Big question
Does every line on the plan have a stated job, or is the channel name doing the work?
The position
Write the sentence anyway. The absence of the field is not evidence that the field would improve a plan, and the writing down is what survives the argument in the room.
Why it is live
The same money does different work in different places, so a channel label is not a decision, and nothing on a plan records what a line was for. No planning tool schema published anywhere carries a role field, and a collection of fifteen briefing formats has every attachment dead, so the comparison cannot be run.
The case for
InferredSaying what a line is for says something true about it, and it stops every line claiming every outcome when the results arrive.
The case against
ContestedWhether a channel has a role at all is disputed in print by named practitioners, and no document carries the field, so the practice has never been compared with its absence.
Where the weight sits
For writing it down, on reasoning rather than on evidence. Nobody has shown it helps and nobody has shown it costs anything, and that asymmetry is the argument.
What would change this
A holding company or a large planning product publishing a field schema that contains a role field. That would settle the count in an afternoon.
Where this is taught
Strategy and Planning
Sources
- The CMO Survey, 31 Mar 2026secondary
- IAB measurement leadership summit recap, 23 Jul 2026secondary