The Mad Hatter: An Online Media Planner's Many Roles

"You must be the Mad Hatter" says the Swift Heart Rabbit.

And the Mad Hatter says "Why do I always have to be the Mad Hatter? Why can't you be the Mad Hatter for once? Oh, alright, I'll be the Mad Hatter again! You like hats? I'm mad about hats!"

Kudos to Lewis Carroll for a marvelously written book.

Such is the role of the Online Media Planner and Buyer in the Advertising and Marketing Industry today.

Like Carroll's Mad Hatter, the planner is required to wear a lot of hats. Such that in order for him/her to wear those many hats, passion should always come first.

For without passion, the role of the planner will prove futile to a cut-throat industry.

What are the hats, err, roles a planner must fill up?

The Six Roles an Online Media Planner must be:

1. Historian

2. Marketplace Barometer

3. Negotiator

4. Net worker

5. Statistician

6. Technologist

The list maybe short, but I assure you, the roles are not easy. Media Planning and Buying is not for everyone. Some may be down right boring but extremely necessary.

Historian - Just as clients are looking forward to you predicting the success of their online campaign, more so for everything that has been done in the past. This will mean brushing up on previous campaign Spending levels, ad formats, contracts, performance metrics, CPM's and other media levels are just SOME of the things a client will ask from an online media planner. They are fairly easy to answer if they pertain to only one client, but its another ball game if they ask about a competitor or someone else who is advertising.

Marketplace Barometer - OM planners are expected to be intuitively aware of everything that happens online. These can be goals in the online arena, amount of advertising budget a competitor is spending and never forget, knows the "Next Big Thing". Reliable resources are few, but clients will expect this. That's just the way it is.

Negotiator - OM planners should be such tough negotiators driving to the point that not a single site placement has no prayer of making any profits at all! It takes a lot of skill, guts and excellent working relationships with the publishers.

Networker - Media Planning does not stop at 6:00 PM. Clients ask online media planners about relationship issues that are clearly not media-related, say "Who do you know at Yahoo that can give us feedback on how much advertising spend they dished on..." or "Is it possible if you could get Sports Illustrated to give me free tickets to..."

Statistician - The basic figures a planner should be familiar with are: reach, frequency, CPMs, unique users, page views, cost per click, and cost per sale.

Technologist - Not only should a media planner be updated with technology trends but fundamentally as well. They may not be computer programmers but they should be able to tell the client say, what an IP address is or the difference between a static and dynamic page.

The many hats of the OM planner is encompassed in a single role: To be the client's Steward with other media. This encompasses advertising relationships, marketing, PR and other business relationships of similar nature.

"I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it..." - Alice

Maria Paula Tolentino
Online Media Planner & Buyer

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