Plans negotiated, not ordered

The difference between buying and ordering

Ordering is sending an insertion request and paying what was quoted. Buying is arguing about it. On a television schedule that argument covers rate, daypart, position in the pod, programme adjacency, bonus weight, and what happens if a spot does not run. Each of those is worth money, and none of them is on the rate card.

The gap between a plan as offered and the same plan as negotiated is not marginal. It is frequently the difference between a budget that works and one that nearly works — which is the most expensive outcome in advertising, because it costs the same and proves nothing.

What we negotiate on

• Rate, obviously, but rarely first. A cheap spot in the wrong daypart is not a saving.
• Position. First or last in the pod against buried in the middle. Sold as a nicety, behaves like a discount.
• Weight and bonus. What gets added at no cost when a schedule is committed properly.
• Make-goods. Agreed in advance, in writing, so a missed spot is replaced rather than credited three months later.
• Terms across the flight rather than week by week, which is where volume actually earns something.

Then we report on it

Transparent metrics and reporting, so you can easily track what your budget returned — month against last month, with the figures pulled from the accounts rather than retyped. Nothing gets rounded up, and anything a platform did not report reads “n/a” rather than zero. Those are different findings and a client will ask which.

We also report the things that did not work. An agency that only surfaces wins is not reporting, it is selling, and you will find out the difference at renewal.

What we will not do

Buy a channel we cannot explain the purpose of, take a budget too thin for the footprint it is being asked to cover, or recommend a line because it pays us better. If the honest answer is that your budget should go into direct mail rather than the television campaign you came in asking about, that is the answer you get.