John January at American Copywriter points to Business Week writer, David Kiley’s latest blog entry on Brand New Day. The piece suggests TV spots ought not run more than two to three weeks, based on MediaCheck research. Given the average 30-second spot costs $400,000 to produce, this new piece of data will be a hard pill for clients to swallow.
Some forward thinking media execs believe they may have an answer.
The head of a big media buying firm told me he was looking at starting his own creative department to produce ads at a more affordable price than his clients’ ad agencies could.
A decade or so ago, advertisers began stripping their media buying and planning chores out of full-service ad agencies because they could get better prices and greater effeciencies. Then, the media people were often seen as the least creative people in the agency next to the accountants. No more. Not only are media buying/planning firms increasingly running the show on an advertiser’s account (because there is more creativity required these days to figure out how to get a consumern to actually see the ad) but they are, like Pac Man, about to turn back on the creatives at traditional ad agencies who used to scoff at “the media people” by cutting into their business of creating the ads.
Talk about revenge of the nerds.