Traditional vs. New Media: Why Argue?
By Patricia Wilson
If you’re a media planner with experience (especially 10-plus years) you have undoubtedly sat in a room with the self-righteous digital or social media guru. You know them. They’re the ones who frown on you and your old-school media ideas as out of touch.
Of course, traditionalists are not without their own biases. After all, these new media mavens, you might think, have little real knowledge or experience with how media really works. And how do these new media gurus plan to scale their media plans — with small click-through rates — to come anywhere close to the reach of traditional 
media campaigns?
Which then prompts the digital and social media experts to claim: “You just don’t understand all the tools.”
And on it goes.
Please. Let’s stop the nonsense.
Clients need us to engage all the tools available to help impact marketing at the most efficient level possible. The truth is most seasoned media planners are excellent at examining all these tools and crafting an integrated plan that performs. Media planners set measurable goals and build plans to achieve them.
And digital planners do have experience and knowledge of engaging consumers with measurable effectiveness.
There is, for example, still no more powerful medium than TV for reach and entertainment. TV viewership has never been higher, although distribution to computer and mobile devices add many new dimensions. Direct mail and e-mail still work to drive short-term offers and promotions. In contrast,the Web is highly measurable. Behavioral targeting, ad serving and optimizing are very compelling.
In short, all media — both new and old — play vital roles in today’s marketing mix.
it is time to move beyond the us vs. them argument of old and new media and serve the clients and the brands with all the tools and intrinsic values of the full range of media offerings.
Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Couldn’t agree more. We have so much available to us so let’s stop the bickering, and make a proposal to the client that makes sense. In the end, if it works they’ll be back. If not, no matter how hip and happening the campaign was, they’ll be gone.
well said. there are so many cool ideas that often fall flat with no real ROI.
I am often searching for recent infos in the net about this theme. Thx!!
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