The IPA Making Sense Podcast: Tessa LeGassick

Tessa LeGassick, Chief Planning Officer at Hearts & Science, joins the IPA Making Sense Podcast to explore what makes a good planner, why the role is more important than ever, the impact of AI and much more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the IPA Making Sense podcast, where we'll be making sense of the complicated things in advertising, media, and marketing today, and also hopefully just making them a little bit more fun. I'm Simon Frazier.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

And I'm Molly Bruce, and today we're joined by the brilliant Tessa Legassock. Tessa is Chief Planning Officer at Hearts and Science UK and founding member of the agency, where she's played a leading role in shaping attention-led, inclusive, and effectiveness-driven media planning. She's widely recognized for her work connecting data, creativity, and culture to real business growth, and was recently named Campaign's Media Planning Leader of the Year. Tessa, it's great to have you with us.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Thank you so much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Firstly, congratulations on your new role, Chief Planning Officer. That's wonderful to hear. And one of the things I wanted to get started with asking is just how do you define that role in a media agency today? We know with the where the landscape's becoming increasingly complex. How do you think that that definition has evolved over the last few years as well?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

I think the first thing to say is I'm actually Hart's first chief planning officer. So the role for us has definitely been shaped by what the agency needs from planning right now and what I can deliver. And for me, this might be oversimplifying, but I really think that's it. So that kind of the intersection of both craft and creativity. So at its core, my role is about making it easier for all teams, like not just specialist teams, but all teams to do great planning day-to-day across all clients. And that's not just at the big moments, though it is also at the big moments. That means kind of setting the ambition and standards for planning for the whole agency, also leading specialist teams. So I specifically look after a group of specialised planners and I also look after the creative solutions team as well. But also making sure that planning is being pulled through to really actually shape decisions. So how budgets are set, how channels are chosen, how success is measured, and making sure all of those things deliver kind of impact for clients as well. A core point is obviously championing the craft of planning, which obviously you guys know a lot a lot about, but also kind of connecting teams around that and galvanizing that. And in practice, for me, that means taking kind of strategic thinking and best practice and then translating that into kind of action and what it actually can mean for clients so we can really use it. Planning kind of really only has started to earn its place, I think, because it is it is that space where we start to move from theory into practice in media. I think, in terms of evolution, for me personally, I sort of started in a specialism, so I've had to kind of kind of on this journey to being a more broader planner, I guess, had to let go of that comfort of being a specialist because I quite I quite liked having all the answers and being the expert on everything in the room, and that that's quite a nice place to operate from as a kind of like professional. But planning obviously spans all channels, and planners have to be super strong specialists in planning, but also kind of strong generalists as well. And that definitely felt really uncomfortable for me at first because you sort of have to accept you can't know absolutely everything about everything in media. But like our job really is about connecting those things together, and essentially, like, I might not immediately know the answer about everything, but I back myself enough to know that I know the right people or the places to go to find out or figure out the answer at this point. I actually find the learning aspect of it or that kind of complexity or the ever-evolving space really energizing and enjoy the challenge of kind of figuring it out, and I think that mindset is really important in being kind of a planning leader. I think the biggest evolution, kind of broadening out to the wider media ecosystem, is like how applied and integrated the role of kind of chief planning officers have become. Planning really does kind of show up everywhere. It is in new business, it's in senior client conversations, it's in product development, it's in creativity and innovation. So that can span such a huge wrath of things from like attention-led planning, retail, gaming, influencers, new measurement approaches, like all of those things, like need a new new approach to planning them. And as kind of those channels fragment and consumer behaviour continues to shift about the place, our role is kind of about navigating that complexity without making it really complex for clients. So providing some simplification and making sure we're still delivering on kind of strategic direction. And I think the kind of context we're operating in, the reason why the planning roles become more prevalent at agencies, is because that context is changing at pace faster, the pace is increasing, and clients are definitely under kind of greater pressure from a commercial and cultural and technological perspective. So that CPL role is really about translation. How do we take all these complicated things, that complexity, whether it's like data platforms or AI or whatever the next thing will be, and making it into like kind of really clear choices. So like ultimately, the role is about facilitating making kind of better decisions more often.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

And it's great to hear being the inaugural chief planning officer, you're able to start from a position of what's really best for going forward rather than, you know, in some structures it might be, well, this is how it's always been done. And it it's it's nice to open it up and to go, well, actually, let's focus on the best things for us going forward. And I guess when you mentioned about going from that position of being a specialist in one thing, like it's comfort, yeah, it's not necessarily comfortable because it's obviously taking a lot of things. But it's really hard, but it's kind of nice. I know, you know, I know where I fit. And then moving into that generalist, what would you say is a good way for people who are very specialist to increase that general knowledge across a variety of different areas? Is it about building relationships with the right people or is it about doing lots of homework? What would you what would be your top tip, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yes, it's obviously about those things, but I think it's about having a curiosity about how your specialism fits into that kind of wider ecosystem because you don't want to get set in a mindset of like just in platform and just in channel, because that is quite reductive, especially when we move to a world where just thinking tunnel first isn't particularly helpful anymore. So I think having that curiosity about where your specialism kind of like bleeds into other specialisms because there is so much overlap these days, is probably the way to sort of stretch out of your specialism a little bit and become a bit more kind of strategic and well-rounded.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

