As the battle among the media agencies gets more intense and media fragmentation gets more pronounced, it is surely challenging for any media professional to come up with new ideas to break away from the clutter. To manage a judicious combination of an advertisement and editorial in print media or associating a brand with television programming is tougher than ever before.

Clinic All Clear Campus Fundas and Birla Sun Life advertisement in newspapers or branded television show such as Tide Khel Khel Mein are some of the recent efforts to take a different route to associate with the consumer. But is there enough innovation in true sense? How should media specialist go about the task of doing differential work?

In its endeavour to provide an insight into new trends, indiantelevision.com got in touch with CVL Srinivas, chief operating officer (North and South), Madison Media.

"Most clients and media professionals fear to take the 'innovative' route. There is hardly any risk taking," this is what Srinivas had said during an interview with Indiantelevision.com last month.

Ritesh Gupta got in touch with Srinivas for a detailed conversation on media innovation. Excerpts:

What is your view on media innovation with so many media houses in the fray and tremendous fragmentation in the media?
Media innovation firstly needs to be properly defined - one finds the term being used in a flippant manner and very loosely these days. Strictly speaking, an innovation is something that hasn't been done before. Media innovation, in the true sense, is a creative use of a medium or the creative adaptation of a message to a medium - something that hasn't been done before. It is not just sponsoring a programme or doing a road block on TV.

Yes, there are more media innovations today than 10 years ago - simply because you couldn't do too many innovations with monopolistic media. Today, there are many more media vehicles that are open to providing a brand more avenues than just regular advertising. Also, with increasing clutter levels and the need to get more bang for the buck, media innovations have become an expected deliverable from any media agency.

What kind of costs is one looking at whilst thinking of media innovations?
Innovations can be of various types and can vary in scale. The 'cost' of an innovation will obviously depend on the 'type' of innovation and the scale. It also depends on how 'innovatively' the media buyer is able to negotiate the deal!!

Lets look at two extreme cases:

a) Imaginative use of an existing format: if the media buyer spots an existing format that can be used to work out a media innovation, this can come as part of the regular deal and can be built into the deal negotiation. As long as the media owner doesn't incur a cost for it, the buyer should be able to get it as a part of his overall commitment to the media vehicle.

b) Creating a new format in a medium or creating your own medium: This is the other extreme case, wherein the media buyer gets the medium to create a new format. More often than not, this involves a cost that has to be partly borne by the advertiser. How much of the additional cost will be picked up by the advertiser - will depend on the negotiation skill of the buyer.

There are various other types of innovation. For example - different shape/form/size of creative unit. The costs would depend on which media vehicle has been chosen and the negotiating power of the buyer.

It is extremely difficult to put a number to what an innovation should ideally cost. No model in the world can accurately measure the impact of an innovation. It, therefore, depends on each brand's budget, its media objective and the 'role' the innovation would play in achieving that objective.

Innovation cannot be only 'number driven'; there is a high degree of gut-feel; also a high chance of failure. Media innovation ultimately requires somebody in the system (either on the advertiser's side or the agency side) to have the guts to take a risk. I'm sure most successful innovations were not done with too much of number-work and benchmarking.

Recently, new branded shows have been launched on TV. What do you think is the key in this innovation?
Advertisers and agencies spend a lot of time in working out a fit between a programme and the brand. But, somewhere along the way, most of us forget that the viewer is the ultimate judge of a programme. The viewer doesn't care who is "branding" it, and whether the brand proposition is getting accurately reflected in the programme or not..!!

All he wants is good entertainment. In most cases where a branded programme has failed to take off, it is because the programme was made for the brand and not the viewer.

There have been exceptions of course. Programmes that are innovative in concept, presentation and that have sustained viewer interest for a long period of time, are the ones that succeeded. Brands that rode on such programmes benefited.

For instance, mobile service providers using teaser campaigns quite often in dailies?
Advertisers need to keep in mind the advantages as well as the limitations which the print medium has. Print offers one OTS a day where as television offers a several OTS a day. Print also has upto 24 hours between two interactions. And remember, the reader would have seen/heard/listened to atleast 100 other ad messages in this span of time.

But, on the other hand, print carries a lot more credibility than other media. Print is also extremely impactful to make an announcement. The more "newsy" the brand announcement, the better print lends itself. Also, the segmentation that is possible with print is immense. Different ideas can be adapted to each sub-group and actioned in different vehicles.

Many innovations that might work in print, may not work in television and vice-versa. So planners need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both the mediums.