Beyond Recoupling: How Can Media and Creative Work Together Better?
Photo by John Barkiple on Unsplash
You’d have to be quite the contrarian in today’s ad industry to argue that there should be more barriers between media and creative. The first instalment of our ‘Beyond Recoupling’ series made it clear that leaders on all sides are looking to build ties between the people who have the ideas and the ones who decide where and how they show up. But once that intention has been set, how should agencies make it happen?
For Jennifer Kohl, chief media officer at VML US, it’s always been about face time together. In her media career spanning over 30 years, she’s always endeavoured to stay attached to the creative process. “Media is my area of expertise but I am clear that media is hugely dependent on the creative,” she says. “We could have the best media plan in the intergalactic universe but without the right creative it will struggle to succeed. The inverse is also true. Award-winning creative sans a proper connected media plan will go nowhere fast. At VML, our creatives and media thinkers sit and work together. We have a distinct process that allows multiple points for creative/media to come together, share and ideate.”
The narrative we’ve all heard about breaking down silos starts with that. “Both workstreams rely heavily on one another and we need to encourage a process that allows both media and creative to elevate the other,” says Jennifer.
VML’s recent effort for Tennessee Playcation is something that she points to as a prime example of media and creative literally playing together and creating their own media channel. The agency created a first-of-its-kind tourism catalogue showcasing custom toys for the top 25 iconic destinations across the state, including Dollywood, Ryman Auditorium, and the Memphis Zoo. 100,000+ catalogues were delivered to key travel prospects. As kids picked out their favourite Playcation toy, they were helping their parents pick out their next family vacation. The catalogue’s QR codes made it easy for parents to book the trip and led to online videos that brought the toys to life.
Creating a media channel from scratch is one extreme way of blending media and creative, but media opportunities abound everywhere you look, if you have the expertise to guide the creative. And knowing about those unique opportunities can spark equally unique ideas. Keilla Conti, paid media director at Soko, now part of Droga5 São Paulo, says the Accenture Song company is currently focusing on stepping up the thought process behind creative ad placement. She always prioritises working together with the creative teams, encouraging media planners to help creative teams come up with ideas that are truly innovative. “What's great about playing with different media formats is that, oftentimes, they become the centre of the creative idea themselves,” she says.
Keilla also loves when creatives go out of their way to learn about their media options. “I also believe that everyone has to be ready to step out of their comfort zone and study up on what's going on in other areas. That way, when we all sit down to discuss ideas for campaigns, everyone contributes equally,” she says. “Creativity and media have the same final purpose. One does not work without the other. Everyone working on a campaign has to be aware of this and consider all the challenges along the way. Helping everyone understand that different department goals are ultimately the same aids in bringing creativity and media closer.”
But it’s ultimately going to be the media team that holds the knowledge about media formats that can fertilise a great idea. Jennifer talks about the importance of creating opportunities for this in the process of any project: “Our team sets up sessions to share the latest and greatest creative units being offered. Whether it’s squeeze backs, inter-scrollers, branded slates, cover-wraps, station dominations or wallscapes, we want our creatives to know about these impactful placements and ways we can target BEFORE the media plan is baked.”
As in so many areas, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing yesterday. So, if you’re thinking about bringing media into the process, the best time is as early as humanly possible. “We want creatives to come and hang out with us before their concepts are fully cooked,” says Jennifer. Recently, she experienced a creative director springing into a meeting with a 90-second video idea. “We were happy she was so happy, but what we really needed was six 10-second units. We collaborated on ways to incorporate both into the media plan. That was a win, not just for creative and media but also our clients because we achieved the objectives of the campaign with the best creative and a connected media plan.”
None of these moments are as easy as just ‘hanging out’ more, despite how simple that may sound. It’s a culture that needs to be woven through departments, with the right cross-disciplinary teams who are all curious about every part of what makes a campaign great. “We’re experiencing a media transformation that looks unrecognisable to the past, opening up a new canvas for creativity,” say Colin Selikow, chief creative officer and Jaime McGill, head of strategy at DDB Chicago. “Today it’s all about changing how we look at the elements that make up a truly great idea. Media and creative are becoming less of a discipline and more of an opportunity, with new tools that can be used to make ideas more impactful, effective, and cultural. If media, message, and execution are the trio behind an idea, we need the right diversification of talent, teams and thinkers to bring these elements together to find the opportunity.”
DAC is an agency that puts seamless integration of media and creative at the heart of its offering to clients. “Media strategy and creative development are unified under a single, cohesive strategy,” say Damian Denobrega, senior director of creative services, and Jenna Watson, senior vice president of digital media there. “Our goal is to ensure that every creative asset not only captures the audience's attention but also aligns perfectly with the broader media objectives, enhancing the overall effectiveness of the campaign.”
Collaboration between functions (or with other agencies when DAC is not providing creative services) are a cornerstone of the agency’s approach. “Our media planners, creative teams/creative agency, and data analysts work closely together from the outset of every project,” say Damian and Jenna. “This ensures that the creative outputs are optimised for the channels they will appear on, and are tailored to resonate with the target audience at every touchpoint. By fostering this level of collaboration, we can create campaigns that are not only visually-compelling but also strategically-sound and data-driven.”
