Promotion 441
It is a less common choice for publicity ini-
tiatives, but equally possible. The introduction
of a vehicle into the process compounds the
loss of control in the case of ‘free’ publicity, as
we have just seen, but not in the case of ‘paid-
for’ advertising. In exchange for the price of
space or time, the media owner undertakes that
advertisements will appear in the booked posi-
tion at the booked time and in the form in
which they are submitted. This option is thus a
matter of trading acquired expertiseand (poten-
tially) lower cost against reduced control.
Arrows 6 and 7 refer specifically to pro-
fessional conventions affecting the working
relationship among advertisers, agencies and
media owners. Though it is logical to think of
advertisers as the sellers in the transaction,
because they use advertising to promote their
offering to the audience, they are also buyers – of
a commodity from media owners and a service
from agencies. However, by long-established
standard practice explained in more detail later,
an advertising agency typically earns roughly
two-thirds of its total income by buying the
advertising space and time required for a client’s
campaign from the media owners at one price
and claiming reimbursement in due course at
another. Consequently, an unwritten code of
professional conduct protects the livelihood of
agencies by stipulating that media owners do
not sell direct to advertisers (arrow 7), but make
their sales pitch to the advertisers’ agencies
(arrow 6). In practice, they naturally present the
case for their medium to both parties – demand-
pull to reinforce supply-push – but are careful to
observe the correct priority.
Media owners actually play two roles in
this system. Their obvious editorialfunction is
to deliver news and entertainment to readers,
viewers and listeners. But they also allocate a
certain portion of their total space or time to
advertisers, who subsidize the price of news
and entertainment by paying for the opportu-
nity to address those readers, viewers and
listeners.
Thus, as arrow 8symbolizes, promotional
messages are actually transmitted by the media
owners. The originators depend on the fact that
the target audience will in fact easily ‘decode’
this familiar social process, and treat them as
the source of the message. Except in very
unusual situations, this will presumably be the
case, which brings us back to the starting point
of Figure 17.4, arrow 1.Working relationships
The truism that all service industries are people
businesses can in this case be a useful reminder
that the system just described in the abstract is
in fact a series of relationships between people.
The effectiveness of the system depends on
their ability to collaborate constructively. From
that point of view, the interface between origi-
nator and intermediary is critical.
Responsibility for managing the origina-
tor’s promotional mix will often be one of the
responsibilities of a brand managerormarketing
manager, though it will sometimes be devolved
to a specialist with a title such as advertising
manager or marketing communications co-
ordinator. This is the person who delivers the
client brief to any intermediary involved in
deployment of the mix. The recipient, respons-
ible for interpreting it to the expert specialists
within their own organization, is generically
described as an account handler. The term
originated in the advertising business, where
‘account’ defines a single piece of business
awarded to an advertising agency. The more
self-explanatory description ‘client service’ is
often applied to the function, but seldom to the
person.
It would be logical to assume that the
duties are shared more or less equally in such a
working partnership, but the fact is that the
onus for maintaining a good working relation-
ship rests mainly on the account handler. This
function is the classic career ladder in agencies
of all kinds, and is characterized by a hierarchy
of specific job titles, from junior account execu-
tive to group account director.