Media Buyers Are from Venus, Media Reps Are from Mars?

For many here on the East Coast, autumn means colorful foliage, crisp cool days, and a tailgate at a football game on the weekend. One gets the sense that all is right with the world on days like these.

There are those, however, who look upon this season with a greater sense of dread. For, you see, publishers release their media kits for the upcoming year about this time, and that can mean only one thing…their representatives are soon to follow, descending on media buyers like a pack of Huns with the idea of pillaging the countryside.

Some media planners have told me that at times the process is as much fun as having your wisdom teeth extracted without the help of anesthesia. (I still have my wisdom teeth, so I can only imagine that this isn’t a pleasant thing.)

Most media buyers, doing their level best for their clients, are thinking about things like competitive analysis, rate efficiencies, audience duplication and editorial adjacency, and how quickly can I get this information, analyze and condense it into something that will make sense for the client or their boss. It is by all accounts a stressful job, as the client or the boss usually needs this information yesterday.

Most media reps, on the other hand, are thinking about one thing. How many magazine pages they can sell you before a stapler goes whizzing past their heads from across the desk.

I am writing this because I think there may be a middle-ground and that if media reps and buyers can work together, we can accomplish a lot.

Media has changed dramatically over the past few years, and publishers who wish to be in publishing in another year or two are changing too, offering more than just a BPA statement and magazine pages. Online or digital media is here and it is real—and it works. Marketing plans incorporating both forms of media are almost essential today.

Publishing reps can be a help in analyzing the ins and outs of digital media like opt-in audience profiles, open- and click-through rates, Google Analytics, and some of the newer forms of banner creative that are available today just to name a few. The process isn’t rocket science, but there is more information through which you must sift, and a good media rep can be a help in forming a comprehensive and effective plan.

Here’s to another good year in media!

I’ve got to go and rake the stupid leaves.