Are media strategists becoming innovation-averse?

Is the role of a media strategist getting easier and less complex, or are media strategists becoming ‘innovation-averse’? 

Stop, go back, and read that question again just to make sure you are clear on what I’m asking. It’s a valid question, but likely to upset some people.

The digital media landscape used to be the cauldron of innovation, and it was a wonderful place to be a media strategist.  The trades were covering innovation at a breakneck pace and there seemed to be new solutions and ideas on a weekly basis.

When I had that role, I spent half my time meeting and hypothesizing with new companies about how we could use their technology to reach the audience in what we referred to as a fragmented media landscape.

Multibillion dollar companies don’t innovate

The other half of my time was spent pitching ideas and convincing brands to integrate these new ideas into our campaigns.

The role of a media strategist was essentially that of a creative director who specialised in media. We spent lots of time with the creatives in the agency, uncovering ways to get our ideas into a concept that could be brought to life.

These days the media landscape is more consolidated, and the big companies who gain the lion’s share of budgets are the primary sources of ‘innovation’.

I used quotes there for a specific reason. Multibillion-dollar media companies don’t innovate. They adopt ideas that have been tested and tried and have seen enough success to warrant their attention.

When a multibillion-dollar media company offers something innovative, every one of your competitors is being offered the same thing. You are an also-ran rather than an early adopter.

Rolling a rock up the hill

To get a media strategist to pay attention to a new idea can feel Sisyphian. You have to roll that rock up the hill, through a series of meetings, and hope that at the top the client doesn’t look right past it, causing your rock to roll right back down so you can get it started all over again.

Some brands are early adopters, but they are the same brands most other innovative start-ups are trying to speak with, so you are all rolling rocks up the hill, bumping into one another, sometimes sending another rock reeling down the hillside. It can be a mess.

So, I ask the question again: Are media strategists becoming innovation-averse?

If the process to bring in a new idea is difficult and filled with friction, and strategists have an easier time presenting variations of currently accepted solutions that involve Google, Amazon and Meta, will they invest the time learning about new solutions and evangelising those solutions through to their clients when they have only a 50% (at best) rate of success?

Mindpower of media strategists

Or will they default to what gets approved and what may be successful, but effectively homogenises their respective go-to-market strategies?

There’s only so far and so deep you can go with optimisation. You need new solutions in the mix so you can stay ahead of the competition, break through the clutter, and create better engagement with your audience.

My sincere hope is that with AI, the foundational work is getting done faster and frees up the mindpower of media strategists to keep pushing the envelope forward. If that happens, the role of a strategist will continue to be fun and impactful.

If not, these folks will become extinct like the dinosaurs of old and be replaced with fully agentic solutions.