Media management agencies had barely got their collective heads around the last hot planning trend – media-neutral planning – when they realized that alone wasn’t the solution for dealing with massive fragmentation.

Since then, it has become increasingly apparent that in order to reach the right consumer, at the right time, through the right point of contact, broad demographics such as women aged 25 to 54 are all but useless. Getting to know specific consumers, and how they interact with their media, is the new order of the day.

That’s where the CCP, or consumer context planner (a.k.a. consumer contact planner, contact innovator, or connection strategist) comes in. In a nutshell, the CCP uses consumer insights and data to better understand the best points of contact, the best media, to deliver a brand message to the right consumer.

Several Canadian media management agencies have already expanded their research capabilities to include ongoing consumer panels and focus groups to help them gather these consumer insights. In most cases, media planners or account directors are the ones using this research, but in some instances there will be dedicated CCPs working on the larger accounts.

In the U.S., MediaVest already has specific CCPs for clients such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Procter & Gamble, while here at home, Starcom MediaVest Group Canada established a consumer-research panel earlier this year and is gearing up to bring in contact innovators for some clients.

Paul Maher, CEO of SMG Canada, says consumers today are increasingly in control and they’re using that control to avoid ad messages. There’s nothing new in that, he says, but this behaviour is becoming more and more prevalent as consumers become busier and new technologies, such as PVRs, give them more options.

Maher says that in that environment, media shops need to have greater understanding of consumers and the relationship that consumers have with brands and points of contact.

‘We believe that consumers now have to be better segmented so the broad definition of consumers is becoming less and less relevant – people 25 to 54 or 35 to 54 is becoming less relevant. What’s becoming more relevant is putting brands into situations that really engage consumers in their passions or their interests. If we can put brands into that context or situations, those points of contact, that’s where brands really have more power.

‘That’s driven the need for the CCP role in the media agency. Understanding the point of contact and the context of that contact is clearly the first step in the communications plan,’ he says.

CCP may be the role, but to understand consumers, research is the key.

David Shiffman, VP research, heads SMG Insights, the shared Starcom and MediaVest research group. He is also behind Surveillance, the 52-weeks-a-year consumer panel that is providing the qualitative data needed to truly understand the triangle between brand, point of contact, and consumers.

‘How can we possibly reach people in a relevant way if we don’t know anything about them? We’re doing a generic deep dive across a lot of different types of consumer, from tweens right on up, but we’re making sure we segment in ways that make sense and lead us to the ability to segment further. We know we buy women 25 to 54, but you can’t talk to a woman 25 to 54 because they don’t exist. There are many different women with many different interests within there.’

Beyond the generic research, Shiffman says Surveillance has a client-specific approach that zeroes in on the target: the consumers whom specific clients really want to talk to.

Surveillance is dispelling many preconceived ideas and stereotypes, such as the whole idea of ‘prime time.’ For moms, prime time is not 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., says Shiffman. Moms sit down to watch television when the kids have gone to bed and they can have their own time.

He says men today are also more relationship-focused with family and friends, and concerned about things that traditionally they weren’t concerned about before. The concept of the ‘man as provider’ is gone and there is a deeper blurring of gender roles as men step up to fill some of the gaps in the home and family for busy working women.

This type of research – and the CCP role – is not unique to SMG: several other media management firms are on the same track.

Sunni Boot, Toronto-based president of ZenithOptimedia, says in a world where the issue is one of message-avoidance rather than message-receptivity, the connection strategist (CCP) finds the way to burrow through avoidance and deliver the message to consumers.

Boot says, ‘They’re taking all available data – syndicated research, proprietary research, observational research – to look for insights and connections, with the brand and with the media. Increasingly, one of the things we know is we’ve got to find a way for media to be used in a personalized manner. That is what they’re helping us to do.’

Karin Macpherson, managing partner at The Media Company in Toronto, says that her agency’s planners cover off the CCP role using the knowledge gathered through the research department shared with MBS (Media Buying Services).

‘People have talked of this before, drawing a picture of a day in the life of a particular target group. When you look through syndicated data, it’s very hard to really draw a picture of what consumers are doing throughout their day,’ she says.

‘What we’re doing to augment syndicated research and proprietary research is some targeted focus group research as well as consumer panels. It’s all about making the connection with the consumer. Our proprietary planning process for every client, for every campaign, is directed around that,’ says Macpherson.

Meanwhile, Neale Halliday, director of strategic planning at OMD in Toronto, is leading The Ignition Group, the OMD department charged with collecting consumer insights and other research. His job is to link the deployment of media more closely to an understanding of the client’s overall business challenges and the consumer’s relationship with the brand – then to work with the planners to apply it.

Fragmentation of the media is really the catalyst for this, he says, as well as the fact that planning fell by the wayside when the advertising focus was locked on television, with all other media regarded as support.

Halliday says one important factor unique to planning today is the context, or where the message will be consumed. Understanding this context is a key function of the CCP role.

‘So much on the planning side disappeared from the skill set as agencies became increasingly interested in making TV spots. The message in the ad became the fulcrum. No one thought about the point of contact, the point of connection, or the context in which the message was going to be consumed.’

But these days, Halliday says, with TVs in kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and even on the backs of minivan headrests, it would be naïve to believe that the context of commercial consumption – even just for TV – is going to be uniform.

There are so many consumption contexts, he says, but so far there hasn’t been much research to measure the quality of a brand’s exposure, as opposed to just the quantity. In the short term, media agencies are going to have to use a combination of quantitative measures that exist and smart qualitative measures that will be convincing to clients, because they’re asking clients to spend money based on a little science and a little judgment.

‘Marshall McLuhan was right when he said the medium is the message,’ Halliday reflects. ‘How the medium can frame the way the message is delivered is clearly very important.’