Channels are the New Practice Areas

Part two in the 4C’s of Brand Messaging introduction series.

After 15 years working in Integrated Marketing, I’m still running into siloed practice areas inside most agencies and large internal marketing organizations. PR is separated from digital, digital is miles away from outdoor, and print is often relegated to specialists. But that is the old way, and it’s high time to get in line with what’s in front of us.

Change is hard. Integration might be harder. And so it’s understandable that organizations have difficulty putting together a marketing puzzle 100+ years in the making. There are puzzle pieces made of paper, cloth, cardboard, and 1’s & 0’s. Some of the pieces stand still, while other’s never stop moving.

It’s not that these pieces can’t fit together with some finessing or percussive encouragement - it’s that we shouldn’t be assembling puzzles in the first place. The shift is to change our perspective, and ultimately the axis of our point of view. Like an addition to a house, we so often build outward, increasing our footprint along the X axis. It’s the difference between adding breadth versus adding depth.

Those of us in the agency world have experienced so much of this in the past decade. Traditional agencies buying digital agencies, management consulting acquiring production teams, PR firms adding social practices. And why? To survive. The landscape has changed, and brands need to reach their total addressable market efficiently and effectively to compete. And with agencies failing to adapt, everything is going in-house.

“Brand messages are no longer confined to the four walls of specialized practice areas.”

The good news/bad news is it’s still mostly puzzles being assembled in agencies and in-house teams alike. There is little to nothing of true integration. Until we change our perspective, the future will leave us coughing in the dust. To gain efficiency, lower cost structures, and increase effectiveness we need to start thinking of our historic practice areas along the Y axis - vertically integrated as channels.

What do PR, digital/social, print, and outdoor all have in common? They are channels and mediums for messaging and awareness. It’s less about these realms of messaging specifically, and more about the totality of the right message, at the right time, in the right place. It’s the ecosystem of channels and how they inter-operate that matters most. We are entering a world where specialization is giving way to thoughtful generalism. The bolt-on, puzzle-building model is missing the forest for the trees.

Channels are all the places our audiences already are. They don’t require separate teams, they require tailored content, and a specific cadence to reach out effectively.

Stay tuned for part three of the introduction to the 4C’s of Brand Marketing, Cadence.

Find me at: www.njmclain.com