We estimate, plan, and buy our own media.

Creative development and media buying are all one integral process. As form and content feed off each other, you can’t optimize the effectiveness of one without considering the inherent aspects of the other. We generally buy directly from media owners and, only occasionally, through brokers and buying services as avails and our clients' needs dictate. We buy to use, as opposed to investing in media futures. Although, we sometimes take advantage of those who have invested for those purposes.

Much has been made of “media clout” in the larger media holding companies and media buying services. Yes, it's true the largest media holding companies typically buy better and early. They use their clients' collective buying power to predict collective needs and negotiate lower initial acquisition rates and packaged deals. They typically "invest" beyond the needs of their constituencies, locking in large blocks of time, using their control over the inventory to promote and build value for their investment. However, it is a misconception they systematically pass along their advantage to anyone and everyone. In fact, they speculate on being able to sell unused inventory at full market value. When the value of the inventory goes up, they divert the overage to other media buying services at "fair market value," buying down their net acquisition costs even further. Occasionally they get stuck with inventory and dump it to the nearest media buying service.

This practice puts most media buying services in the investment business. If you are thinking of using a media buying service that owns – as opposed to brokers – time or space, watch out. And, if your agency trusts your media decisions to a media buying service sitting on media inventory, you can be sure you’re going to get and pay for what they’ve got, not necessarily for what you need.

Agencies which hand all their buying decisions carte blanch to media buying services have their heads in the sand. It may be convenient, but when they don't control the buy – the investment – they invite trouble and forfeit their fiducial responsibilities. That said, we do occasionally buy time from media buying services, like we do from any other media source; not as a matter of convenience; and only after we've done our own media rankings and weightings. We buy media to use, consistent with our clients' specific needs, only when we have a good handle on the current value of the media in the media marketplace. It’s our job.

An agency is confronted with having to make two decisions before it begins campaign development: 1. What do we want to say? 2. What media let us say it best? An agency needs to control both message form and content.

Since every message is a combination of form and content, every medium in the media plan influences what you say and how you say it. Every medium is inherently different! No two media say the same thing exactly the same way. Each has different characteristics. Each offers different opportunities. Each delivers a message differently. So, collectively, the various combinations of media in a mix become interdependent. The weighting and sequencing of media in a scheduled mix of media becomes critical, because earlier scheduled media may set up understandings or preconceptions that subsequent media play upon and spin off of later in the media schedule.

Consider the nature of today's mass media: 1. Network Spot Radio, National Spot Radio, Local Spot Radio, Hispanic Radio. 2. International Newspapers, National Newspapers, Local Newspapers, Hispanic Newspapers. 3. National Business Publications, Local Business Publications, Hispanic Business Publications. 4. National Consumer Publications, Local Consumer Publications (Dailies, Weeklies, Monthlies, Sunday Magazines), Hispanic Consumer Publications. 5. Network Television, Spot Television, Cable TV Networks, Syndicated TV, Spanish Language TV Networks, Local Spanish Language TV. 6. Outdoor, Transit. 7. Direct Response (Snail-Mail, DRTV, DR Radio, DR Print & Inserts, Catalogs). 8. Online Media (Web sites, E-Mail, SEO, Search Ads, Display Ads)

Each medium has its own intrinsic idiosyncrasies. Some media are inherently space. Others are inherently time. Some are dynamic combinations of space and time. Some are inherently "reach" formats, and others are inherently "frequency" formats. Some are static, others are dynamic. Therefore, it is not unusual for a campaign’s creative development to begin in the Media Services Department or for a campaign’s media strategy to begin in the Creative Services Department. Bringing the message to media and media to the message is one integral process of integrating content to form and form to content.

Database mining, modeling and marketing are the most traditional ways to reach, test, motivate, and retain markets. Sometimes called "pure advertising," it is the driving force behind most traditional offline as well as online direct response, and it can also affect the approach to strategically determine optimum targets, weighting, reach, frequency, recency, relevance, timing and sequencing in other campaign media. And, the closed-loop promotional strategies for CRM and SEM are all driven by database marketing and mining methodologies. See How We Use Data.

That said, online media are now central to all direct and integral marketing strategies. Unlike traditional one way media that provide opportunities for advertisers to be seen and heard by traditional clusters of targeted audiences, online media are inherently two way participatory media, where a user's online behavior and interaction among online affinities qualifies their timely targeted interests before any advertising messages on branded products and services are served to them. Today's online and cross-media analytics software are siloing vast amounts of hard data to transform media hypotheticals into working certainties. Today's pro forma for planning and measuring results is not merely a post-buy analysis, but the real-time monitoring and comparison of mixed media results as they happen. Best of all, the mix and depth of analytical data available on cross-media performance has moved demo hypotheticals and the modeling process forward to where the time to estimate, model, optimize and modify potential media plans in-progress can be anticipated and planned for prior to making media commitments.

When you think about it, all ideas – ideas that include companies, products, and services – are perceptions of reality. All ideas and their perceptions need a medium, or mix of media, for their very existence. They also depend on media when they go to market. When companies, products, and services depend on media for their very existence, it is essential for your agency to retain strategic control of the media that determine that existence.