Drawing the line - a buyer's point of view
Since the dawn of time itself, whether you believe in Dinosaurs and Apes or Adam and Eve, there has always been an ‘us’ versus ‘them’, ‘me’ versus ‘you’ and ‘one’ versus ‘other’ mentality. The word cohesive, no matter how hard we try, is not a word commonly used amongst us of the human persuasion.
We prefer the likes of expert, authority, specialist and God (like creature). We enjoy and bask longingly in the idea of being better at something than the person next to us. But in this burgeoning era of technological homogenisation, particularly within media, it is becoming increasingly important to be cohesive in both knowledge and practice across all facets of this rapidly changing landscape or as Miley Cyrus would say, tackling ‘The best of both worlds’.
But what am I actually talking about here? That is a good question, dear reader. I am of course referring to No Line thinking, the newest term to penetrate the advertising and media world, to rock the boat, to make us quiver in our boots, for those among us who wear them. But what is No Line? And is it all that new? In short it is the idea of all ideas - that clever thinking can be traded, strategised and implemented cohesively across all facets of a business, within various markets and applied to all communication channels.
The premise of No Line is not new, it is merely how the consumer has viewed advertising for some time now, a blur. In media speak however it means the end of offline and online, above line and below line. No longer are there specialists within the buying field. Traditional media is going the way of the dodo, it is dying. The world is fast becoming digitised and those who still cling to the ink stained pages of the press and waves of the radio are losing touch with their consumers and their jobs.
For the first time, to be a specialist buyer is to be at a disadvantage. Though expert knowledge on a particular medium was once a desired trait in an employee, these days we are facing a market that demands knowledge of all things, in other words, generalists who can tackle any task presented to them by both client and consumer.
The issue for many of us however, is that we have or will spend our lives becoming experts, authorities and specialists at one area of media or over another. There are countless hours, months and years spent perfecting this art and we are now being told that this is not good enough. Though specialists can and will continue to exist particularly within the strategy world, the key now for the buyers among us is finding this balance between on and offline, specialist and generalist. It is not only desired, but now expected.
No Line is not a fad. The inception of this idea will not flounder but grow and a few years down the track it will be inescapable. The question we must now ask ourselves is, if there are no lines, where do we draw one?
Kimberley Murney
Mindshare