To Be or Not To Be … Fully Loaded That Is

True competitive command includes, among other skills, knowing how to use market and consumer insights to inform strategy; hone strategy; deliver logical planning tuned to objectives; establish a real marketing or media mix; assure correct, valuable tracking and analysis; and convey options for improvement in a clear, applicable way. That’s a lot for any professional. But come on, it’s what we do, right? If you’re serious, it becomes your life’s work to get your arms and  brain around it all. If you’re complacent — well, best of luck.

In surveying several burgeoning areas of our industry — including the emergence of new types of companies such as DSPs, RTBs and the like — I realized something. Entirely new levels of skills development are required for the marketing and media professional who must say current and ahead of the curve, dealing with the new — as in the past 3 years, and last year in particular. In a way it’s unfair, but it’s also incredibly exciting. We are not talking about “re-skilling” necessarily, but depending on how you’ve been oriented, there’s a whole new standard for keeping up.

Audience focus. With the standard of data now available, it’s  become almost unacceptable among marketing and media peers to have a consumer or audience view limited to only demographics. In today’s environment, we commit to uncovering and understanding behavioral and attitudinal aspects of whoever we are targeting. The best pros among us develop real, actionable segmentation, some sort of continuum based on who our “best” (most productive or profitable over time) customer is. Engaging on this more sophisticated level means embracing data solutions or third-party engagements and getting your head and your organization in the right place pronto.

Strategy and planning. We often malign those who don’t know the difference between strategy and plan. Yet the difference has become more obvious, given all that goes into the plan itself. With strategy as the prevailing, guiding imperative — the plan is the structured approach, the means of attacking on that imperative. Today, the best plans — so rarely reliant on a single media type or level — are longer-term and very leveraged. Construction, phases, media mix and campaign management and tracking solutions — plus ad serving, targeting, listening, bid optimization — necessitate a lot of understanding and levels of commitment by different parts of an organization. What used to be a little bit true is now 100% true: the plan itself can no longer be phoned in.

Buying and optimization. This last item I’ve been mulling a lot. The growing up of networks, the entrance of ad exchanges and now the latest hotspot of activity around DSPs and RTBs — real-time bidding platforms — profoundly change a day in the life of someone in the trenches of buying. While a network buy or volume delivered through these platforms may not constitute the whole plan for a client, it’s a layer, maybe even foundational, that has its own requirements and skills. Looking at the agency for a minute, depending on who is handling this work, new territory includes learning new interfaces; cross-referencing or integrating data sets; and multidimensional bid optimization. If you have been dealing with search buying or yield management, the learning curve may be short. But, make no mistake, bidded media is its own animal. I find it fascinating that after years of agencies relegating search to experts, hired guns or the kids in the other room — agency professionals who’ve been focused on buying display impressions in a very conventional manner are getting this new exposure.

It’s always been an incredibly stimulating and rewarding environment in which to live and do business. As a personal standard, I’ve always appreciated things being just a little out of reach when striving for mastery. After all, when mastery is complete, we may as well take off for the porch and watch the sunset. While we are here, there should always be new things to learn and new ways in which to contribute. True, some of the new items on the “learn” list are particularly data- or math-driven and almost cerebral — but this is good for us.