And I I guess as we move more into the world, increasingly conversations are around AI and kind of its changing, you know, the place in the landscape. And I think the more I read into it and the more I kind of observe or have conversations about it, it seems that it's more it it encourages almost a crisis of confidence where people go, actually, if we focus on what we really know well, AI is not really that big of a threat because we're confident in our abilities. It's kind of AI has a unique ability, I think, to undermine your own confidence in things because it shows you the vastness of the things that you don't know. And actually, we've survived perfectly well not knowing a lot of stuff stuff. So it's quite uh But it's great to have that kind of overview perspective as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah, well that's the good thing about being a planner. You get this opportunity to sort of get get into the weeds of of different things constantly, and I've been doing this for the an amount of years I won't actually put a number to because it's quite aging at this point. But like that's I still find that super energizing that I can turn up this week and be like, I'm definitely gonna learn something this week, and I'm definitely gonna be getting into something that I I don't know that much about, or there's gonna be something I need to solve for, and you have to see that as being exciting and an opportunity rather than like terrifying and scary because otherwise you wouldn't enjoy the job.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

And and I must say it's hugely inspiring from guests that we've had on previously, and and and and equally what you've just said there, people like Vicky Fox, Caroline Manning, they have so much excitement about what they do. And it's really inspiring to see people who've maybe been in the industry for a number of years, but still every day is the most exciting day they've ever had when they come in, even if it's a big client challenge or whatever it might be, that level of enthusiasm. Because it it really filters down into teams and is very inspiring.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah, I mean I'm lucky to work quite closely with Vicky and Caroline's kind of obviously the IPG agencies are kind of new to the Omnicom family, but having that engagement with other planners who are also really kind of passionate about the discipline is kind of really inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I think it's also easy to forget sometimes that behind your job you've actually you're bringing the context of your like your everyday lives. And this is, I think we've had really nice conversations. Yeah. We've had nice conversations with like with Caroline, Vicky, and also with Sarah about sort of the impact that that context outside of work brings on their professional life. Is that something that rings true for you?

SPEAKER_02 8:59

I think really good planners are a bit like magpies. So like a lot of our work is iterative, but we're sort of like select stuff and borrow stuff and curate things and build things from both from what we've done before, but also what we've seen, like culture, experiences, like other conversations that you might have that might spark something, and then like reconstituting that and reapplying that and and building on that in a different way, dependent on the problem that you can solve. And but there's like there's kind of a flip side of that as well that you need to be kind of aware of. Like you can't just stay in your own little bubble, and like that can be really limiting. Like, no one person is the average consumer, you know, you all have your own kind of little biases. So I think having that kind of consumer-first, like common sense, I think, viewpoint is really critical, and always bearing in mind, like we obviously care a huge amount about the work we do and we take it very seriously, but like consumers really do not feel the same way about advertising and media, and uh and and sometimes you can get quite lost in that. So I think bearing that in mind is really important, and I think having the fundamentals of marketing effectiveness there really matter, and Hearts have a kind of um sponsorship with the Ehrenberg Bath Institute, and kind of that type of evidence and best practice give you the guardrails to able to stop that kind of intuition turning into that bias. And and to your point earlier on how kind of AI can perhaps undermine the role of the specialist because it shows you all of the the sort of vast array of potential data and options that are out there, it kind of allows you to still apply those kind of principles with judgment across wider kind of data sets. And I think in terms of like personally, like my mum was a teacher, my dad was like exceptionally well read, and I think they've one of the things that I think helps me in my job is like I have a huge passion for reading, and I read super indiscriminately. Like, I like it's of all the things I've failed in as being a parent, one of the things I take actual real pleasure in is both my children really love reading and getting lost in that. I think what I like about reading is understanding different people's perspectives and like understanding how stories are told and reading about kind of a vast array of subjects, and having that is is really important in in kind of planning as well. So having that kind of curiosity about stories and other people's experiences and how those stories are told and and and how you're gonna tell the story of the plan essentially is really beneficial. And and then also personally, like I've as I said, I've got two daughters who are kind of eight and nine, and they expose me to like a whole new like generation of failures and culture that otherwise I would have had no idea about whatsoever. And I'm like, I am actually super jealous of them because they have they get to have such a like wide array of influences and access that I would have absolutely loved when I was a kid. Like them into things like I don't know, we all watch like beast games together because we love that. They're into like K-pop demon hunters, like they can be into like cinema that's influenced by career or like stuff that's from the internet, whereas my access like growing up was limited to like four and then five TV channels. Yeah, I remember and whatever my sisters and I recorded on like VHS and relentlessly replayed. I think that's a constant reminder of how quickly kind of culture moves and how different audience context is today, and that kind of keeps you like rooted in that. I tried to explain to my eight-year-old the other day what like Blockbuster was as a concept. Oh it was she honestly couldn't understand what I was talking about. She was like, but then so do they have all of the films there? And I was like, No, you'd only have like five copies, and then be like, Well, what if someone had taken them all out? And I'm like, Well then you'd have to choose something else, and then she'd be like, But then how do you know if you like it? And I was like, Well, you just have to choose something, and she was like, What? Because they've grown up with that, like this ability to have everything so kind of like on demand, and that that kind of woo-out that I grew up in is so different to that.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

