According to WARC, Mediaplus is the best independent media agency in the world (and third overall), having topped the rankings thanks in part to its focus on creative media. "Everyone talks about them a bit, but what sets Mediaplus apart from other agencies - and the big networks in particular - is that we have institutionalised and professionalised them within the group, through the BÄM Kollektiv team," he says.
Can you explain what the BÄM Kollektiv is?
It is a group of fifty-two creatively minded people from the media sector in the broadest sense of the word, but it is very decentralised. Its members are people from eight locations in Germany and twelve other countries, who have a very heterogeneous set of skills. They are not just classic creatives. The collective also includes planners, strategists, designers, project managers and data analysts. They work together on briefs, assignments and other opportunities because we believe that truly new and unconventional ideas are only born when different people from different cultures, disciplines and backgrounds come together and collaborate. That's why we have created a place where this can happen and where creativity can be nurtured and cultivated. Which is what fundamentally differentiates our approach from other media agencies.
So the members come only from your media agencies?
There are two ways to integrate. On the one hand, we try to be as creative as possible vertically within the Mediaplus media agency. But at the same time, we belong to the Serviceplan group, which has three other pillars alongside us: the classic creative agencies, the green and digitally oriented agency Plan.Net and the research agency Facit. Because as a group we believe that collaboration beats competition, we have to work in an integrated way across all pillars.
The result is the fourteen Cannes Lions you've won as a group this year.
Mediaplus was involved in thirteen of them, but all of the Lions were only achieved through truly integrated work, as none of our awards were won by a single agency - they were always a collective effort. It is proof of the very close collaboration that we believe is the future of communications that I share an office with the creative head of the Serviceplan group.
With the Animal Alerts campaign, you won a golden lion in the Media category. I guess you were very happy about that?
Honestly, we're really proud of that award. Because it was not only the first Cannes Gold Lion in Media for Mediaplus, but also for the whole Serviceplan Group. Many agencies were also involved in this particular project and it's a very good example of the use of creative media.
Can you describe their deployment?
The basis was a smart dog collar that already existed. It was just always used for individual purposes to monitor the health and wellbeing of the dog. But we created a platform that collected data from all dogs' collars and used it in a creative way to warn the public in Peru about the threat of an earthquake. This is because if multiple dogs get excited at the same time before an earthquake, they will stand up at the same time, causing their heart rate to increase. And that's a signal that an earthquake could occur, which is immediately brought to the attention of the public through various media - be it the web, push notifications, real-time digital OOH or radio stations. It's a perfect example of creative use of media, because this is how we change the meaning of existing touchpoints.
Let's go back to the BÄM Collective. How does it work and how does it work?
The concept is actually quite simple. Mediaplus has a number of agencies not only in Germany but all over the world. Not all of them are part of the BÄM Kollektiv, but those that are, we support in two areas: their tenders and their work for existing clients. In both cases - and especially with existing clients - we reflect a lot on our approach to creative media, as it is our unique proposition and also what differentiates us from our competitors. We want it to drive business, grow the brand and inspire our clients' customers, which I think is the most important thing. Then a side effect and my little personal KPI is also winning awards.
Is the Czech branch of the Mediaplus agency part of the team? How do they benefit from its work?
We launched the project one cluster at a time. We started in Germany, then expanded it to the whole DACH region and then added a batch of six countries, which included the Czech Republic. The local members are Jan Král, who joined relatively recently, and Tereza Bačová. For them, as for all the others, it is valid that they give twenty percent of their time to the BÄM Kollektiv. In return, we support their agency with creative media for tenders and for their existing projects. We also tenders with them locally, but mostly for international tenders and tenders in multiple markets. It's been a successful collaboration when we've won C&A or E.on, for example, so I would say the Czech branch benefits from it. But what I think is important - and you can't quite measure it - is that we are building an international and global creative culture, for which the spirit of our whole group is essential. That we as a group feel that we belong together, that we have common values and that we are one big family, even if we are sitting in different offices. That's what brings people together.
Why aren't the members of the collective giving it 100 percent of their capacity?
Because this is why the BÄM Kollektiv is not a detached satellite that comes up with crazy ideas that cannot be implemented and are not in line with the strategy. When each member works eighty percent of the time on their clients, then they know their markets, strategies and clients, which allows us to come up with creative media ideas that are executable, fit the strategy and most importantly, are good for the client.
Speaking from personal experience?
I've spent most of my career in creative agencies where you're usually looking for crazy ideas. Let's shoot something to the moon, let's do this and that... In the end, sometimes it goes so far that people lose track of whether they just came up with a great idea or if it's actually beneficial for the client as well. But when they are firmly rooted in their client work and dedicate one day a week to the BÄM Kollektiv, it has, as we say in Germany, "Hand und Fuß". It just makes sense.
In the last fiscal year, Mediaplus had a 90 percent success rate in tenders. Is this thanks to the contribution of the BÄM Kollektiv?
It wasn't just thanks to us. But because creative media has become something that sets Mediaplus apart from others, we were involved in all the major tenders. Creative media will never replace traditional media planning, it's just an additional layer of impact peaks. We don't just want to expose people to communications. We want to excite them, inspire them, move them emotionally. And we only achieve that if we do things a little differently sometimes and surprise them. Then consumers start talking about the brand, it makes it more relevant and the press starts to take an interest. So basically we're trying to increase the media budget of clients through earned media.
This leads me to ask: are creative media effective? Because in the end, that's the most important thing.
I would say they are, but the word effective has a very broad meaning. For me, the most important thing is that it has an impact. It can be an impact on you, on the consumers of the brand, on the industry, on the company as a whole, on the brand and its business. On the other hand, impact is quite hard to measure, which brings with it controversy, because media people have an ingrained preference to measure everything. But it's more of a soft indicator - though of course we can state how many people we reached. With creative media, it's more about the impact on the brand itself and how it's perceived by consumers. Or if you put performance marketing next to them, they'll be closer to brand building than performance.
You say they are just an additional layer. It doesn't mean, let's drop everything else and just do creative media, does it?
Even though I'm a creative media ambassador, I wouldn't say: let's just do creative media. There's basic communication and traditional planning at the beginning and then we can use creative media to set small peaks of impact to build the brand.
Letos at Cannes you talked about how to make media sexy for creative agencies. Aren't they sexy?
In short: media is sexy and it's also a creative decision. Of course, we chose the title of the panel to get as many people as possible to come. However, we don't make media sexy or creative to be admired by creative agencies. The main goal is to cultivate mutual collaboration. As I said before, I share an office with Serviceplan's chief creative officer because we believe we need to reconnect media and creatives and work together on a much closer basis. If you look back twenty-five years, we worked together. Then we drifted apart, and I think there's a tipping point now where we need to get back together. So it's not about proving that media is sexy, it's about encouraging people to work more closely together. Otherwise, of course, I think media is sexy and I think it's a very creative discipline.
Source: mam.cz
