Media Plan of the Year

The medium is the message—and never before has there been so much different media and, hence, so many ways to shade, inflect, blow out, or screw up your message. Marshall McLuhan’s formulation, more than half a century old, is more relevant now to the advertising business than ever before. The choice of media is the most complex, strategic, and formative part of any campaign. In many ways, media choice and strategy defines the brand. What’s more, the difficulties of achieving mindshare (not coincidentally the name of one major media buyer), once accomplished by mere repetition, have expanded exponentially.