It's funny because back then, like going to Blockbuster, that was a destination, but now it's like I guess the choice thing. We've got such an abundance of choice that the process of selecting a program in a house invariably is the complete opposite of a happy experience, isn't it? It's kind of just like everybody's just like, I don't want to watch that, I don't really see that.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

You know, that sort of Yeah, that choice paralysis. Like I've got too much choice.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, this Blockbuster, that was a great Yeah, oh, haven't you?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

In my mind of like flicking through and being like, oh no, we don't have sandlock kids, we're gonna have to choose something else now. So yeah, but like I think that does help me in my kind of job because it does connect me to things that I otherwise would have no connection with whatsoever. And I think also it's not just theoretical and personal, it's also practical. So I think my advice would be planners that are working on brands, it really sounds really obvious, but like actually to experience those clients' businesses firsthand and their competitors too. Download the app, go on the website, go into the shop, and like you'll get so much of a better understanding of how the business works, the consumer journey that people will go through. And I guess the same thing sort of applies to media. So, like experience those like new emerging platforms, like go on them, mess about a bit. And it will uh even just the act of doing that will really elevate your kind of understanding of how they work as well, which kind of will help help keep you kind of grounded.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Another thing that Hearts and Science talks a lot about is linking media to real commercial outcomes. Do you think that there is anything that the industry is still underestimating when it comes to driving true business growth for your clients?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

I think underestimating is kind of a difficult thing to quantify, but I I think the industry still probably underestimates how much short-term measurement is shaping those longer-term decisions because if you push together all of the short-term decisions, you've sort of ultimately made a long-term one without even trying to. Um, we've got better, there's whole businesses that are really focused about in optimizing what's kind of easier to measure in the moment versus what might be more important in the long term, and that can really quietly pull investment away and chip investment away from like things that actually grow businesses over time. And kind of a part of that is in the kind of more complex media landscape is like confusing perhaps reach and scale with impact and kind of understanding and you know, starting to understand like how we've got kind of new languages and new technology and new data points that allow us to kind of understand and start to quantify and unpick how all exposures are kind of like not equal. Like two campaigns that have bought exactly the same impressions right across a different in in different ways will deliver two completely different outcomes. Yes, it's still very important, but it's not the only thing to to think about. I think there's still a gap in terms of really is it incremental? Like how much of those numbers that you're seeing that feel really comfortable maybe would you've got anyway. So, like so thinking about what is really the real impact that it's making and really kind of pushing on that and challenging yourself to make sure that those kind of people that you're sort of taking credit for, I guess, with that type of media have really come through the door because you've put money there, what would have come through the door anyway? And I think there's probably a tendency to to underestimate how kind of growth works in kind of a wider ecosystem. So like most buyers in any category aren't in market at any one time. So really understanding that kind of growth depends on building that mental availability over time, being easy to think about across key category entry points, and kind of hearts have done a lot of work in that kind of category entry point space. But that's about it's essentially about the kind of those moments or kind of cues or triggers where people will start to think, oh, this is the kind of situation where I need a I need a brand, essentially. And the flip side of that also is kind of physical availability. So the brand also needs to be kind of easy to find and buy when those moments arrive. And if you don't have both of those things, then you're probably not going to be as effective as you could be. And I think one thing that is underestimated is kind of still kind of media retail owned and sort of can operate in quite distinct silos. So, how do those touch points all kind of work together and how they plan together? So they're not like isolated incidents, I guess. And I think probably something that's underestimated isn't necessarily data or tools, it's the measurement framework in and of itself. So that that being really disciplined about agreeing up front, what really will this campaign do? Like what what is our expectation here? What is everyone's expectation here? And agreeing what what success would look like, and and being specific over what time frame that success will be, like what leading indicators we'll take to sort of satisfy us that we're going in the in the right direction, and how different metrics might kind of ladder up to to those commercial outcomes. If that's missing, kind of teams both internally and externally can start to m end up moving towards like proxies that don't really drive growth, and then then kind of media plans will struggle to be as good as they can be.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

