From 1992: 15 Timeless Strategies That Still Shape Media and Marketing"

#2 in The Myers Report Back to the Future Series. Originally Published Winter 1991–1992 | Reimagined for 2025

In 1992, 15 Best Ideas for Improving Media and Marketing Effectiveness

By Jack Myers

The cover of The Myers Reports, Vol. 9, No. 4, proclaimed it boldly: “15 Best Ideas for Improving Media & Marketing Effectiveness in 1992.” It was a time of seismic transformation—the rise of cable, the emergence of desktop computing, and the first tremors of digital disruption. Amid the uncertainty, The Myers Report issued not just a checklist, but a prescient manifesto -- one that, more than 30 years later, offers surprisingly fresh relevance for 2025’s marketing, media, and data leaders.

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Each 1992 recommendation now reads as both time capsule and time machine connecting us to the values of trust, insight, collaboration, and accountability that we still strive for today. Here's a tribute to each of those ideas, and why they matter now more than ever.

1. Zero-base your strategic plans.
In 1992, this meant challenging assumptions and revisiting past paradigms. In 2025, it could be the rallying cry for CMOs grappling with AI-era reinvention. Starting fresh without legacy constraints remains an essential skill in an environment of constant technological transformation.

2. Create a Minority Review Board.
Decades before DEI became a corporate mandate, The Myers Report urged marketers to institutionalize inclusive voices. Had this been standard practice in the 1990s, we might have seen earlier, broader representation in media. Today, with trust in institutions at a low, such boards are essential not just for representation but for relevance.

3. Conduct a quarterly Environmental Sensitivity Report.
Environmental consciousness was ahead of its time here. Now, in an era where sustainability defines corporate value, quarterly ESG-aligned reviews should be non-negotiable. This 1992 idea predicted not only green marketing, but purpose-driven brand strategy.

4. Conduct a Structural Audit.
Dissecting every level of the advertising process to uncover inefficiencies—this could be pulled directly from a modern procurement consultant’s playbook. In today's AI-and-automation-powered world, this idea has evolved into workflow orchestration platforms and agile team structures.

5. Conduct Strategic Reviews for planners and sales execs.
The idea was to align goals across the buy/sell divide—then, a rare gesture. Now, it’s critical. The breakdown of silos and the rise of fusion teams makes this review process a cornerstone of collaborative success.

6. Become Research Proactive.
Encouraging advertisers to evaluate research validity presaged today's obsession with first-party data, real-time measurement, and clean-room analytics. In hindsight, had this principle been universally applied in the 1990s, the industry may have avoided decades of “garbage in, garbage out” media metrics.

7. Increase your Relationship Sensitivity.
This remains one of the most human—and therefore timeless—suggestions. Recognizing individual motivators and elevating account intelligence continues to define success in both B2B and B2C relationships. Today, we call it customer empathy, but the heart of it hasn’t changed.

8. Maximize media packaging cost efficiencies.
What we now think of as retail media bundling, omnichannel campaigns, or programmatic guarantees was foreshadowed here. This idea remains the foundation of media investment efficiency—and increasingly, the path to competitive differentiation.

9. Review your agency compensation agreements.
A call for transparent, fair value in media services. Today, it's an industry imperative amid concerns over rebates, fraud, and underpaid labor. In the AI economy, this idea demands a fresh lens on value creation, not just cost containment.

10. Respond to the Age Wave.
In 1992, The Myers Report urged attention to boomers turning 45+. In 2025, we’re revisiting the longevity economy—with Gen X and even older millennials now guiding household wealth. A brilliant, age-inclusive insight before most marketers recognized it.

11. Learn about Place-Based and In-Store Media.
Before digital out-of-home became one of the fastest-growing media sectors, before geofencing and QR codes, there was this idea. Its resurgence now is powered by AI-driven attribution, but its DNA traces to this forward-looking suggestion.

12. Encourage magazines to standardize their reader studies.
This was a call for measurement clarity in a medium that once defined cultural capital. Today, as we face the fragmentation of platforms and metrics, the demand for unified, trusted cross-media data echoes louder than ever.

13. Consider program development and sponsorship.
This idea could be relabeled today as branded entertainment or creator partnerships. It signaled the shift from interruptive ads to value-creating content—a movement that now defines influencer culture and premium brand storytelling.

14. Consider data base opportunities for Youth Marketing.
Decades before the word “Gen Z” was coined, this idea foresaw the power of youth segmentation and data-driven personalization. Today’s social algorithms, youth subcultures, and micro-audience strategies all rest on this foundation.

15. Recognize product placement in movies as a new medium.
This forecast an entire ecosystem—branded content, native advertising, in-game integration. Long before YouTube unboxings and Netflix x Heineken collaborations, this insight defined the future of contextual brand storytelling.

Conclusion: The Legacy—and Future—of Visionary Guidance
What’s most remarkable about this 1992 special issue is not how many of these ideas came true, but how many are still becoming true. The Myers Report didn’t just analyze—it anticipated. It framed effectiveness not around technology alone, but around better strategy, human connection, inclusive thinking, and accountability.

As we publish this #2 entry in our “Back to the Future” archival series, we invite you not just to reflect—but to act. These principles remain guideposts for an industry that must once again reinvent itself.

Let this 1992 time capsule be your 2025 playbook. Because true vision, like great strategy, never goes out of date.

Stay tuned next Friday for #3 in our Back to the Future series from 1996: Abandoned in the Wasteland. Children, Television and the First Amendment
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