Come across any "charlatans or half-wits" today? How about "individuals with a holistic view of the world and extraordinary observational powers"? I reckon you won't bump into many of the latter, but you'll have shared a meeting with the former before you go home tonight. Then again, what do I know? I left the industry a while ago. Or, more accurately, it left me. And the direction it's headed gives me the willies.
That new direction has, of course, been steered by agencies and clients adapting to the digital era. Seeing the direct networks and ad agencies gyrating like dads at the digital disco has been pretty alarming. So, too, have been the industry leaders' views on the future. Time and again they've told you that if you don't change your ways, you'd better contact the World Wildlife Fund, because you're staring extinction in the eye.
In Advertising Age's "trends to watch in 2008", Bob Liodice, the Association of National Advertisers' president and chief executive, said: "A new kind of marketing professional is emerging - individuals with a holistic view of the world and extraordinary observational powers. These 'renaissance' marketers will be part-humanist, part-psychologist, part-anthropologist and part-technologist."
In the UK, Chris Arnold, the chair of the Direct Marketing Association's Agency Council, explained: "When the Wright Brothers first flew, it was a consequence of writing new rules. They believed they had to start again and write rules from scratch, to throw out all the old rules and beliefs. DM is in the same position now. It's on the brink of a new era."
It's a vivid analogy, but dodgy aviation history. It's also a dangerous vision of the future because: a) it denies the validity of all that's been learned by marketing professionals on both agency and client side, and b) it delivers that future into the hands of those whose "extraordinary observational powers" allow them to detect a very convenient bandwagon rolling by.
Convenient? Well, yes. Because it's easier to talk the transitional talk than to sit at your desk, steep yourself in your business, study your customer, learn your trade, adapt its principles to new circumstances and pass on your learning to your staff. In the current climate, anyone who does uphold such practices is seen as reactionary. Indeed, the most damning criticism anyone can deliver comes with a raised eyebrow and the rhetorical question: "You're not afraid of change, are you?"
Me? Afraid? No, not as long as change is based on humanist principles, whereby cultures develop and individuals gain enlightenment through the constant accumulation of knowledge. But, instead of corporate humanism, I see a creeping barbarism, in which past knowledge is dismissed as irrelevant by the proponents of perpetual change.
The damage is clear in everything from grand strategy to day-to-day tactics. Here's the business commentator Mark Ritson on strategy: "A brand manager took me through their fresh brand strategy, and it was terrible. It was like most brand positions: pointless. About eight out of ten brand strategies have no impact whatsoever on brand equity and this was going to be another addition to the big book of pointless branding."
As to execution, I recently sat with the D&AD black Pencil advertising judges, who complained of young creatives who now see Philistinism as a virtue. It's true, but then again, many agencies have also abandoned such bulwarks of creative culture as a signed-off, single-minded brief, sufficient time to do it justice and the presentation of just one agency recommendation.
Quite frankly, most direct agencies were never too principled about such things, and now they've lost the air-cover they once enjoyed from their advertising brethren. Having said that, direct was good at tactical skills. But now, few agencies bother to, for example, test inserts against press ads, run A/B splits or challenge their control packs. Is it because everyone's become so brilliant at breakthrough creative? Dream on. According to the latest Nielsen Report on the state of direct mail, a new high of 21 per cent of all mailings are binned before being opened. Some might say this is exactly why we should be switching to online. That, however, is missing the point: if a mature DM industry can no longer master the basics, how can it help the relative tyros in digital?
Many of the successful digital shops have sensibly sought the advice of old pros. Unfortunately, the sectors these former leaders once served increasingly regard their knowledge as irrelevant. And that doesn't just apply to direct and advertising. In April, Campaign quoted Sital Banerjee, the global media director of Philips, as saying: "When I interact with a cross-section of young people with funny titles around the world, I am frustrated by their complete lack of knowledge." Many, he says, haven't even grasped the basics of reach and frequency.
Aside from the irate Mr Banerjee, are clients happy with this? Frankly, a lot get the agencies they deserve. Many, it seems, would prefer to oversee another rebranding exercise, while leaving the bread-and-butter tasks to those ill-prepared to perform them. Either that, or sit brainstorming for blue-ocean thinking in "the digital space".