And I absolutely love obviously I won't go into specific naming specifically, but like the work that you guys have done on high on um category entry point-led planning is fantastic. I remember seeing it first, I think it was at the Future of Brands maybe two years ago. And I was like, wow. Like some of the examples that they were given there, and then there was some work that was presented at one of our media planning strategy summits. Again, I won't mention the specific client, the the case studies I think are on the IPA website. But yeah, it was really, really innovative innovative stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

I think what's really interesting about it is like all really great insights is when you start to to have a way of identifying and prioritizing and activating kind of category entry points for specific brands, they are obvious in that when you you're like, oh yeah, yeah, that is kind of that does make sense, yeah. And like a truism, essentially. But what's really useful in terms of the kind of the approach that we use is that we have kind of a method and approach that allows us to kind of quantify that and scale that and identify the the kind of right opp right category entry point for any brand to be going after at any given time. And we've done some really great work with the national lottery in this space. So a couple of examples, so Euromillions, so one of its core category entry points is unsurprisingly life-changing prizes because they have really wonderful huge jackpots. You know, an example of how we've kind of activated specifically within that category entry point, and it's allowed us to kind of unpick some of that kind of messy middle, is we've been able to kind of tap into a culture with more specific partnerships with like the likes of Guardian and ACAS content, which is kind of built around like a viral meme insight that it's kind of like I wouldn't tell anyone, but but there would be signs. Yeah. So it's like a really fun way of making that that real for people. Or for, for example, for the Olympics and Paralympics, it was about bringing kind of the impact of of the funding that that T and I was able to do towards good causes to life. So that's kind of alignment across that paid-owned and earned piece that we talked about. So, for example, there was like a Channel Ford following athletes and their kind of like path to Paris. But then we also had really kind of reactive social digital out-of-home, which allowed us to kind of update assets in real time and kind of most up-to-date kind of like medal wins and and standout moments. So there's kind of different ways in which we can bring those category entry points to life in media when they're kind of really rich to start to activate within.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I love that it's it I think it's the set for life, the National Lottery Set for Life, some of the work that you did around that, because it's some of the things that you, as you said, seem obvious, but actually like you miss them, like automatically just in everyday living, you miss the universal human truths of why these things work. And then when I can't remember who it was, I think it was uh was it Vicky Fox or somebody, but they said, you know, we're to some extent like a we're like archaeologists like dusting away with a fossil brush to find actually these unique insights that really let really reveal a characteristic or a trait of of an audience that may be apparent, but suddenly that changes everything. And I think I love that. I just think that that work is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

It's an interesting analogy. Like, what are the bones? What are the things that like make up the brand? And then sometimes brands don't even know that themselves. And yeah, the Seth Life one is a is a good one as well because the the mechanic of that game is different, as in like it's not one big cash prize, it's kind of graduated prizes. So the CEP there was about daydreaming about the future. So we did kind of a content, like social first content series with Channel 4 and Lab Bible, which kind of showed celebrities like living out that those kind of moments in terms of what they would what they would spend their their sort of money on. But we also used a sort of plug, I guess, like stuff like touch points data. The mood data, how do we use kind of that sort of audience insight to sort of tap into kind of those daydreaming moments? And how do we pull that across different kind of platforms and strategies as well? So there's there's like a number of ways in which we can use category entry points really effectively.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

From our perspective at the IPA, we obviously we work day in and day out on touch points and we absolutely love touch points. But one of the things that for us, like when we see people using touch points and doing amazing innovative stuff, look, we could never come up with that. Like the stuff you guys come up with is is fantastic. But it's almost like seeing your kids go off to college, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

You feel really proud, you're like, that's the use case I don't think of.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

And that's that's the thing, I think it it really demonstrates why such great strategists, planners, insight professionals are so important because they come up with stuff that you would never in a million years think of, but and do such innovative things, and it's yeah, really exciting to see. One of the other questions I wanted to ask you is obviously we're in that time now where it we've got more data than we've ever had. And as we said, the more you know, the more you know you don't know. What would you say? You know, many brands are, of course, data rich but insight poor. What are the practical ways agencies can help clients sort of move from like dashboards to decisions? How do you when you've got so much to work with, what's the particular kind of skill or tip that you would give to where to stop?

