Who Is the Customer in the “Customer Value?” Inherent Problems in the Marketing of Advertising Media

Abstract

Customer orientation has been suggested to create competitive advantage of firms (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990). Therefore, the recommendation to media managers has been to let the creation and delivery of customer value guide their strategies for advertising sales (Aris & Bughin, 2005). However, the concept of customer value, what it is, and how it is created remains unclear in many ways. This article explores the concept of customer value in advertising media purchasing from the media seller's perspective. Between December 2007 and February 2008, sales representatives from three Swedish TV networks were studied through in-depth interviews and observations as they progressed through a negotiation process with a large advertiser and its media agency. A qualitative analysis of the media sellers' experiences shows that they see advertiser and agency to perceiving the value of advertising media differently. Also, they see the customer side parties as diverging in the processes by which these value perceptions are formed. The article reveals the inherent problem of customer orientation on advertising markets—that within media purchasing practice, several actors have their own idea of value, and an advertiser's understanding of value is not always a decisive factor. The TV networks in the study have all chosen different strategies to deal with these dualities.