When thinking about this blog in the midst of the daily humdrum, the story of the three bricklayers came to mind as an inspiration to be shared.
A man came across a construction site where three bricklayers were working. They seemed like your everyday Tom, Dick and Jabu. He asked each one of them what they were doing. The first man replied: “I am laying bricks”, and wondered why someone would be interested in the mundane task he was doing.
He went to the second man with the same question who replied: “I am building a wall.” He moved towards the third man who was whistling a tune as he worked – he asked him the same question: “What are you doing?”
The man stood, smiled, and looked towards the heavens as he answered, “I am building a cathedral!”
These bricklayers were doing the same work, but each had differences in their outlook.
The job that we do as media practitioners is to buy media, or is it really?
According to Wikipedia, media planning entails sourcing and selecting optimal media platforms for a client’s brand or product to use. The job of media planning is to determine the best combination of media to achieve the objectives.
We can either leave it at that or we can see ourselves as building brands that connect with consumers and ultimately that build sustainable industries.
This blog is more about clarity of purpose and the ability to transform our outlook. We need to make the mundane magical.
How do we do that? Let’s lay our bricks.
1. Understand the client’s business
As media practitioners, we need to get into our client’s business and not separate business strategy from media strategy. Understand the business’ problems, know the pain points and business’ aspirations. By aligning to these objectives we can build integrated brand communications that are relevant and achieve business growth. This is not just creating a media schedule, it’s making magic!
2. Walk in the consumer’s shoes
Consumers are not just a number or data. They are your friend, neighbour and the everyday people you interact with. Treat them with respect. Have an insightful approach when engaging them. Understand who they really are and how they engage with your brands and channels. Once you relate to them, they will warm up to what your proposition is and engage further.
3. Collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate
Collaboration has a synergistic effect of creating new ideas, innovation that breaks through the clutter. This means that you need to leave your desk and work with other marketing disciplines and anyone relevant to the problem you are solving. Have a win-win partnership to amplify and execute brand building campaigns.
These are just three bricks that can make the mundane magical by growing brands, economies and communities. Let’s make magic!
