However, as history shows us, the simplest and most beneficial ideas - gravity, a spherical planet and the circulation of the blood to name but a few - have had the hardest time gaining popular acceptance and understanding. MNP is proving no exception.
MNP can be defined as the process whereby customers are reached through a tailored mix of media, based on their individual relationship with the brand and the channel.
In other words, MNP recognises the need to put the consumer, not the media choice, at the centre of any media plan, and demands action around this need.
Media-neutral campaigns require communications to be driven by consumers' channel of preference, whether that be mail, TV, press, radio,SMS or web, and not the institutional bias of the agency or personal preference of the budget holder. This presents significant personal and professional challenges to the advertising market, challenges that if well handled can really deliver the goods.
As an example, IBM has totally overhauled its 220-strong marketing department to deliver media-neutral campaigns. This was achieved by creating a brand-led, cross-functional team from a series of previously distinct knowledge silos. One of the first campaigns delivered out of the new structure, 'Solutions for the City of London', delivered a 7000% return on investment in the first year alone. With results such as these, who can deny the power of MNP?
MNP is a specialist cross-functional discipline driven by research, analysis and insight, not by habit and preference. The key to neutrality is, as ever, confidence born of knowledge. This is the case as much for those in the industry who need to broaden their skills beyond a single specialism as for new entrants to the profession.
Research shows conclusively that simply adding one more medium to the mix is likely to improve a campaign's reach and effect by between 10% and 20%. Yet it appears that fear of change is preventing many organisations from switching to MNP.
Further barriers are the structural and intellectual changes required to deliver such campaigns and, perhaps most significantly, the fact that clients must accept that media-neutral programmes are more complex to manage and involve greater risk than solus media solutions.
Media neutrality is without doubt a critical issue for today's marketers and advertisers. Although it can clearly deliver significantly greater return on investment and brand loyalty than traditional approaches, there is no quick and easy way to develop, implement and evaluate such campaigns.
Organisations such as IBM, AOL, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Nestle Rowntree are leading the charge. But for MNP to become a genuine force in the industry, marketers, researchers and planners need to work together, learn from each other and be prepared to embrace the new way of working.
MNP may not be the simplest idea either to accept or to implement, but I genuinely believe that it is the future for all of us in this industry.
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