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yeah, I think I think that's being a good strategist or planner is about making choices. And sometimes you will definitely go down an exploratory avenue and it's like, no, no, that's not okay. But I think any brand that's obviously running kind of a lot of media channels and has got a significant investment is going to be generating a lot of media data. So there's that, and you know, dashboards are fantastic at kind of triangulating that data into like one source of truth, so loads of people can access it, you can sit in one place, and that it makes it easier to kind of extract insight from that. But clients often sit on kind of rich data that kind of sits outside media as well, and I think that's really interesting. Like they're gonna have such a good understanding and a deep customer and audience knowledge, they're gonna sit on loads of business and sales data, they're gonna know about their product pipelines, they're gonna know what phasing means for their business, they're gonna know how pricing works, they're gonna understand a level of competitor dynamics as well. And all of that context is like hugely valuable in shaping effective media plans, but it isn't always always applied to media decisions. And some of that might be because like clients' businesses are a little bit siloed in some ways. Like that might be information that sits elsewhere. So I think one thing an agency can put into it is like connecting those dots and like taking that information and applying it. I think clear aligned measures of success, but like what are we looking for in this dashboard, like or what the data points that are interesting, because you can track loads of things, but what things are important is really critical. And if you've agreed what success looks like and what data points you're gonna use to know whether you've got there or not, that's really important. But then the question I think you should always ask yourself if in terms of a practical tip, and I've probably say this enough to like teams internally that find it annoying, but it's like, so what? It's like just because you're right, great, you find it interesting, cool, but like what are we gonna do with it? Yeah, like because because you can sometimes get a bit sucked into the like, oh, I found something, oh look at this. And it's like, okay, fine, but like, so what we're gonna do? If it doesn't make any difference to anything, if there's nothing we can apply for, then it then ultimately it might be interesting, but it doesn't matter to what we're doing right now. I think the way in which we've talked to AI is relevant here as well, in that it's a useful starting point because it can obviously like quickly scan huge data sets and start to pull out like initial hypotheses and and shortcut some of the the time it takes to sort of go through those kind of big data sets. And then the kind of human judgment is about okay, so what what one of these hypotheses do I find interesting? Which avenue I'm gonna explore further, which ones am I gonna stress test? And how can I take the the kind of hypotheses that it's pulled from that and then apply it to kind of wider contexts, either from like a business or an audience or a media choice perspective. So like the dashboards might organize the information, but the value comes from applying that information for kind of better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Caroline Manning said on it was on the last review we talked about a little bit on the podcast, where she said AI is like kind of an Iron Man suit, but you've got to have the person, like Tony Stark, I think it is, who sits with the internet exactly. And that's where I think that it's that harmony. Because AI, in many ways, is is another tool in our Arsenal for better understanding things or perhaps breaking down things in ways that we weren't able to do before. You've already mentioned some examples there, but where do you think it genuinely is adding value in media planning strategy right now? Or or where do you think it's still more kind of promise than practice?

SPEAKER_02 26:48

AI's already been adding value in kind of media activation for quite a while now, particularly within platforms where it does stuff like automating bidding and pacing and optimization and at scale and use well, that can be really helpful, especially for more kind of performance-led activity. But even then, I think it works best with kind of really human oversight and clearly defined objectives and guard vials rather than set it and then forget about it. Yeah, yeah. Solutions. And I think where it adds value is managing that kind of scale and complexity. It takes large data sets, it can distill them into patterns or scenarios that you perhaps might not have thought about immediately. And that means that as kind of planners, we can react more quickly to stuff. So that's that's really that's kind of accelerating thinking rather than replacing it, is really critical. And you know, it's talked about a lot, but like freeing up more, we're all very busy, so like freeing up time to do the kind of pieces of work which will actually make a difference and add add value. Omnicon, we use kind of AI within Omni, which is our kind of unified operating system. AI, including kind of a Gentec AI systems, operates kind of end-to-end across that client life cycle through insight and planning to activation and measurement. But the the role of these systems is kind of orchestration rather than autonomy, like you're still the person in the suit in your analogy. You're connecting the data, you're kind of surfacing the options, you're running different scenarios, you're stress testing the output. It's not and keeping that human judgment and like accountability at the forefront. I think one of the places we're seeing it really add value is through synthetic audiences. So having that really obviously more complex, uh detailed audience work is still hugely valuable, but having that kind of super fast, accessible route to an audience insight that previously would have perhaps not been available for many brands is kind of really useful as well and really good for that kind of hypothesis-building exploratory stage. I think what's kind of important is AI is still best used when you bring like thought and experience and vigour to what you're doing. And it's like any brief, really, in terms of prompting and your interaction with kind of AI agents, the stronger and more specific and well thought through the brief, the better the output. So a clearer brief will give you a better answer. And how good you are at writing a brief is sort of also how good you are at your job. I think having that is really important and having the kind of critical thinking skills to like stress test all the outputs as well, rather than just moving to a world where you're putting something in and accepting the answer immediately. I think that kind of sense checking, that look at accuracy is is more important, not less, really. I think I don't think we're in a space where there's kind of like autonomous decision making across channel campaigns, yep, because there was so much complexity and like things to consider when interpreting a brief or like making trade-offs between different channels or short-term efficiencies with kind of longer-term effectiveness, and media decisions are still really context-dependent as well. So there's kind of commercial, cultural, forward-facing things rather than retrospective things, which is often what the data sets are going to be based on. So it still needs that. So fortunately, I think we've we've still got a job. Oh, certainly. For a while, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

