James Wildman, CRO of Trinity Mirror says they are.
He writes that research has uncovered prejudice in agencies: “Printism can be defined as: “The preconceived opinion not based on reason or actual experience of the print medium; bias, partiality, unreasoned dislike, hostility or antagonism towards, or discrimination against, print – accelerated by those closest to it being too afraid to properly defend it for fear of being tarred with the career-stunting ‘dinosaur’ label.”
Is “printism” a fair accusation? As Newsworks hold their first ever summit on effectiveness next month, it is a good time to look at the situation.
The essence of good planning is consumer insight and evidence.
From the day you start out as a planner your role is to overcome your personal biases and think about the target market in a neutral way.
If every planner worked on the basis that what they like amounts to the plan they would be briefing Buzzfeed to come up with ten cats that most represent the brand values, or YouTube on funny brand pandas.
There’s two basic approaches that are essential for any planner. Evidence and empathy.
For any great plan you need both.
Evidence about what worked and what didn’t work to drive long term and short term success often relies on quantitative data analysed objectively. The better the data, the better the correlation between media spend and the brand objectives. Media research data varies dramatically by medium. The size of the panel, the methodology (passive v active), the specificity of the data. TV is reported minute by minute, but print is averaged out over a longer period. Then there’s big data, online data. Where size does not always help us to explain what is actually going on.
We’re in a world where the potential to correlate data in real time to drive more accurate targeting and return on investment is being fulfilled in ways that analytical planners have been dreaming of for decades. In that environment any medium that has less precise data will be less dominant. I deplore the idea that any medium should be in or out of fashion, but if you expect to be considered “of the moment”, you had better look to your industry research capabilities. If anyone you’re competing with has a turbo charged hybrid engine and you’re sitting in the side car of a scooter you might want to think again.
Empathy doesn’t come easily to any planner starting out. We all enter the workforce with our personal prejudices about media consumption. I can remember the inimitable Peter Barrett complaining to me once that selling Good Housekeeping to 20-something planners (who had never opened a copy) was so much harder than the job his colleagues had selling Cosmopolitan with its Sex Tips cover lines.
Do planners read newsbrands? Of course they do. Many may well have a greater personal affinity with social media than with the classic content creators, but great content, great editors and great journalists still cut through.
Personal affinity doesn’t create a great plan. Understanding the audience does. Thinking about the plan in the office isn’t always enough. Hanging out in a supermarket or shopping centre has much more power. Talking to consumers and taking the audience journey, away from where you work, is essential.
Good planners aren’t printist, any more than they are any media-ist. They are pro-evidence and pro-empathy.
How much empathy do you have?
Monday, June 27th, 2016Empathy is a finite resource, according to HBR’s Adam Waytz. If I am empathetic towards you today, I will have less empathy towards my friend at dinner this evening.
If you take on board one colleague’s problem over lunch, you’re going to be less ready to shoulder the burden of a team member at teatime.
In light of this you may run the risk of short changing the later colleague simply because you have exhausted your empathy stock too early in the day. Or of giving friends and family short shrift when you get home from work.
Empathy is crucial to the culture of the workplace. If we are in need of support and don’t receive it then we topple. A system is only as strong as its weakest link after all.
This is a dilemma. Waytz, an associate professor at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, offers 3 strategies to help to manage empathy exchange at work: Allocating people for empathy – selective assigned empathising; Encourage mutual empathy sessions; Give people empathy breaks.
Or you could stop overdoing empathy.
Of course, give help where help is needed. Of course solve your high performers’ problems without a second thought.
But….
Empathy is our start point so often for everyone’s problem. Someone comes to you with a problem at work for instance missing a deadline, not having the right documents in a meeting or failing to secure a deal. Very often the default response is: “Poor you, that’s not fair, you’re under such pressure, how on earth can you be expected to work under those conditions”.
If that isn’t your response naturally then in most businesses you had better learn it, otherwise you may be labelled “not a people person” and good luck with your promotion prospects if that’s the case.
Kim Scott, has built a successful coaching career with an empathy overload antidote. She points out that being a good boss, in the long term, is not about offering empathy. I’d argue this is also true of being a good colleague. If you’re trying to help someone, layering what you really think with lots and lots of sugar and thick thick marzipan, may mean that it is too easy for them to miss the point.
She says that pointing out candidly what you really think is in fact your job. If someone turns up to a meeting, and has omitted to bring a copy of the most up to date plan for example in hard copy when the team need to see it, it really isn’t that helpful if your only reaction is to empathise. Certainly this is unlucky for them, unfortunate they didn’t realise that no-one else was bringing it, what a shame that the printer didn’t work and that there’s no access to it electronically. However just feeling for them in that situation is nowhere near as useful to their career development as also pointing out that they should have double checked. And not leave it till the last minute. Scott asserts that frank candour in this situation is the only way to allow your team to grow and develop.
I feel for you. But wake up and smell the coffee. Too much empathy in the workplace may be stifling everyone’s career development.
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