client likes it. The bigger the better’.

Rarely has a lack of interest and understanding had such disastrous unintended consequences.

It’s worth remembering that the US is the only major ad market still trading on programme ratings as opposed to audience numbers based on those exposed to commercials. After all, audience numbers may fall during breaks.

I know I’m generalising and exaggerating, that there are attention measurers doing good work in the US, that there is a move towards what’s referred to (erroneously) as ‘alternative currencies’ and that the nature of media quality is being discussed a great deal more than it used to, but it’s all a bit ‘on the fringes’.

The focus on the biggest numbers plays perfectly into the hands of the social media platforms.

Their enormous success means they make the media weather. For all of us, globally. They not only rule on what we see, but they also decide what’s measured, what data is released, what constitutes an impression, what can be said to have worked. They set the rules, globally.

They have played the audience measurement community – who in any sane world really thinks that a 2 second exposure constitutes a meaningful view? Yet we accept their definitions of ‘impressions’ and ‘reach’.

The media agencies, once objective representatives of their clients’ best interests, as well as being in their own right important thought leaders and drivers of progress are now in thrall to the platforms. If they or their clients don’t like what appears, what’s hidden, even what constitutes ‘truth’, tough.

Never mind the quality; the platforms deliver huge numbers, who cares whether they’re accurate, or if the audience is human, let alone noticing anything on screen. Who cares if the ads that appear attract attention, or if they work?

The numbers are big, the CPMs are cheap. Validation and verification is for geeks; and no-one listens to geeks.

Until they do.

What we’re seeing is the inevitable consequence of how the US media industry has always worked. Planning, in the strategic sense as opposed to any post-rationalisation is and always has been rare to non-existent. Total comms planning is to a large extent unheard of.

But as happens we may be about to witness the consequences of over-reach.

Meta’s decision to do away with fact-checkers has not gone down well – at least outside the US. Musk’s behaviours towards and views on advertisers, let alone his political interferences have not gone un-noticed.

Meta and X need audiences, and they need advertisers. X is and always has been an unimportant ad vehicle for many; Meta is certainly important.

Zuckerberg and Musk assume ‘the audience’ will always be there and will grow. That it’s an amorphous mass that couldn’t care less about fact-checking and bile. This may be partly, even majority true but it is not 100% the case. Making up ‘audiences’ is not a long-term strategy.

Plus – advertisers with an eye on brand reputation can be fickle. Remember when we used to hear: ‘We must be on Facebook, everyone is, it’s the place to be and to be seen’?

That sentiment can change – very quickly.

Advertisers, we need ya.

Courtesy of The Clog Blog