At RPA, media and creative have been living under the same roof for decades, but Fern McCaffrey, EVP / executive account director & Kelly Kim, VP / group media director there, admits: “There can be challenges with building collaboration between teams.” That’s not deterring them of course, because with the advent of platforms designed to enable testing and optimization – and fine-tuned data-informed creative personalization – they know it’s absolutely critical for these teams to work closely together.
They explain the mentality – and the structure – that makes this work: “The opportunities get uncovered through that close dialogue. Everyone needs to understand that their work will get better from the collaboration, and it’s worth the extra effort. You need ‘one team, one dream’ vibes to make this work. You need leadership on all sides setting the tone.
“Any campaign or initiative needs a core team including both creative and media leads. And you need share-outs at key moments, to ensure those conversations are happening when they need to. That can look like a unified master strategy brief, a creative platform review where the focus is on media opportunities, creative participation in the media strategy and tactical reviews, cross-team extension concepting and more.
“Create the framework to enable the cross-pollination of ideas. And the leadership team working across all the campaigns should be meeting at least monthly to talk shop and keep an eye on how the collaboration is going. Finally, performance share-outs need to include creative leads so they can understand the impact of their work on media performance.”
At UK independent media agency the7stars, Supernova is the in-house creative and production team, made up of creatives who are totally immersed in media knowledge. As Anuschka Clarke, managing partner at the7stars, is keen to highlight, it’s one of the few creative agency teams that have Google Creative Certification in the UK, demonstrating its capabilities in everything from creative data-driven attribution to marketing AI. “There is a real benefit to having not just media and creative expertise under one roof – but data teams too,” she adds. “By layering data analysis with creative optimisation, we give clients an edge. AI already supports all of these functions and will only improve agency capabilities in the future. Our AI creative optimisation tool, Halo, enables us to optimise video creative for digital environments and surface creative insights in real time.”
But it’s not just about the tech and staying abreast of the latest innovation. When saying ‘under the same roof’ we sometimes forget the power of the millennia-old invention of the roof itself. “While it may seem old-fashioned to emphasise the importance of IRL working, we believe that in-person collaboration not only saves time for our clients but also adds significant value to the work we produce. It's a powerful way to produce creative media and quality creative,” says Anuschka.
As chief media officer at Pittsburgh, PA- and Atlanta, GA-based independent full-service advertising agency Chemistry, Jason Dille, has thoughts on potential barriers to creative-media collaboration. “The fusion of creative ideas and media tactics is crucial for effective advertising. The key question is: how can we encourage creatives to engage with media and media planners to be involved in the creative process?”
“Small to midsize agencies have a better opportunity to collaborate between creative and media because there aren’t layers of reporting structure, strictly drawn territories of experience, and typically a scrappier attitude of just getting the work done,” he says.
“Even with that advantage, the struggle still exists,” he admits. “One issue lies with department naming and titles. People automatically associate duties with titles. Yes, we do need some structure to understand who is executing tasks, but we can’t let it handcuff our opportunity to challenge, learn, and succeed. If we potentially shifted our title naming to creative media planner or art director-paid digital media, would that be enough? It’s a start, but we have to do more.
“Another approach is to build departments that have no borders, share common goals, and have multi-discipline leadership. Smaller agencies are at an advantage here because there are fewer layers between leadership and executional staff.”
Chemistry has experimented with Lab Partners, which pairs interdisciplinary staff to foster collaboration. Then, Chemistry has challenged each department to provide knowledge-sharing sessions to build a common baseline of marketplace trends and topics.
But the structures need to be built on a sturdy foundation. “Ultimately, a shift in mindset is required,” says Jason. “Viewing creativity and media as two sides of the same coin rather than separate entities can drive more innovative and effective advertising. To truly believe that creative and media are intertwined, we must live out the belief within our daily discussions, projects, and briefs.”
To get there, everyone needs to feel inspired about this enhanced collaboration. As Matt Buttrick, head of brand strategy at Bountiful Cow sees it, it takes a special kind of magic to make it work. “I've always believed that the best way to bring agencies of any discipline, and the people within them closer together, particularly media and creative teams, is through the power of an idea. Having spent 10 years in media agencies and at least another 10 at creative agencies, I’ve helped brief TV buyers, media activation specialists, pure-play old-school ad creatives, and new-school content creators, and it’s always the idea that sparks excitement and unites everyone in a shared purpose.”
He goes on to put it in creative terms: “In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film ‘Inception’, the characters talk about the very power of an idea, how it can grow from the smallest seed into a potent, defining force in people's minds. I think the exact same thing happens within agencies. And if the idea is fertile, people are off before the meeting finishes, eager to see how it comes alive in their own area of execution. At Bountiful Cow, where we offer full-service creative and media, we've found that the most exciting moments happen when we're all around the same table. It really feels like one of the only times in the industry when individual weapons are left at the door and that elusive moment of inception can occur.”
Beyond Recoupling is a short series on LBB exploring the shifting relationship between creative and media. Read the first instalment here and the third here.
