I just saw a post celebrating the tenure of an agency media buyer. The post was generous, kind, but misleading when it claimed a mastery of data as the tool for her success as a media buyer. Let’s be honest, most media buying is simply beating the hell out of the media reps to gain some type of perceived advantage. Deny this fact all you want, but the truth is media buying has been a full contact sport and media rep’s tough competitors.? I should know, I was one of the jerks that found the battle exciting. This is a part of agency life.

One

I share three different experiences with media buying that I have learned to be the truth today. First, media buying is a blood sport for traditional agency buyers. The game is holding the media budget and the threat to spend more with a competing magazine or broadcast partner over the media reps head while brow beathing them for lower costs and value-added freebees. I was a prideful participant in these games, once beating the publisher into submission to insert a full twenty-six-page brochure inside the cover before the Table of Contents as a special advertisement. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. I created a huge stir in the industry. Good for me and bad for the publisher.

Two

Several years later, the tables turned when I began working with a publisher as an agency partner. I witnessed the cruel brow beating firsthand from the eyes of the media reps. It was rude and disrespectful. I found myself apologizing to all the media reps I previously beat up. There is no reason for the practice of wrestling with the media reps. Negotiation is still required because media reps have built pricing to shield themselves from the brow beating; specifically, they operate on 300 percent markups and more. There is plenty of room to find a fair price without throw haymakers.? (maybe use media reps less)

Three

The advent of online media buying is changing the game. Generally, there is no need to interact with media buyers, so there is no brow beating or disrespect or games being played. Well, there are a few games to play to make certain you are optimizing your media buy and this is where the mastery of data comes into play.

Media buying has been a sporting event for all involved. Not the nicest of sports when considering how the agency buyer and media reps work to manipulate one another. Today, the sport is online like a video game with real time adjustments. Maybe the new title for the media buyer should be media gamer. It seems more honest.