You've mentioned there that as we increasingly move towards automation, or we have had a lot of things automated that judgment, human judgment is obviously still completely vital. Are there any other human skills that you think become more important with AI, or is that sort of things that you've basically just touched on, like sense making and judgment and common sense and judgment, absolutely, but definitely kind of grounding that in the fundamentals.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Like if you have a really solid understanding of kind of marketing science, how brands grow, how people are going to buy stuff, what drives effectiveness out of time over time, without that grounding, it's gonna become really hard to know if the output makes any sense or not. So no matter how ad advanced the kind of tool or data or how it ends with years. So I think they need to be able to kind of sense check and like stress test that that output and knowing when something's sort of like strategically questionable, even when like maybe the data says that it's the best thing, because it's not going to replace that kind of creativity either. That that's really another critical part of that role. And when I say creativity, I sort of mean it in like a number of ways. Like there's creativity in designing kind of a truly like media first, innovative, never done before solution for clients, and that's absolutely absolutely still got a space. But there's creativity in how you connect complexity and and different data sets, and how and that's still super valuable. So, how do you use kind of different data points, different signals, different research, different constraints to arrive at a kind of a strong recommendation that's backed by rigor, but also that kind of creativity? And I don't I also don't think it's like that different. Like planners love tools and data and tech. Like we love getting into it and like figuring out what the outputs are based on, like what assumptions sit beneath them, like what the blind spots might be, what the methodology is. And you sit in a meeting with a planner, they're gonna be like, sorry, what's the source on that chart? Talk me through the axes here. And I think that's kind of where you can use automation really intelligently, but like not be led by it. Um I think the human role is kind of perhaps shifting a little bit from like doing the the do on some tasks, but I'm I'm sure there are jobs that kind of things that AI and automation will create that I couldn't even guess what they are right now. So it's also about when you're in a world where actually you can surface a lot of information really fast. Like what are the things you're not gonna do is just as important as things that you are gonna do. So understanding what you're not gonna chase and being being able to be confident enough to say, yeah, it's kind of interesting, but it's not the answer, and it's not gonna help me show the answer, is a differentiator. So I I don't think it's that different in terms of the like secret source of being really good at planning isn't just your ability to use a tool and pull out a data point. It's like the judgment, the experience, the creativity that you apply over the top of that. And how do you like navigate through all the complexity in a way that makes it much simpler for for clients and delivers plans that will actually drive kind of businesses forward remains the same.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

I mean, we're gonna come now on to a little bit more uh things about related to kind of like traditional planning models in kind of an increasingly fragmented world as time goes on. You you're dealing with more and more, not just media properties, but also more and more options within that, more and more data sets and so many different things to pull you in so many different ways. I mean, do you think traditional planning models are still I mean we we always use that phrase fit for purpose, but you know, are they are are they still fit for purpose? Everything's evolutionary, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:00

When you say planning models, are you talking like reach, frequency, phasing, like to a voice, like that that that sort of thing? Because obviously those things are still in course, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there are to your point like evolutionary ways of of thinking of them. Like I think they are still foundational, like what audiences are doing, how many of them are there, how are they spending their time? Like they're still obviously critical in kind of driving how advertising works and how brands grow. But like the the environment, I guess, is is constantly changing. So the way in which we think about those things and and how we apply them across a kind of more fragmented platform-led ecosystem kind of has to evolve. Yes. And I think that's probably always been the case. But audiences are obviously kind of spending more time in in different spaces than ever before. Scale on its own probably isn't enough. Attention's a really good example of how perhaps it's not just thinking about reach, it's thinking about attentive reach to give us kind of a language to understand the complexity of how people actually consume media rather than one impression being exactly the same as one impress somewhere else and and they're all and they're all equal. So it it sort of you know allows us to think a little bit widely about not what just we think they might have seen, but actually to to what they potentially have seen and also noticed or heard. So kind of re that doesn't mean to say that reach isn't still a fundamental, obviously it is. When we can start to use things like attention as a kind of a proxy for kind of quality reach and making sure that we're driving those outcomes so that the ads aren't just delivered and viewable. Yeah, yeah. They're they're also kind of registered at scale. But even with that, that comes with a lot of complexity as well, because attention is kind of used in a lot of different ways. And and I think even the conversation in that space has sort of moved on. And I don't think it's a case now, really, where there's this idea that just get more of attention. Like that's it. Just get more. Doesn't matter what it costs, it just has to be more. Like, and it just that's better. Like whatever you're doing, that is better.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Sometimes if something's measurable, then you optimise towards maximizing. I just want the most. And and actually, like, I mean, a particularly good media that that really resonates with me is like radio. Because actually, radio is a is theoretically a lower attention, direct attention environment. But actually, in terms of driving brand consideration or some of those really important sort of campaign synergies there can be really, really valuable.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

