Jargon Alert: Media Agility or Adaptive Development Methodology ;)

The plethora of media choices now available to satisfy every commercial requirement, either as a stand-alone option or in concert with an infinite number of other combinations, is certainly putting the effectiveness of the current system of media strategy and selection under scrutiny.

Further, the perchant of the current system to front-load the schedule, that is, plan and sign-off an entire schedule (including the integration of applications/virals) well before a single shot is fired, is looking increasingly outdated and dangerous.

In software terms, it’s comparable to building Vista to lock-up stage without so much as Q&A session! Ummm, OK, bad analogy.

The point is, the nature of audience interaction and mobility means a single, static solution which is expected to generate a return of x% over a month, or several, is simply incompatiable with current dynamics. As a consequence, the initial match-up between target group(s) and media (maybe in the first 24 hours) quickly deteriorates, with targeting becoming imprecise and wasteful.

Media needs to take a leaf from the world of open, collaborative software development, where ever-more elaborate projects are increasingly being managed in an agile environment. Here feedback and collaboration are encouraged after every bite-sized peice of coding or module is completed, rather than relying on final testing/feedback at the end of a major release.

Interaction and individuals over process and tools - that’s the agile way.

The MO of media strategy and management should be to increasingly focus on smaller fragments of the masterplan, enabling each phase to be measured and tested using velocity metrics (preferably within a few hours of execution), user stories (quantitative feedback from the field), collaboration between media and creative, as well as the resources (and courage) to refactor or recalibrate the masterplan after each feedback session.

The one critical point in all this gratuitous advice is that media agility requires the intimate involvement of the customer. Their IP on sales and customer data is critical to this test-driven environment. In short, for contemporary media to work most effectively (ie optimised) requires radical transparency (in terms of data and customer intelligence) on the part of both customer and media house.