In the world of media buying today, computer optimisation
rules. The actual trading of TV, radio, press and online buys is done with little human input. Here I mean not the high end strategic input or the macro negotiations by the
senior agency folk with the media owner. I mean the detailed selection of each and every spot/placement/banner...
This makes complete sense, given the enormous breadth of choice, to utilise optimisation tools.
However, back when I started out as a TV spot buyer, the job was more like a craft than it is today. It involved great amount of human input and care over each spot selection, choosing each break that each spot would fall into. It was like Superbowl for every spot on the schedule. Mind you, we were only talking about a bunch of regional TV stations and (with the arrival of Channel 4) one national station in the UK back in the late 1980s.
I started in the media and marketing world as a young TV buyer at McCann Erickson. TV time-buying involved manual selection of the time slots for your client’s advertising, a huge amount of persuasion, quite a bit of shouting and a lot of luck.
There you were, thinking you had your spot buys for the week-end all done, including the centre break of the James Bond Movie on Saturday night (always good for big ratings back in 1987!), when you got the dreaded call on Friday at 4pm…
(a pretty, but unconnected, picture)
A Sunday newspaper had decided to buy up all of the great spots across Friday night and Saturday at top rate for a big promotion, so knocking out my carefully chosen schedule for my client. As the newspaper took over the best slots, the knock-on effect was a little like the butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon…chaos ruled. Between Friday 1600 and Friday 1759, I would try to secure whatever I could using three techniques:
1 Plead. ‘My boss will kill me’, ‘my client will kill me’, ‘my mum would kill me’ kind of thing.
2 Shout. It is alleged that someone at McCann Erickson TV buying unit once throw a phone out onto the street out of anger, and that there was a budget specifically to replace broken phones. I couldn’t possibly comment.
3 Trust. Leverage my long developed relationship with the sales person at the TV channel came into play. With so many brands looking to salvage their campaign in the heat of the moment and supply now restricted, why should a sales person go to fight your cause if there is no Trust or bond?
Route 1 was just a disaster.
I learned many things during my time at McCann Erickson TV buying unit - the skill of negotiation and the ability to present complex issues in language that people outside of the TV-buying cult actually understand, to name two.
Nothing was more important though than the importance of building and maintaining strong personal relationships where trust is central to that relationship.
The world of media buying might have moved on significantly but the value of trust and the personal relationship between agency and media company folk is as critical today as it was back in the 1980s when I started out.