Introduction
In my last posting, I talked briefly about a career in a media agency. In this post, I will concentrate on the role that a media agency plays in the marketing process.

The Importance of Media
Within the marketing function, media is considered a cost rather than an investment. This is primarily because the return from media rupees is not accurately measured. This does not mean that it cannot be done, but the cost of doing so is quite high.

Media is one among the top three cost heads for most manufacturing companies, the other two being raw materials and personnel. This is fundamentally the reason why there is so much emphasis on the media function these days.

Media Agency’s Role
In India, the concept of a media agency is relatively new. It began with the launch of Carat about eleven years ago. Until then, India had only full service agencies. A full service agency means that all communication requirements of a client a met by a single agency – including account planning, client servicing, creative development, media and production.

The problem with this model is that recommendations to clients are invariably biased. Full service agencies revolve around the creative product – and they make a lot of money on this. Most agencies are adept at producing TV commercials, print advertisements, cinema commercials, radio spots and so on. The media department in such an agency, therefore, is forced to recommend these media options to the client. There is no objectivity to the media recommendations. Media agencies like Carat, with no creative department, can make completely objective recommendations to clients. Such agencies are called media independents.

Soon after the birth of media independents in India, full service agencies spun off their media departments into separate media agencies with their own bottom lines. Such agencies are called media specialists. While these agencies specialize in media, there is still a connection to the parent full service agency. They are therefore not independent and their recommendations can still be influenced by the parent company.

Consequences
The birth of media independents and specialists has had a huge fallout on the industry in many ways – commercial terms, talent management, business model, etc. I will cover some of these issues in my next posting.