Restraint is a growth strategy

When I moved from the client side to Éclat, the first thing I had to unlearn was the plan. The media plan I had been trained to write was a coverage document: how many people, how many times, at what cost. It answered every question except whether anyone would notice.

Our plans now start with a different question: where is this person paying attention on purpose? Not scrolling, not skipping, not muting. Reading a magazine they subscribe to. Sitting in a cinema before a film they chose. Walking past a hoarding on their own street every morning. Those moments are rare and they cost more per head, which is why most plans avoid them.

For Château Perrin we bought three placements in a year. A cinema run, a print series, one wall. The allocation sold through in six weeks. I have run campaigns with three hundred placements that could not say that.

The measurement model has to change with the plan. We no longer report reach; we report recall and action, and we report them to the board in a two-page document. If the chief executive cannot explain the media plan at dinner, it is not restrained. It is merely small.

Restraint, in media, is not a budget decision. It is a decision about respect: for the audience's attention and for the work you are putting in front of it. Both tend to pay you back.