This desire to dive deeply into the shallow end was highlighted by the Hadden Consultancy's study of a cross-section of marketing managers that says: "87 per cent preferred a reliance upon 'intuition' as opposed to 'a focus on concrete facts, details and what is'." In other words, gut feeling over informed opinion. Mark Ovenden, the marketing director for Ford Motor Company, noted this superficiality: "Marketing is doing itself a disservice attracting the wrong personalities."
Alan Tapp, a professor of marketing at Bristol Business School, is more forthright: "If best practice has little or no value, what does? The answer is the 'cult of the new', a world that lacks substance, fads take over and marketers become obsessed with change." Malcolm McDonald, Cranfield University's emeritus professor of marketing, is equally critical of a discipline that has lost respect because "lots of charlatans and half-wits have got into it without qualifications".
Harsh words - but could it be that one of those "charlatans" will be standing next to a Nobo board this afternoon, arching an accusatory eyebrow at you and asking: "You're not afraid of change, are you?" In fairness, maybe they'd be advised to take refuge behind that Nobo board. Maybe it's now too difficult to perform the myriad functions expected of a marketing director.
That difficulty is described in the Richard Yates novel Revolutionary Road. Set in a thinly disguised IBM, the boss talks about who should lead in a complex, ever-changing business world: "Your public relations expert? Your electronics engineer? Your management consultant? No single one of them has the right background, or the right qualifications, for the job. I've talked to some of the top advertising and promotions men in the business; I've talked to some of the top technical men in the computer field and I've talked to some of the top administration men in the country, and we've all of us pretty much come to this conclusion: it's a completely new kind of job, and we're going to have to develop a completely new kind of talent to do it."
Yates certainly nails the problem of finding the homo novus with the necessary vision and skills. Except, he was writing in 1961 and set his story in 1955. Fifty-three years, in fact, before Mr Liodice spied his renaissance marketer with "extraordinary observational powers" skipping over the horizon.
Clearly, nothing is new. Indeed, anyone who is any good always feels insecure about the future. But throwing the baby that it's taken nearly 100 years to nurture out with the analogue bath water is a crazy response to the opportunities digital presents. Let's finish with something written at roughly the same time as Revolutionary Road: "It took millions of years for man's instincts to develop. It will take millions more for them to even vary. It is fashionable to talk about 'changing man'. A communication must be concerned with 'unchanging man', with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own."
These are the words of Bill Bernbach. I hope that even those most committed to tearing up the old rules will respect his views and take his advice.
Comments
“Without debate, there is no change.”
I am flattered to be mentioned in Steve’s piece, and the quote is not far off what I have said, though missing some context. I do agree with a lot of what Steve says, and I do greatly respect his views. I spent several days with Steve in Norway at a conference recently and his has a brilliant mind.
There are many of us in the industry who believe we need a revolution rather than slow evolution. That we need more radical thinking to take the industry forward. There are many examples of businesses that failed because of the argument “we’ve always done it that way” or “it ain’t broke so why fix it.”
There is no one right way, no exact plan. There are as many opinions as people.
The reference to the Wright Brothers and the Kitty Hawk is about false science. “Marketing is an art not a science”, has been said by many legends (including Bernbach) but some people try and turn it into one or try and formulate it like painting by numbers.
Before anyone could fly there were many so called experts claiming that they knew the science of it all, but no one had actually managed it. The Wright brothers looked at all this so called science and finally dismissed it as theory. "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane."
The marketing industry has created a lot of rules and has a lot of learnings. There is a big difference between throwing the baby out with the bathwater and challenging current and conventional beliefs. There are key moments in the marketing industry when it’s undergone change. In 20 years will we not be looking back and seeing many key moments? It certainly won’t look the same.
Today we have to accept that we have a very different relationship with consumers than we had 20 years ago. A changing media landscape, empowered consumers, informed consumers, social networks, all the terms you see in articles and the growth of the ethically minded consumer is rewriting many rules.
There is change happening, for example the Agency Council are intiating a number of ideas that could make significant change. We are looking at IP and how agencies can change their economic model of income.
There are agencies trying to rewrite the rules. Mother, Anomoly and Naked have done this very effectively.
Change starts with challenge.
