Way back in the 1990’s (yep, that was 30+ years ago) full-service agencies began to split off media services largely to capture media only clients and to open the field a bit for internal competitive challenges. In other words, Y&R could have one cruise line as a creative only client while Media Edge had a competitor with a media only contract. It’s not a bad move for a lot of reasons, but this left, and often does now, a gap in where the campaign strategy actually lives. Does the unrelated creative agency have the strategy that their new, also unrelated, media partner needs? Are there two different strategies for a single campaign? Overcoming this challenge is the very reason that Spurrier Group decided to make strategy development a stand-alone service that we offer.
There are clients and agencies that hire us specifically for strategy services to then be shared with their existing agency partners. We don’t mind at all. We like it! Having this service available in a snackable form allows some clients to have a cohesive overarching brand or campaign strategy without having to undo relationships with partners they really enjoy.
Spurrier Group works off the creative briefs as a muse to our media strategy development; yet another way we fuse creative and media together. To determine how, when, and why we want engagement and/or action from the target segments, we need to understand what we want the interaction to be. This requires a strategy that media and messaging can both execute on. In this stage, we identify how we want the consumer to engage and thereby define the KPIs based on business goals and media goals.
We know that great creative reaching the wrong or wasted audience isn’t effective. We also know that a great media plan carrying the wrong message to the audience segment is also ineffective. Our strategy first approach provides the best opportunity for efficient and effective campaigns.
Creative and media have the same exact goal. We are both striving for the same KPIs. Our canvases are different: one is visual, and emotion driven, and one is tactical, and data driven, but they need to be on the same path to the same end. Spurrier Group’s approach to media planning, with media strategy as the catalyst, ensures that this will indeed be the outcome.