I think then it's about thinking about what are you trying to do with your campaign and like where are you in that life cycle of your campaign. So, like different types of attention, like audio, if it's more secondary, are really valuable, but they have to be fit for fit for purpose, I guess, and attention can play different roles. So, like shorter attention can be really valuable if you're in the point of a campaign where it's right near the point of purchase, you want to prompt or nudge people, but there might be other contexts or campaigns where actually it's a brand new product, no one's ever heard of it in it before, they don't know what it does, and they it really needs explaining, then that potentially would need more attention. So you at uh we're sort of focused on finding the right type and like optimal level of attention for each campaign, so balancing that to make sure we're we're staying cost effective. But like interestingly, I mean we've we do we've been doing some quite quite a lot of work with Karen Nelson Field, and she talks a lot about this, but like, and then there's like a step below that. Yes, you can use that to sort of shape channel decisions and like the shape of your plan. But then when you get down to more kind of platform and formats, there's essentially kind of a sort of corridor of attention that that each platform can only deliver at the top and the bottom of. And our job is to obviously make sure that we're more towards the top end of that corridor, but there's nuance within attention, even when you kind of unpack it to that level. We do a lot of work with amplified intelligence in kind of generating our own attention data across platforms and formats so we can really understand down to that kind of impression level, like what is the right format on what platform to deliver the X objective. And you you do need that level of scrutiny, I guess, to really unpick that. And I guess the same sort of thinking applies to category entry points. Category entry points isn't necessarily in- I think oh, when did Half Browns go come up? Probably don't know the date. But the principle hasn't changed, in effect. But brands need to be kind of mental, mentally available at moments that they will matter in. But those moments are like really disparate and across loads in terms of like media across lots of different platforms in a really complex media system. So, like, how do you connect those all together becomes a harder job. So the fundamentals still stands, but the application in in practice, the turning the theory into practice becomes perhaps something a bit different. So it's probably not about starting from scratch, it's about kind of holding on to those fundamentals, but understanding like the the truth of the ecosystem that you're operating on and how you have to adapt them to be meaningful now.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Do you find that increasingly as maybe digital pure play media channels are eminently reportable? Like in terms of there's easily reportable data on the potential impact of campaigns. Does it become harder to get sign off or to justify channels that maybe don't have that? More traditional channels, should we say, that perhaps don't have those fast metrics available to them? But is there a tension there, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Like I think it depends on the client. There's not a one-size answer to that and what you're trying to do. Like there is obviously a kind of tension for clients, I think, to sort of prove out marketing's worth, I guess, a lot more than in the past. And I think you have to recognise that often our clients have media as part of their job. It's probably not their whole job, I imagine. And they operate with kind of lots of different remit across lots of different things. They're probably not just like a custodian of a media budget. So they're responsible for kind of like growth and demand and like generating those sort of things, and you know, how customers experience their brand and media is kind of one lever they have to pull within that. And I think where we as agencies can support clients is about making sure that they can like operate at that commercial level in their businesses. So, like talking in a language that kind of finance and leadership understand and framing kind of marketing as that investment that drives demand in the long term, that future demand, rather than just harvesting existing demand, perhaps, which is the distinction. And you know, the impact that that kind of that future brand spend can have on things that sit outside of immediate response, like pricing power, like brand strength. So that's not a cost that's just tied to short-term metrics, which are often quite media-based as well. I can't imagine many chief finance officers really give a shit about like how viewable something is, or like that's not a language that they're gonna be particularly impressed by. So making sure that you're talking talking in that in that language is is really important. Often some of that disconnect comes from like misalignment on like what on realistic expectations about I think you have to have a real conversation about what what you're planning to do and whether it will deliver what the client wants to do. And if it doesn't, you need to look at a different plan. Like and and being really clear, clear-sighted about that, and making sure you don't end up in a pickle where like brand investment is going to be judged by what it's done like the first day it's launched or something, because that that will end up creating kind of friction and a focus on kind of more short-termism. So kind of setting realistic timelines and expectations is super important, and I think also supporting clients to bring the rest of their organizations with them. So, like, how can you be clear on what marketing's going to contribute and help them develop that understanding in a business to make it easier to kind of hold the line on doing things that are more focused on long-term investment when obviously there are kind of a lot of shorter-term pressure pressures for clients. So I think like having those confident evidence-based conversations earlier on is super important, and making sure that they're kind of communicated more widely to the rest of the business.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Talking about long-term impact brings me on to my final future-facing question. But obviously, no one can make concrete predic predictions about what the future's gonna look like, especially when it's ever changing at the moment. But if we were to have this conversation again in a few years' time, is there anything that you think may have changed considerably about media agencies and and the roles that they play for brands?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

