Hasta La Creative!

Better than half of CMOs surveyed by The CMO Club say they’re looking to bypass media agencies in buying TV time using automated buying tech. Certainly, clients with mounds of customer data and direct-buying platforms could go direct to programmers. But should they? And how does the media agency stay relevant?

Ultimately, the data and technology supporting media will require more, not less, agency support. For one thing, you need a holistic view of brand marketing to put programmatic in the right context — how much to do, where, when and why. For another, the non-programmatic elements of media will do more to make or break brands in a world where social media is a reflex. They’re not so much impressions as conversations, where audiences committed to TV content stretch their interaction across all the screens they have.

Weaving brands into TV content and conversations is what agencies do best. They know the nuances of clients’ strategies and products. They know how all of the media work and, more importantly, work together. They know how to turn this knowledge into partnerships with networks that can give a brand a place in consumer-generated conversations. That’s why networks routinely come to agencies with creative ideas. Most importantly, agencies know how to balance this art with the science of media so clients sell more stuff. This power is the key to agencies standing taller than ever in TV.

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