There was a time when “big numbers” ruled. The days of Sunday Times and Rapport doing a million copies, one TV station delivering peak time ARs of over 40%, and Huisgenoot doing half a million circulation, and effectively reaching two out of three Afrikaans homes. Media planning and selection was a piece of cake and one could hardly go wrong. All radio stations were owned by SABC, making negotiations – if that’s what one could call it – that much simpler. Ditto television. The media planner’s biggest dilemma was whether to use Sarie or Rooi Rose – and they were actually the only two female magazines pitched at the Afrikaans market.
Slowly markets have evolved. More consumer groupings emerged that were viable to marketers, and with technology screaming ahead, there was fragmentation of the available media. This, all in the interests of giving consumers what they wanted. (But always at a price!). So more and more TV options have resulted. The market is flooded with magazine titles – many of them defensive and designed to keep the press running and hopefully recoup costs on small, highly priced circulations. Tens of community radio stations opened amid great hype and minimal funding.
As a result media planning has become far more complex. Planners are still trying to adapt to buying TV spots in packages, and use ratings of 0.1% compared to 40%. A tenth of 1% reach? Who the *?!! cares? And to be honest, does it really matter at all whether the spot is on National Geographic or Discovery Channel?
Let’s be fair – suddenly the media decision is being taken out of the realm of numbers where it sat for so many years. Today the business will go to the “brand” that the media planner or client identifies with most. So best media owners recognise this. The TV channel that endears itself, the newspaper I identify with, the magazine selection I consume or admire most, are today, more than ever, going to get the business.
And it gets more complex. Given the fact that 90% of planners are drowning trying to tell one fashion mag from another, or one “Home & Interiors” from the next “House & Décor”, the relationship the sales/marketers of the media brand have with the media agency or client has to have taken on a far greater relevance.
So what’s the lesson to be learnt? Well, it’s getting harder and harder to discern one’s product rationally – be it by virtue of content or by virtue of the market that it reaches. Those media that manage to entrench themselves as brands, with unique values and attributes, and who do so relevantly and consistently are likely to score big time.
If they are then able to hook onto this a culture of service excellence, the world would become their oyster. Available and flexible decision-makers, hungry, knowledgeable and flexible sales staff. Good negotiators and relevant marketing insights. Consistency and empathy are now the strong suits.
To me it all seems pretty simple. But strangely enough it appears beyond most of the media vendors in this country. Too many still launch me-too non-differentiated brands, more often than not with under-whelming enthusiasm, which is met not surprisingly by a sceptical media planner and a less than interested potential client base.
Couple this to the modern sales executive who is actually a thinly disguised deliveryman dropping off the product religiously every week, and praying for business, and one can understand why the next guy in line thinks “I should launch a new— ”
Harry Herber is group managing director of The MediaShop.