A challenging thought - if you had to sell your dm, ads, TV commercials or posters to the consumer, would they buy them?
A few realities that do make people (both within and outside our industry) question conventional thinking and how effective what we do is (or how well we fly). The average response rate to a lot of communications is less than 1%. How could we make that average 50%? Defining people as ABC1? I can’t believe given the many more sophisticated profiling techniques that this still appears on briefs.
I don’t want to knock our successes, far from it, but if you want a sportsman to be great you have to spot the weaknesses and strengthen them, or you’ll end up with an average sportsman. That requires a blunt honesty that often upsets (think eggs and omelettes).
That is not to say all that we have learnt is not of value, far from it. But knowledge is like any tool, it’s how it’s used that delivers effectiveness
A progressive industry thrives on those that are willing to challenge, ask awkward questions and propose new ways forward. Steve has been one of them. If you don’t start a debate, there’ll be no change.
And finally a quote from Wilbur Wright. “It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.”
I worked for Steve a few years ago and he earned a lot of my respect (while I earned a lot less than the going freelance rate). And he has some good points here. But I also think it’s a sweeping and unfair statement to claim that the industry is guilty as charged.
As Creative Director at Poke, my main focus is the bright new world of digital - which is apparently the area at fault. And from my achingly-trendy point of view in Shoreditch, I just don’t see it. I know that Steve worked in a big agency group for a few years before he was exiled from the industry, so I can only assume that his point of view has been coloured by that experience. But I actually think Steve has maybe misunderstood what people have been saying and has misinterpreted realism as barbarism.
Quite simply, people relate to each type of media differently. And these relationships are evolving over time. The new area of digital requires a new bunch of rules and a few of the old advertising rules just don’t work in pixel-town. These new rules aren’t by any means a wholesale replacement of the old ones - they are just a set of addendums and revisions.
And our work is never done. The new speed of change requires constant reassessment. Take online display advertising, for instance. Figures show that it’s becoming less and less effective as time goes by. Look at TV advertising that just isn’t reaching the audience it used to, can be edited out of recorded programmes and is losing its place as the key channel of influence. And look at the growing hostility towards DM from consumers, government and local councils alike.
You see, Steve, the issue here is not the change in the industry - it’s the change in consumer behaviour.
Many of these apparent barbarians who are supposedly trampling disrespectfully on Bernbach’s grave are in fact smart visionaries who are constantly having to rewrite their own rules to fit in with a rapidly evolving audience. Three years ago people sent viral videos as attachments in emails - now we just point to YouTube. Last year Facebook apps were considered a great customer engagement tool - this year they’re a no-no. At present, the internet is something you mainly access from a computer - in a few years it’s more likely to be through your mobile.
The landscape, culture and capabilities of digital is ever-changing and the audience is developing in line with it. The most powerful marketing method is no longer talking AT people - it’s engaging WITH them. Communication is no longer one way - it’s two way. Companies now need to stop being precious about their brands but instead share them with their audience. The amazing ways you can now reach people were unthinkable 10 years ago.
Yes, people are the same creatures with the same motivations as ever. They’re still as greedy, lazy, selfish, insecure, horny and vain as ever. All the learnings from the past are still relevant. But the truly dangerous Philistine-ism would be to overlook the changes in audience behaviour and try to talk to people as if the internet was never invented.
Having had the privilege of working with both Steve and Dave it reminded me that I’ve learned more about being a planner from creatives than other planners.
Steve’s points about the de-skilling of agencies and clients and the consequent reliance on ‘charlatans’ who promise to help confused brands through this new digital world are the long-term worries for the industry. Tailspins of glossy ineffectiveness diminish everyone associated with marketing.
But Dave is right in the shift in power from brands who operated on transmit-mode only in ‘Old Media’ to regular folks thanks to the internet (and its supporting technologies). It’s the game changer.
The internet wasn’t conceived as a marketing medium and it doesn’t rely on advertising revenue to work. It’s primarily a useful tool.
People use it to ‘do stuff’ and its Developers, as anti-marketing, anti-coporate, technically capable sorts, believe they should be able to get their ‘stuff’ done without interruption so they make handy applications we can all use with functionality that blocks or strips out ads built-in. Thanks lads. Really.
