Media Neutrality

Scriveva Jack Myers nel lontano 1998 a proposito di media neutrality:

Neutrality: the status or policy of not participating directly or indirectly in a war between others.

Media neutrality: marketers, media companies, and advertising agencies are changing their internal structures to recognize every marketing and media option equally, without the bias of history and precedent.

As control of the television industry both domestically and globally cedes to fewer players, and just a handful of media buyers control the gateways to advertising with these companies, marketers will realize that they must take greater control of their advertising spending in order to develop competitive opportunities and advantages.

These changes will revolutionize advertising message content, the tactics that are used to communicate these messages, and the research methods that are employed to evaluate the effectiveness of both the message and the messengers. This results in a zero- basing of the processes involved in decision making relating to marketing, advertising, and media, and a shift from historical and traditional biases in media selection to media neutrality.

Marketers are taking control of the media selection process by zero-basing their decision-making. They are disconnecting from traditional marketing patterns, research methodologies, and media choices, freeing themselves to enter into totally new relationships and adapting to their new visions for the future. Media neutrality reflects a transformation away from the analysis of each medium on a stand-alone basis and toward the application of new results-based data to fully integrate marketing and media decisions. Computers have made it possible for marketers to gather and analyze useful marketing data on millions of customers. Armed with this capability, they are able to explore the most effective means of delivering messages to consumers, and are less dependent on mass media coverage.

Media neutrality represents a new landscape, one that emphasizes total freedom from past decisions. It means that the traditional focus on achieving network television goals and then investing the remainder of budgets is obsolete. In the New Media Age, managers are zero-basing their decisions based on which marketing approaches are most effective and efficient at reaching and influencing key target consumers. The selection processes are zero-based to determine the vehicles best suited for achieving an individual brand's marketing goals, not simply their media planning and efficiency objectives.

Media neutrality sums up the results of all the changes affecting marketers and their communications to and with consumers. Farsighted managers are reacting to change by zero-basing their techniques, strategies and traditional patterns. They are opening the doors to new thinking, new opportunities, and new methods of analysis. They are preparing themselves for a future in which change is a permanent reality.

A distanza di quasi dieci anni, l'atteggiamento delle agenzie di pubblicità sembra lontano dall'essere neutro nei confronti dei media.

La foto è di David Liberty