I mean, I don't think any of these things are gonna be particularly surprising because they're kind of we're at the sort of inflection points on some of these things already, so they're they'll just build as we move move forward. But discoverability is gonna be a huge shift, particularly in search, like how how people like that convergence of platform essentially, how people are using lots of different like people use social to search, people use kind of retail sites to search, people like the way in which those those interact are gonna be really important, especially also around the kind of greater use of AI and large language models, and how that surfaces data within within search mod models and kind of that more conversational search behavior that we're all starting to. It's not one or two words anymore, it's like strings of sentences. So, like search isn't just something you Do on like one platform, it's happening across lots of different platforms and formats and contexts. And that's that's really important because that is a space where people both discover brands but also convert to brands as well. So that's a really interesting space. I think that links quite closely with category entry points. Like what's really interesting is to start to unpick like, how do you make sure that you are showing up in those spaces? And there is a whole mix of kind of different data sources for different different AI models that that uses different data sets to surface brands. How do we get smarter about the way in which we use media to show up in those spaces? And that might change the types of decisions that we make. So one decision might not make sense just from a reach perspective, but then if it's like actually this will mean that you're top of the list when someone does a search query in a sort of copilot or a chat GPT, and that will deliver X. Like that then becomes a different kind of data point we have to consider when making decisions and understanding how kind of consumers when discovery fragments, how we can connect with consumers in that world. I think that's super interesting and a space that will continue to evolve. I think we're already seeing loads of channels hit like kind of digital tipping points, digital, even as a kind of word or being channel-led is sort of a bit unhelpful now because like what isn't? TV's continuing to become addressable. There's kind of releases this year that's going to see that rise pretty quickly. I think we'll see the continued rise of kind of meet out media as more things become more shoppable, more instant, more buyable from a consumer perspective. I'd spent some time recently in the kind of influencer space, and that's a really interesting space as well, because there is so many overlaps with loads of different things. Kind of paid on demand, it's kind of also creative, it's kind of also sort of a brand ambassador, and it's kind of also sort of media, and the ways in which you guys are in that space have shown that there is kind of a really rich opportunity in terms of driving kind of longer-term ROI, but there is also a huge disparity in the types of results that you can get from influencers. So I think that space will continue to evolve, and I think we'll continue to see more kind of robustness, I guess, and and more kind of measurement and data in that space because as sort of it becomes a bit more grown up, I guess, if we're going to think about it like that. Um but from a consumer perspective, I don't think they really care. Like it's just all video, it's all entertainment, it's all whatever. It's not really channels, so I'm not sure. I think the way in which we need to think that kind of broken down silo thinking just isn't super helpful anymore. So I think we'll continue to see a move to being more kind of consumer-centred rather than organized around kind of media silos, I guess. And it like as addressability grows, like, how do we do that in a way that isn't just about precision, it's also about scale? I think that that's going to be a really important thing moving forwards. And I think the agency's role will remain relatively similar in that it will be our job to sort of connect the dots across that complexity and make it meaningful for clients and make sure that they can benefit from the scale and diversification and opportunity that might have without, but also balancing that without chasing every single new thing that will come up in the next three years. So I'm sure there will be new stuff that we don't even know about yet. So I don't think the kind of fundamentals will change, but how confidently the industry kind of applies them in that kind of more complex, addressable, AI-driven world will probably change, and how we design kind of planning systems to make sure we're connecting with people across these different spaces will evolve too.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah, there's so much exciting stuff going on. But also, like the more we we talk to people kind of in the planning and strategy space, the more you kind of realize, you know, there's never been a more exciting time to be a planner than right now, because there's so much change. Compare being a TV planner in the 80s, you know, versus what what being a planner like to today. It's there's never been a more exciting time. And the wonderful, I think, I think the more people that we talk to on the podcast is that level of excitement and enthusiasm for those challenges which may be coming down the line. We don't really know what they're going to look like, what the industry's going to look like, or how things are going to change, but it's that embracing that curiosity, which I think seems to be the the fundamental skill of what makes a great partner.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Curiosity, that appetite for learning, that appreciating that we get to do a really fun, interesting job. Like my dad was a metal sheet engineer and had to go to a factory every day that he absolutely hated. I get he could never even get his head around that this is what I did. Like I'd go to meetings and there'd probably be a hot drink. There might even be some free snacks. And what I wouldn't be like making anything with my hands. I would be I'm essentially paid for what's in my brain and like what I can come up with. And I I think that is a real privilege that I'm sort of in that position and I get to do that, so I do sort of bear that in mind. And I do find it really energizing to be able to kind of learn stuff constantly. And you know, I was a TV planner, but not quite in the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Well, Tessa, honestly, thank you so much for coming in today's talk. It's been really, really fascinating and really exciting session. Yeah, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.