The control I’m now used to as a net user impacts on my treatment of telly ads, and the odd bit of DM that slips through my MPS defence. If I didn’t request it then it goes straight in the recycling. Email is a much better channel to conduct opted-in brand correspondence these days.
People now apply the ‘what’s in it for me?’ filter much more readily. The world doesn’t owe brands a living. It’s tough and getting tougher.
Which brings us back to something we all agree on: the requirement to have a big idea. We should all embrace the opportunities for the forms it may take these days but we should also remember to include the ability to engage and participate with it because we can only market WITH our audience not at them.
It’s nerve-wracking posting after two copywriters, isn’t it?
Mr Banerjee is right. The kids today don't know nuthin about nuthin. But that's hardly news. The problem is now they think an MBA qualifies them to be some kind of oracle when all it really does is teach them to talk like an idiot - as you point out. They do seem to be quite common though. I'm not sure marketing has ever attracted the 'right people'. This train has always carried whores and gamblers.
I think the main thrust of Steve's argument is absolutely valid. There's way too much "move over Grandad" attitude in digital.
Snake-oil salesmen always try to laugh at those who ask awkward questions. To deflect attention from the fact they ain't got the answers.
Despite the "we're taking over the world" wishful thinking, almost all the stuff that gets talked about is still being created by traditional above the line agencies; Balls, Gorilla, Drench Dancing Brains.
Yes, the landscape is different now, and digital is exciting - and frustrating - in equal measure. And yes, we need to work harder than ever to engage people now. But it's not time to rip up the rule book just yet. People still want to be entertained, amused and informed.
It reminds me of all the '68 revolution stuff that's being revisited 40 years on. Basically a lot of hot air, achieved nothing, changed nothing, and now all the "revolutionary student leaders" are rich bourgeoisie holding the jobs of those they allegedly despised forty years earlier.
Way to go comrades!
Comments
CHRIS ARNOLD - 06/06/2008
“Without debate, there is no change.” I am flattered to be mentioned in Steve’s piece, and the quote is not far off what I have said, though missing some context. I do agree with a lot of what Steve says, and I do greatly respect his views. I spent several days with Steve in Norway at a conference recently and his has a brilliant mind. There are many of us in the industry who believe we need a revolution rather than slow evolution. That we need more radical thinking to take the industry forward. There are many examples of businesses that failed because of the argument “we’ve always done it that way” or “it ain’t broke so why fix it.” There is no one right way, no exact plan. There are as many opinions as people. The reference to the Wright Brothers and the Kitty Hawk is about false science. “Marketing is an art not a science”, has been said by many legends (including Bernbach) but some people try and turn it into one or try and formulate it like painting by numbers. Before anyone could fly there were many so called experts claiming that they knew the science of it all, but no one had actually managed it. The Wright brothers looked at all this so called science and finally dismissed it as theory. "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." The marketing industry has created a lot of rules and has a lot of learnings. There is a big difference between throwing the baby out with the bathwater and challenging current and conventional beliefs. There are key moments in the marketing industry when it’s undergone change. In 20 years will we not be looking back and seeing many key moments? It certainly won’t look the same. Today we have to accept that we have a very different relationship with consumers than we had 20 years ago. A changing media landscape, empowered consumers, informed consumers, social networks, all the terms you see in articles and the growth of the ethically minded consumer is rewriting many rules. There is change happening, for example the Agency Council are intiating a number of ideas that could make significant change. We are looking at IP and how agencies can change their economic model of income. There are agencies trying to rewrite the rules. Mother, Anomoly and Naked have done this very effectively. Change starts with challenge. A challenging thought - if you had to sell your dm, ads, TV commercials or posters to the consumer, would they buy them? A few realities that do make people (both within and outside our industry) question conventional thinking and how effective what we do is (or how well we fly). The average response rate to a lot of communications is less than 1%. How could we make that average 50%? Defining people as ABC1? I can’t believe given the many more sophisticated profiling techniques that this still appears on briefs. I don’t want to knock our successes, far from it, but if you want a sportsman to be great you have to spot the weaknesses and strengthen them, or you’ll end up with an average sportsman. That requires a blunt honesty that often upsets (think eggs and omelettes). That is not to say all that we have learnt is not of value, far from it. But knowledge is like any tool, it’s how it’s used that delivers effectiveness A progressive industry thrives on those that are willing to challenge, ask awkward questions and propose new ways forward. Steve has been one of them. If you don’t start a debate, there’ll be no change. And finally a quote from Wilbur Wright. “It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.”
