Ravens, the Game of Thrones media channel.

I’m a Game of Thrones fan. Not, like, obsessively, but I’ll watch a new episode as soon as it’s aired. So in anticipation of season seven, I recently – and unsuccessfully – searched Foxtel's online guide for a return date. Two web pages later, I was served a small banner ad informing me that the season premiere would take place on June 25. Bonza. Working in advertising, I love those occasions when advertising works on me. Just the information I needed, all sourced and served in a sharp and timely manner. Thus in any subsequent GOT conversations with friends and family, I’ll be able to knowingly mention when it’s back on air. Note that: mention when it’s back, not how I know when. That last bit’s unimportant. Because in life, as in advertising and marketing, the message is always more important than the medium. To explain why, let’s continue the Game of Thrones theme.

Every fan knows that the preferred method of communicating in the Seven Kingdoms is with a raven. GOT Wiki will tell you “ravens can fly great distances at speed and are uncommonly intelligent animals trained to serve as messengers”. So in the common tongue, they're a medium carrying a message. Just imagine if they had media people in Westeros (and I think I've met some of them), they'd explain that ravens are just a well-targeted use of media. A bit like a personalised EDM, except delivered in the guise of a spooky homing-pigeon. Now, think carefully back to any instance in GOT when a raven ever showed up (there have been quite a few, so I'll give you a minute). See? It’s not its arrival that’s important, it’s what's then told in the note that it brings. That’s what everybody is interested in. That’s what moves the story forward.

Back in the real world, each day seems to reveal the evolution of some new media channels' ability to better target the people we want to reach. It's "trending" everywhere. Clients buy into it because it can prevent waste; creative folk like it because it allows us to craft our work even more succinctly. But does the balance perhaps feel slightly out of whack? Are we obsessing in mediums over messages? If so, it's understandable why. In the history of advertising, social media is a relatively new phenomenon. Like a shiny new toy, everyone is very excited to play with it, to see what it can do. And it can do plenty: canvases on Facebook, bots on Twitter, photo galleries on Instagram, etcetera. The opportunities that these new channels present us are seemingly endless. But they are just that: opportunities. They're all just fancy new ravens; ultimately it's the messages we attach to them that really matter.

That's obvious enough, right? Because I sometimes think we are at risk of forgetting so. The immediacy that social media provides mean there is often a push to produce more social content, more quickly, more cheaply. While that may work in some client categories, it's worth remembering that all clients ultimately share the same goal: effective communications for their brands. Which is something that no advertising medium, no matter how fancy its functionality, can deliver by itself. It still needs to be teamed with a creatively interesting message, one that the target audience will find relevant. It's why those clever writers of GOT only ever show ravens delivering messages like "John Arryn is dead" rather than "We're running short of barley". This is a lead worth following. Ensure what we say is equally as interesting as our method of delivering it and it'll really move a brand's story forward.

Now bring on June 25.