In a profile for Campaign, Publicis Media UK chief executive Niel Bornman set out his vision to "disrupt the media model" as he claimed media plans are too often a “copy, paste” exercise and lack creativity. Generative AI is one of the ways he proposed to improve the model to help planners unlock their creativity.
He said: “We're in this space now, where it's a bit of art, a bit of science and where we're going with it is this idea of the human bringing the art and the AI bringing the science. We’re not in that space where the human can bring the science any more because it's just too much data.”
The consensus from media agencies below is that Bornman is right but the reasons are nuanced and, as the7stars’ Sabrina Frances points out, “more AI” may not be the answer.
Richard Kirk, joint chief strategy officer, EssenceMediacom
At a macro level, the charge that UK media plans are too “copy, paste” is unfair. There have been dramatic shifts in investment over the past decade, with new technologies and buying methods being widely adopted. But good media planning balances the potential of innovation with management of risk – and, arguably, we’ve skewed toward the former too much. Studies such as Peter Field’s media-centric Cost of Dull work, Professor Karen Nelson-Field’s work on attention and our own research into media signalling strength or ROI (Profit Ability 2) all directionally point toward too much “cut” in consistently hard-working media, and not enough “copy, paste” – even when this runs counter to effectiveness data.
That said, I share the enthusiasm for AI-assisted planning; it should become easier to build plans rooted in a deeper understanding of our target consumers and the media that delivers real impact. I’m just not sure those plans will be as different as some think.
Sally Weavers, founder, Craft Media
Yes… but there are probably a few things at play. No-one ever goes to work to do an average job.
Is the brief the same? It often is and if clients “copy, paste” briefs from the previous year and the (often too junior) agency team just answer the brief without interrogation, then I can see how media plans start to look the same year on year.
Is there an assumption that the answer is classic advertising? Because it often isn’t. Modern marketing challenges require more than an advertising campaign to solve their issue. It should be comms strategy, not channel, first. We turn down clients who ask us to plan their (radio) campaign.
Is it planning by numbers? If the client is a disciple of Byron Sharp, a slave to econometrics and beholden to like-for-like sales then there’s often not much wriggle room for planners.
Dino Myers-Lamptey, founder, The Barber Shop
Yes. Bespoke and crafted media plans need a few things. Freedom from agency "deals"; buyers that understand the value of planning and strategy, and clients that are prepared to pay for the premium planning creates.
You can spread the blame around broken pitch processes; procurement who haven’t bought media; clients who don’t feel comfortable to question the plan and short-term incentive structures and tenures, which create a race-to-the-bottom mentality. With more black box, AI-supported buying now occurring, it is likely that while on the face of it those words suggest something very tailored, in reality, every machine is working towards serving your media to the cheapest, most likely, bot to click on your ad – AI optimising to what it knows, from a base of poorly verified data, getting you to spend more, while inevitably achieving less. Although it’ll be very clever at making it very difficult for you to feel like you can ask the right question.
Sabrina Francis, strategy director, the7stars
Based on common themes from advertisers inviting us to pitch, yes. Their frustrations are often compounded by plans being sub-optimal in the first place, featuring lines of activity which seem to benefit agency over advertiser.
However, "more AI" isn’t necessarily the answer.
Bornman’s right in that there’s huge complexity to grapple with in modern media planning, and AI can help manage some of this. But what AI can’t yet replicate well are the lateral leaps of thought behind the exhilarating, energising work that makes media so exciting.
Game changing thinking focused on making our client brands distinctive is something we call "The awesome power of independent thought." Copy/paste planning is its natural enemy. "Computer says…" planning could soon be just as much of a problem – more good news for independent thinkers.
Hamid Habib, managing director, Havas Entertainment
Obviously, just as there are great planners, you’ll also find lazy planners, so sometimes there are elements of copy and paste. However, I don’t believe this is the norm. I believe it primarily depends on the client-agency relationship.
As Uber’s Maya Gallego Spiers acknowledged at this year’s Campaign Media 360, sometimes you want work brave enough to take you to the cusp of being fired, without being pushed over the edge. Other times, you need straightforward, nuts-and-bolts thinking.
Having this simple communication upfront sets clarity and ambition. We now work with some of our entertainment clients up to two years ahead of a release. While this may seem like an obvious approach, it wasn’t always the norm. It’s taken time to get here, and the work we are doing for those clients will never be a copy-and-paste solution. It’s the award-worthy, business-transforming work we love to shout about. The quality of the output is proportionate to the quality of the input. Or, put simply: shit in, shit out.
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