Media vs Creative Strategy in Advertising
CMM3120
Current Issues in Marketing Communications
2012
Current Issue Essay on
“What is more important:
Media strategy or creative strategy?”
Cecilia Setiawan
10167897
Advertising is a partnership between creative and media strategies. Each play a very important role in creating an advertisement, that it is almost impossible to draw a line between the two. Alasdair Reid (1994) asserts that as early as in the 1990s creative and media strategies were still very much inseparable due to the fact that advertising “used to be a very simple business” (1994, p. 15) – producing an ad was more focused on creation of the content, rather than the placement. These days, however, with new media spawning, separating media and creative carries only few, if any, consequences. As a result, there is an emerging concern on whether these two separate departments can fall victim to major disconnects in an effort to reach advertising goals. The question remains, has media strategy become more important than the creative half of the equation? Creative and media strategies are part of the communication process that advertising is, and arguing which is more important means arguing whether it is the message or the channel that is more significant in the whole process. David Berlo in his book The Process of Communication (1960) lays out the process as “Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver”. Advertising follows this simple rule by transferring an advertiser’s message about a product, through a channel, towards the targeted audience. In this system, creative strategy plays its role as part of the Message – they transform the advertiser’s information into promotional content. In this context, creative strategies are responsible for two things: The Big Idea and Product Image. How The Big Idea works is probably best described by David Ogilvy himself, “It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a
Current Issues in Marketing Communications
2012
Current Issue Essay on
“What is more important:
Media strategy or creative strategy?”
Cecilia Setiawan
10167897
Advertising is a partnership between creative and media strategies. Each play a very important role in creating an advertisement, that it is almost impossible to draw a line between the two. Alasdair Reid (1994) asserts that as early as in the 1990s creative and media strategies were still very much inseparable due to the fact that advertising “used to be a very simple business” (1994, p. 15) – producing an ad was more focused on creation of the content, rather than the placement. These days, however, with new media spawning, separating media and creative carries only few, if any, consequences. As a result, there is an emerging concern on whether these two separate departments can fall victim to major disconnects in an effort to reach advertising goals. The question remains, has media strategy become more important than the creative half of the equation? Creative and media strategies are part of the communication process that advertising is, and arguing which is more important means arguing whether it is the message or the channel that is more significant in the whole process. David Berlo in his book The Process of Communication (1960) lays out the process as “Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver”. Advertising follows this simple rule by transferring an advertiser’s message about a product, through a channel, towards the targeted audience. In this system, creative strategy plays its role as part of the Message – they transform the advertiser’s information into promotional content. In this context, creative strategies are responsible for two things: The Big Idea and Product Image. How The Big Idea works is probably best described by David Ogilvy himself, “It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a
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