Having spent a recent bout of flu becoming addicted to Friends (reruns can be addictive), it made me ponder how even short programs (22 minutes) are so dependant on the combination of assets. Sickly though the metaphor is, it could act as a sensible way of explaining the need to have all the components in place for great integrated marketing - even in short order programs. In an environment where budgets are under greater scrutiny than ever, part of the tension is the intent to try to slash and burn everything in the hope of saving money. The reality is that we need to think hard about how we keep the cast together because as quickly cancelled spin-off series Joey proved, one component for the whole 22 minutes is just not going to hack it with the purchasing audience.
We have all been there and the complexities of integrated marketing drive a very different desire for experimentation than ever before. In an old world far, far away was a method for marketing communications that required the management of a lot fewer choices, more or less, with only slight variations or changes in balances. In the new integrated world we have gone from maybe three or four cogs to hundreds, interacting together and changing interactions. The tendency in the new integrated world is to hang on like crazy to stuff that might appear to be working because there are just too many other variables that we do not have the time, money and maybe even buy-in to try.