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When I’m working with new PlattFormers from other departments and cross training them on exactly what it is we do in Media, I find it’s often hard to cram all that we do into a brief 45-minute session. Going over the intricacies of our reporting procedures alone could realistically cover an hour. Someone once presented me with a nice analogy that I use to briefly sum up what it is Media does in the grand scheme of things. If PlattForm is a restaurant, then we in Media are the chefs. It makes sense when you think about it. (Don’t think too hard. Then it might cease to make any type of sense.) Sales functions as the maître d’, welcoming clients to our fine establishment. Client Services are the wait staff. It’s their job to ensure that the client receives the best meal they can. It’s Media’s job to work with Video Production and Print, which provide us the finest ingredients to cook up hearty media schedules that Client Services can deliver to the client. Every chef knows that there’s a wide variety of customers, so we have to keep stirring the sauce. Changing out ingredients to preserve the freshest, most beneficial servings is always our goal. We need to make sure Video Production and Print know how well one of their ingredients works. If Video Production has a great spicy meatball of a television spot on their hands, then we’ll want to make sure we get more quality ingredients like that out to the clients. Our job is very important in supporting Client Services. If the soufflé is burnt, the wait staff feels the consequences. So there’s a heavy duty placed upon the chefs of Media to ensure we never burn the soufflé. Of course, I don’t want to forget Interactive in this whole mix. They’re a whole different breed of chefs. I think they use microwaves. At least it’s something high-tech like that. Ultimately the metaphor can get stretched and you have to look at the reality. PlattForm is simply one delectable educational solution. The educational sector can be fast-paced, and ever-changing, but like we say in the Media department, “If you can’t stand the heat, get outta the kitchen.”

I was running some errands last weekend at my second-favorite store, SuperTarget (About which I could devote an entire blog; seriously, I can get a bag of shredded cheddar cheese, windshield wiper fluid, a designer T shirt, and “Reno 911: The Complete Fourth Season” in one place!) when I noticed the back-to-school ads were already starting. I recall being a child and feeling a wave of despair wash over me as the “Back to School Savings!” ads started peppering the Sunday paper. The glory days of summer would be drawing to a close, although the days seemed just as long as when the summer started. Was it over so soon? I had barely slurped down my quota of “suicides” at the little league park for the summer. (For the record, the ill-termed brew was created by running your cup under every spout at the fountain, mixing Coke with Sprite, lemonade with Mr. Pibb, and so on.) Soon I would have to start picking out a new metal lunch box, featuring the newest craze. (My favorite was Pac-Man. I think I held on to that one for a few seasons.) I’d pick new boxes of crayons, always opting for the Crayola 64 crayon collection, featuring the ingenious in-box sharpener; get an updated Trapper Keeper, and ultimately resign myself to the fact I’d be getting back to the rigorous daily grind. Second grade can be tough like that. Now that I’m mostly an adult, I have been living in a non-summer-break-world for years. Gone are the days of laying around the pool, staying up until 3am, and sleeping until noon. You actually have to take a day of personal time if you want to do that during the week. I tend to take for granted that whole-back-to-school feeling because I don’t consciously feel like I’m clinging to those last precious moments of summer. It’s interesting to discover that working in the educational sector, every day is back-to-school season. I suppose that is one of the great things about our industry. In certain educational settings you have to wait until fall to make a change for the next phase of your life. In high school or college, we tend to take that for granted. However, at PlattForm, we’re in the business of constantly changing people’s lives, not just in the fall. It doesn’t matter if it’s the last days of summer or the deep freeze of winter (of course it’s always sunny in southern California, so our clients down there can disregard that part of the sentence); someone’s ready to start going back to school. Textbooks are purchased, revised work hours are planned, and people are setting themselves down the path to a new life. And it happens all the time. What could be cooler than that? (Aside from a Pac-Man lunch box, of course…)

