Why Automation Can Make Agencies More Human

(iMediaConnection.com) - The media landscape continues to expand on many fronts, causing chaos for those of us who want to make the most of the opportunities to engage and delight consumers on social TV screens, in the now media-rich outdoors, and on the smartphones and tablets found in so many pockets and purses.

The explosion of data being generated from each give and take in these new relationships is leading to an infinite number of ways to find better consumer insights and to optimize campaigns. And I haven’t even begun to touch on the growing number of tools consumers have at their disposal to selectively pick their favorite content — and screen out noise.

At no point in the history of advertising have agencies had so much opportunity to create unique brand-building consumer experiences for their clients. At the same time, the media landscape has never been so large and complex, making it more difficult to strategically design the right building blocks for a successful campaign.

The trick for agencies in the new dawn of advertising is not to let the complex minutiae of digital execution get in the way of funding valuable resources for strategic thinking, an agency’s ultimate value add.

Agencies are invaluable partners for their clients because they know how to find the best consumer insights and create effective brand building ideas. But if they let themselves get distracted by the growing complexity of digital stewardship, then they’ll risk having to shift more and more resources to operations — and jeopardize their value by underinvesting in strategy tools and clients.

Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. In advertising, the squeaky wheel is the day-to-day execution of campaigns.

This concern is even more worrisome when you consider that in the not-too-distant future all media will become digital. That means more and more spending will be moving into the digital side of the business where, surprisingly, the least amount of automation exists for media stewardship.

Read the remainder of this article on iMedia here.