When the brief already dictates the channels

We often get a brief from institutional clients where the channel and the goal are already fixed, before anyone has actually checked whether that's the right approach. More followers on a specific channel. More views on a specific platform. Checking that is supposed to be exactly our job.

What's behind it becomes clear once you ask further. These channels and goals are often already written into the institution's internal annual targets. Someone set them months ago, in a completely different process, without looking at the current campaign. By the next reporting period, that exact number has to show up on that exact channel, or the institution can't demonstrate its own success internally.

That makes flexibility in the media plan difficult. Not because trying other channels is a bad idea, but because an internal target has its own logic that doesn't have to match a campaign's actual impact.

That's why we take two tracks, as far as the mandate allows. First we check what room the budget and the mandate actually leave. With the part that's needed for the fixed targets, we deliver exactly what's needed internally. That's not up for negotiation, it has to hold.

If the remaining room allows it, we take a second path. We test other channels that might fit the actual audience better, on a smaller scale, with a clear read-out. A test doesn't automatically prove a channel is better, but it gives a first signal worth discussing once the targets get set again next year.