Broad reach was the cornerstone of advertising media for decades. But its position has come under steady attack. Media’s biggest traditional reach vehicle, TV, has seen that very quality ebb as viewers drift away. Growing alternatives use finely targeted messages against smaller online communities, model personas and individuals.
TV networks, cable networks and agencies have been on the losing side of this battle for years. Agencies in particular made a big bet on reach in the mid-1990s by ripping media planning and buying out of creative agencies and founding the media company giants we know today (OMD, Zenith Optimedia, GroupM, etc.). The core idea driving this big move was that eyeballs could be commodified. As far as reach was concerned, an eyeball was an eyeball; and a cheap eyeball was better than an expensive eyeball. Consolidation of huge budgets meant that big media agencies set the negotiating field, and the network and cable players played the game according to the new eyeball-commodification rules.
The internet, of course, turned this world upside down. As media-planning options went from eight or nine media choices to hundreds, creative agencies were left in the lurch. The connection between media planning and creative, which had always been tenuous, was now almost nonexistent. Aligning creative ideas to emerging media opportunities became the definition of great creativity, yet the media people and the creative people were usually not even in the same building. At the same time, when networks and cable stations were most under attack for their lack of targeted impact, media buyers were focused on lowering the cost per eyeball.
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