No-one can deny that the offering from new media companies has
revolutionised the marketing industry and added a new dimension
to the way businesses and the consumer can interact.

Having made an initial impact on the industry, it's now time
for new media companies to assess where they should go from
here. To date, new media companies have rarely been asked what
service would best suit a client's needs. Indeed, they're quite
often only contacted when the client or agency has already decided
on a particular activity, such as multimedia, Web site or email.
This has resulted in a concentration on technology-centred
tools.

Hopefully they will come to the conclusion, just as many
mainstream ad agencies have done, that it isn't feasible in
the long term to offer clients just one solution irrespective
of their particular marketing requirement. Instead, they should
consider adopting a media-neutral stance and concentrate on
forming strategic business alliances with well-established
mainstream marketing agencies, thereby giving themselves more
clout, a place on the board and greater longevity.

Media allows for an alliance of marketing services companies
offering a range of specialist skills in order to best meet a
client's objectives.

It requires producing the solution to a brief and then deciding
how best to reach the client's target market, delivering the
most effective message using the most appropriate marketing
specialist.

A media-neutral approach offers a significant improvement in
how clients select and engage the increasingly wide range of
specialist services needed to achieve their marketing
objectives. Such an alliance of 'best of breed' independent
marketing specialist companies might include services like
project management, research, marketing consultancy and
creative services, plus specialist marketing disciplines
such as advertising, PR, print, direct marketing, digital
media, logistics, merchandising, sales promotion,
exhibitions/events and conferences.

Clients today are looking even more closely for efficiency
and ways to leverage the best value from their marketing
budgets. Media neutrality provides a single door to many great
marketing service companies and offers clients an impartial
and powerful management proposition.

Just as traditional ad agencies have had to rethink how they
can best fulfil their clients' briefs, so should new media
companies. Media neutrality results in there being no bias
towards any one marketing discipline, focusing instead on
the best programme of activity for a client to embark on.
Chris Parry is group director of DirectionGroup, which
provides a single point of contact for best-of-breed marketing

For further information, please contact:
Richard Stephens
DirectionGroup
Tel: 0118 989 8104
Mob: 07836 587096
Email: richards@directiongroup.co.uk
www.directiongroup.co.uk