Media never really fragmented. Our audiences just became more discerning and dynamic in what has value to them and the ways they want to access content, experience and information.

This has led me to look at how we attract people and aggregate audiences around the attributes and passions they may care about. This has caused me to look deeper into the audience insights we are given, looking for the audiences within the audience. Understanding where an organizing idea we create will work for the meta-casting nature of advertising can inform and drive how we can demonstrate value through concepts of micro casting.

Essentially, our job as creative has shifted to creating ideas that audiences want to form around.

Working with the tools and insights we already have, just shift the assignment to designing audiences with idea platforms that demonstrate value through experiences, information and utility. The right ideas should now generate the gravity to attract and build a series of smaller audiences that display higher affinities within the broader general targets we work with.

Conceptually, it moves creative and media into being on the same team, as the best ideas we inject into the marketplace will design and form audiences that create their own value for the product or brand. Thus, the challenge for the agency is that the client’s investment in a strong, organizing idea that demonstrates value and aggregates audience is essentially creating media.

Functionally, we all have the tools and are already doing this to some level. In an age of connected media with a social graph, this becomes an important filter for creative teams to produce ideas that are built around the concept of designing audiences.