In Media, we have to be objective about our television buying decisions. Just because we feel that a certain program may be a great buy, we always follow the data and national trends. Once I was offered a spot during a primetime airing of Lord of the Rings. You’d think that could be a huge win, right? Nope. Not really. It wouldn’t have had the impact we needed with one airing, and based on our data, the demographic for our client wouldn’t fit that movie’s audience. Bearing that in mind, I still take it personally when a favorite show goes by the wayside. Recently it was declared that Veronica Mars is officially, unequivocally over. (No chance of saving it, so you can stop sending the Mars Bars to Dawn Ostroff.) Last year at an unofficial award ceremony, the Media Platties, I won “Most Likely to Buy CW Prime Just to Get a Veronica Mars Poster.” Obviously, this was a joke because I wouldn’t be so foolhardy as to waste clients’ money to buy CW Prime just for a Veronica poster. I would also need a mug, and possibly a boxed DVD set. As distraught as I am over the loss of one of the best shows on television (yeah, I typed it, and Entertainment Weekly has my back on that one) I know that it’s time to say goodbye and move on. In a day-to-day Media world of Maury, Montel, and “Judge Mathis-Brown-Judy,” it’s nice to get a break in the evening when I come home. But now it’s just the memories. And the giant, oversized Veronica Mars poster behind me on the wall.

At our annual company meeting, we take time to get updates from all the departments at PlattForm to learn what the previous year brought and what lies ahead. Different departments approach the dissemination of information in various ways. Sometimes it’s a PowerPoint slide show. Sometimes it’s a simple lecture. Last year, the Media department put on a sketch featuring Tommy Chong, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and Sean Connery facing off with Alex Trebek in a round of Celebrity Jeopardy. I think there were supposed to be some facts about the previous year presented, but I have no idea what they were. This is because instead of actually focusing on the facts, we spent 10 minutes having Sean Connery lob extremely inappropriate mother comments at Alex Trebek (none of which I can reprint here). We thought it might be a safe bet to have our sketch pre-recorded, just so there was no way we could accidentally blurt out some inappropriate nonsequiter. (We just filmed them this time.) In the course of filming, we learned the following:

1. Working with kids can be tough. Getting a 2-year-old child to say “SharePoint sucks!” is a lot harder then you may think. I found it was best to bribe the child with promises of toys. And because I’m not a jerk, I followed through on that promise and made time to play with toys, while important reports sat on my desk, waiting to be reviewed. I’m that dedicated.
2. Cameras are heavy. My de facto excuse for not hitting the gym this week was that I was too busy shooting this movie. However, I didn’t feel much guilt after lugging around the camera for hours on end. I must have dropped at least five pounds in water weight alone from the sweat pouring off me. And that was gross for the people around me. I may have shorted out my keyboard from typing while sweaty.
3. Chihuahuas are funny. I don’t think I need to expand on that.
4. The PlattForm Production Team works hard. I don’t think I’d ever given much consideration to what the Video Production Department at PlattForm does. I knew they had cameras, and they did things with those cameras. They also have a prop room with an awesome afro wig that is fun to wear for no good reason. What I didn’t know is how much effort goes into even a :30 commercial. The Productioneers spend hours setting up the right lighting, adjusting the camera angles, and perfecting the shot to get the best results. Where I am inclined to take the Ed Wood route and assume the first shot is the best, let’s print it and move on, I’ve learned the Production teams pours over every detail to get the best footage possible. Maybe that’s why they have all those awards.

Communication is part of our daily lives, but in the Media department it IS our daily lives. With dozens upon dozens of clients relying on our expertise to bring in lower costs-per-lead and lower costs-per-start, our communication on the schools we serve is vital, and that’s what makes PlattForm the top direct response agency in the educational sector. Constant updates on even what seem to be mundane details can make all the difference. If a client has several schools across many markets, and we test a new spot in one market, relaying the success of the test across the team may allow us to find our newest hit spot for multiple markets. You’ll find the buying and analyzing teams in Media watching new creative extremely closely and reporting the data to the Client Services team. We get just as excited about new ads as our client do. When it comes to the big picture, Media works to push the envelope. Our goal is to answer the clients’ questions before they are raised. If we notice slugglish lead flow at the beginning of the day, we’ll be on the phone with our television reps to make sure we’re not experiencing pre-emptions or there’s no outside event causing leads to trickle in slower than normal. If a market has been having a particular struggle, our goal is to provide a comprehensive plan of action on how we will bring the market back on track. When a client is getting PlattForm service, they can feel safe in knowing that because we keep our level of communication and responsiveness high, they’ll have an accountability factor that is unprecedented in the industry. Our biggest pleasure is communicating successes and wins. It’s a great feeling to be able to let our clients know that we’ve been able to lower our rate on our best television station or that we’ve negotiated a bonus ad in our best employment publication. We’re so invested in our schools that oftentimes we genuinely feel a true sense of ownership. When the month is finished, and we overproduced the amount of leads projected for the school, we feel satisfied in knowing we did the right thing. And you’d better believe we’re going to communicate that. We don’t mind a little bragging every now and then.