The wish list of a media planner …

Victoria Wissmann, Consultant, Planner & Creative Media Manager at Mediaplus in Munich, gives us a small insight into her everyday workday and presents us with two quite specific wishes that she nurtures in terms of creative media planning.

If you reflect upon which wishes would be on the wish list of every media planner, the list would fill up fairly quickly: first and foremost, an expansion of the cafeteria’s range of cocktails would be very practical! In addition: self-optimising coverage, bigger budgets, longer lead times and client briefings with very specific objective targets – and no, three pages of briefing are not always necessarily promising. However, as we know from our childhood, not all the points on our wish list will always come true. For this reason, I have written here only my two biggest wishes:

1.      A bilateral change of perspective. How would it be if client and agency did a work placement at each other’s offices just for a week? The clients could look over the shoulder of their media consultants and in this way would have the opportunity to see exactly how media plans basically are put together, how performance values are calculated and which tools are used. On the other side, the agency could better meet the demands of an integral client service if they had more insight into the issues and decisions on the client side. The mutual understanding for each other and collaboration can only profit by a change of perspective. And if the clients then experienced the spirit of our Houses of Communication at an after-work drink on our red deckchairs, the agency-client relationship would reach a whole new level.

2.      My second wish is the following: “More courage and money to risk an edgy venture”. Just for once turn your back on the numbers and walk a courageous path with the clients – towards innovative ideas that generate maximum attention. That would be brilliant! Instead of optimising one per cent of net reach, simply have the courage to try new things and the joy of doing so, to test them, to surprise the target group and simply just do it. And if a giant, realistic bar of chocolate appears in the middle of the biggest square of the city – why not (what’s more, I would like to include this idea on my next wish list)?

But as I prefer not only to wish but also to make something happen, I look forward to each step that we take together with our clients in the creative media planning direction because in this way wishes do come true.