To navigate the current and future state of disruption, brands must shift their mindset

Over the past 18+ months of uncertainty, consumer lifestyles have changed dramatically—everything from where we work and how children engage in schooling, to where we shop and how much time we spend with friends and family. With these shifts in lifestyle, habits around media consumption and interests have also changed, forcing advertising models to shift and brands to adapt in order to effectively reach consumers. 

In 2020, the paradox of rising media consumption amid declining marketing budgets directed decisions for how brands allocated their advertising dollars. With that, a brand’s ability to create genuine connections between itself and consumers grew increasingly important. Today, disruption is the new normal, and marketers must keep navigating it while simultaneously planning for an unclear future. 

Planning for future uncertainty isn’t just about changing processes; in order to thrive, it’s critical to shift from a fixed mindset to one of growth. By centering planning efforts around people, evolving strategies and tactics with continuous planning and increasing efficiency through connected planning, brands can effectively navigate ongoing disruption. This paper dives into the importance of treating media planning as an always-on exercise rather than something done yearly—and how brands stand to become wiser through experimentation and experience.