With the streamlining of the media buy/sell process comes an unfortunate side effect: that potentially viable media properties are eliminated simply because they don't fit into the buyer's idea of what a media vehicle should look like, and can't be compared with other buys using a standard set of metrics, writes Steve Hall of Adrants.

The rise in technology-enabled automation, decline in social skills thanks to email, and the human tendency to avoid conflict is killing the art of the relationship, but it doesn't have to, Hall says.

If both sides agree, there are always going to be elements of a media property that are unique and unable to be compared equally.

But as 61.5 percent of advertisers in a recent survey said accountability is important, and new ways to measure continue to be explored, getting buyers to throw any metric out the window - even for the most unique buy - may prove to be nigh impossible.