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Publication date: 26th March 2009
The case for 'old mass media'
Campaign [26th March]:- In a video interview at the “Campaign debate on Marketing through recession” he somewhat controversially suggested that media agencies were “fast becoming an irrelevance”. He said that creative and media agencies were “struggling like mad to cope” with both the new digital world and the additional pressures brought on by recession. He didn’t believe he was getting the right advice from his agencies; that he would be looking to outstrip average media discounts by a factor of 3 and that post recession, advertisers will have learnt to market without TV which would cease being the primary medium.
His analogy that we were entering a period of ‘media rationing’ was interesting and certainly the declines in advertiser expenditure across all media would support this. What I would challenge is the implication that ‘old mass media’ are the fatty, expensive foods that advertisers will be able to thrive without.
I suspect Will would say that he was being deliberately contentious. After all in the last few months Nokia’s reported spend on Outdoor alone is £1.8m and in the past 12 months a reported £22m of which £15m was spread across mainstream TV and Outdoor.
What is hard to ignore is that his views were at least in part echoed by other sobering statements from his fellow participants in the Accenture Forum.
The main difference seemed to me a recognition by other participants that now was the time to liberate the talent from their agencies and collectively work bloody hard to get the best result in difficult times. After all representatives of industries like Financial and Automotive are probably well advised not to predict the downfall of other industry sectors!
Avoiding the temptation to defend my livelihood as a result of the views of one individual I have tried to distil the collective voice of this broad spectrum of impressive marketers.
I have concluded that all advertisers would agree that above all else they want distinctive, impactful, engaging and interactive CREATIVITY. Hallelujah I say. Some people may be safe then. A recognition that the idea is more powerful than a technique, a media event, a channel or whatever seems obvious but in recent years great ideas have often been suffocated particularly by over engineered media plans.
Beyond creativity what they want (particularly in these recessionary times) is a trinity of competence …. Value for money, Back to Basics and Digital being the most frequently expressed filters for the creativity that is essential.
Hard to argue against striving for greater value at any time and exploiting the burgeoning digital opportunity seems a natural reaction to a world that is now effectively 100% digital.
The most intriguing new phrase to have effortlessly slipped into the wish list is ‘BACK TO BASICS’.
I like that phrase. It implies the need for more rigour, the application of experience and a demand of accountability. It goes well with value for money and indeed with creativity. But my fear is that for many of us there is a tension between this and the pressure to be digitally driven. And often as well there can be a contradiction between the quest for value for Money and the use of digital media.
What we need to do is avoid setting up a fight to the death between the old and the new…between ‘Digital’ and ‘Television’ as characterised by Harris. It is just not helpful. Digital techniques have their part to play and as more critical mass is reached this way the part will grow. But as many have observed before me it is about balance and mix and timing. Look at the new work from Cadbury. Effective reach and frequency, words that go well with my definition of ‘back to basics’, is built behind impactful and engaging content on TV. Then, timed to co-incide with the point at which the ad has decent levels of recognition and fame in comes a great piece of digital interactivity in the form of a DIY eyebrow video thingy.
The best of both worlds and no doubt a team effort with a happy client in the middle of it all. The ‘back to basics’ part of this is not just about cutting out layers of ‘fluff’ and concentrating of doing one thing well … it is also about respecting measures such as reach, frequency and relative cost per 1000.
Cadburys more than most have shown us the way. But buried in the type written summary of the Campaign event a few weeks ago is a statistic from Phil Rumbol (Marketing Director at Cadburys) that exaggerates the importance of the new at the expense of the old. His sound bite about ‘Gorilla’ is that Cadbury paid for 30% of the population to see the ad and 60% ended up seeing it. Maybe my facts are wrong but according to BARB in 2007 alone the film delivered 936 TVRS across all or most of commercial TV. You don’t need to be a media specialist to work out that reach was nearer 90% than 30%. But if you are not a media specialist and you are persuaded by Will Harris’s apoplytic views you will want to believe the soundbite. Back to basics demands a return to solid analysis of exactly what happened to create an effect.
The advertiser who can pat his head whilst rubbing his tummy will win. The advertiser who thinks that it is a battle of media types will almost certainly lose.
As for us agencies…we have a lot to learn from the most successful advertisers who seem to me to take a central role in the process. The best advertisers have never been subsumed by agency disciplines. The best Marketing Directors assume the role of conductor. We must focus on our core skills and acknowledge the competences of others. And above all keep an eye on the conductor. Those that do will not need the pity of Will Harris.
- Phil Georgiadis
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