As I talk about the automation benefits of our Digital Media Planner system, I use words like “easy, efficient, and effective.” But these words don’t capture the essence of what we are doing here from a media planner’s perspective. Here I try to get to the essence using the 5 whys method with a fictitious media planner, Paulette Planner:
Q1: Why is workflow automation important in digital media planning?
Paulette Planner: “Because it frees me from doing lots of mundane, robotic tasks like copying and pasting 600 placements from Excel into DFA.”
Q2: Why is liberating you from mundane, robotic tasks important?
PP: “Because it saves me time, eliminates tedious mistakes, and let’s me spend more time on higher-value, strategic activities.”
Q3: Why is spending your time on high-value activities important?
PP: “Clients pay for value. If I’m doing valuable work, then I’ll be happier with my job. Plus, I’ll get paid more and get promoted.”
Q4: Why is your happiness important to the agency?
PP: “I do better work when I’m happy. Clients are happier with the results and the agency gets more money. I’ll see a better career path here and stay here longer. This is why I got into advertising.”
So, ideally, automation leads to your happiness and better results for your agency. It seems we should call our media planning system development effort “The Digital Media Planner Happiness Project.” We’ll know we’re successful when media planners tell us the system makes them happier.
