Practitioner book review: Spending advertising money in the digital age — how to navigate the media flow

Abstract

At the core of the book is the concept of the ‘ media fl ow ’ , the stream of advertising or marketing communications (above the line, below the line, online + + + ), which we all live alongside and sometimes ‘ within ’ (!). Media today is compared with a fast-fl owing river. All our lives are intertwined with media; the media fl ow is increasingly hard to avoid and at its best tailored to match our wants and needs. According to Accenture, each of us is exposed to some 1,009 advertising messages daily. (Yes, one does question how they arrive at this exact number: the book offers a breakdown in the Appendix). In any case, we can probably all agree that the total number of advertising messages we are each exposed to each day is: a lot . Thus (the authors explain), today ’ s media planners need to put their client ’ s brand ‘ into the fl ow ’ in such a way that it engages the maximum number of the right consumers in the most effective manner. (Hey: no one said it would be easy!). The familiar model of bought, owned and now ‘ earned ’ media is employed. The way in which this model interacts with the media and ‘ life fl ows ’ of the target consumers (and businesses) is interestingly examined