by Rachelle Raymundo [see her profile here]
There is an increasing demand from clients to integrate digital as part of regular media planning and buying. And why wouldn’t they when consumers have seamlessly integrated digital into their lives?
Intensity of digital integration into consumer’s lives may vary, but it would be difficult to deny otherwise. Moms have searched concerns about their child’s health from the web. Males have expressed their opinions on Facebook and Path. Traditional businesses have tapped, not just Tokopedia, but also Instagram to sell their products.
Agencies have started to consider this evolution in the way they look at structures and processes. While that is happening, skills and mindsets of current planners and buyers need to be re-conditioned to cope with this evolution. I feel it should not be that difficult.
While digital seems and feels all-new, with complex algorithms and systems, it follows the same principles as traditional advertising. Reach, frequency, cost per reach, data and metrics analysis etc. are used to understand, measure and evaluate brand, competitive and category performances. Sure, the roles and executions would be different, though the same goes for TV vs. radio vs. print and that was not so difficult to integrate, even despite the fact that radio had little and unstable set of available data.
One of the keys perhaps, is showing and demonstrating how similar digital is to traditional media planning and buying and apply the same set of principles to digital planning and buying.