The announcement that Jim Poh’s Pohmedia had won the media strategy assignment for Quizno’s brought joy to this corner of the media agency world. Britain has had Media Strategy only agencies for decades but in the U.S. this never seemed to take off. Witness Naked who are doing OK but that’s about it on the Strategy roster. Most agencies are these mammoth, jumbled together masses claiming to be able to do everything better than everyone else. The result is that these agencies provide mediocre media work at best for their clients.
Perhaps U.S. advertisers are still caught up in the “bigger is better” philosophy but I hope that is waning. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bigger an agency grows, the dumber it seems to get. Take a look at WPP and the Dell/Enfatico fiasco (those two words seem to belong together.) WPP shot itself in both feet and are/were working upwards after a promising start.
Any media guru worth their “guru-ness” knows that strategy is the most important part of any media construct. More people does not make the media strategy better and tends to have the opposite result. Like too many cooks in a kitchen, any usful insights get lost in the general group-think that happens. One or two really smart and insightful media folk is all you need to come up with a brilliant approach to reaching your customers. And Jim Poh fits that bill perfectly.
Please, Jim, show the U.S. the way for the rest of us who believe quality not quantity is what makes the difference in effective communications planning.
Themediaist's Weblog 