Dave Birss - 12/06/2008
I worked for Steve a few years ago and he earned a lot of my respect (while I earned a lot less than the going freelance rate). And he has some good points here. But I also think it’s a sweeping and unfair statement to claim that the industry is guilty as charged. As Creative Director at Poke, my main focus is the bright new world of digital - which is apparently the area at fault. And from my achingly-trendy point of view in Shoreditch, I just don’t see it. I know that Steve worked in a big agency group for a few years before he was exiled from the industry, so I can only assume that his point of view has been coloured by that experience. But I actually think Steve has maybe misunderstood what people have been saying and has misinterpreted realism as barbarism. Quite simply, people relate to each type of media differently. And these relationships are evolving over time. The new area of digital requires a new bunch of rules and a few of the old advertising rules just don’t work in pixel-town. These new rules aren’t by any means a wholesale replacement of the old ones - they are just a set of addendums and revisions. And our work is never done. The new speed of change requires constant reassessment. Take online display advertising, for instance. Figures show that it’s becoming less and less effective as time goes by. Look at TV advertising that just isn’t reaching the audience it used to, can be edited out of recorded programmes and is losing its place as the key channel of influence. And look at the growing hostility towards DM from consumers, government and local councils alike. You see, Steve, the issue here is not the change in the industry - it’s the change in consumer behaviour. Many of these apparent barbarians who are supposedly trampling disrespectfully on Bernbach’s grave are in fact smart visionaries who are constantly having to rewrite their own rules to fit in with a rapidly evolving audience. Three years ago people sent viral videos as attachments in emails - now we just point to YouTube. Last year Facebook apps were considered a great customer engagement tool - this year they’re a no-no. At present, the internet is something you mainly access from a computer - in a few years it’s more likely to be through your mobile. The landscape, culture and capabilities of digital is ever-changing and the audience is developing in line with it. The most powerful marketing method is no longer talking AT people - it’s engaging WITH them. Communication is no longer one way - it’s two way. Companies now need to stop being precious about their brands but instead share them with their audience. The amazing ways you can now reach people were unthinkable 10 years ago. Yes, people are the same creatures with the same motivations as ever. They’re still as greedy, lazy, selfish, insecure, horny and vain as ever. All the learnings from the past are still relevant. But the truly dangerous Philistine-ism would be to overlook the changes in audience behaviour and try to talk to people as if the internet was never invented.
Donald Cameron - 15/06/2008
Having had the privilege of working with both Steve and Dave it reminded me that I’ve learned more about being a planner from creatives than other planners. Steve’s points about the de-skilling of agencies and clients and the consequent reliance on ‘charlatans’ who promise to help confused brands through this new digital world are the long-term worries for the industry. Tailspins of glossy ineffectiveness diminish everyone associated with marketing. But Dave is right in the shift in power from brands who operated on transmit-mode only in ‘Old Media’ to regular folks thanks to the internet (and its supporting technologies). It’s the game changer. The internet wasn’t conceived as a marketing medium and it doesn’t rely on advertising revenue to work. It’s primarily a useful tool. People use it to ‘do stuff’ and its Developers, as anti-marketing, anti-coporate, technically capable sorts, believe they should be able to get their ‘stuff’ done without interruption so they make handy applications we can all use with functionality that blocks or strips out ads built-in. Thanks lads. Really. The control I’m now used to as a net user impacts on my treatment of telly ads, and the odd bit of DM that slips through my MPS defence. If I didn’t request it then it goes straight in the recycling. Email is a much better channel to conduct opted-in brand correspondence these days. People now apply the ‘what’s in it for me?’ filter much more readily. The world doesn’t owe brands a living. It’s tough and getting tougher. Which brings us back to something we all agree on: the requirement to have a big idea. We should all embrace the opportunities for the forms it may take these days but we should also remember to include the ability to engage and participate with it because we can only market WITH our audience not at them. It’s nerve-wracking posting after two copywriters, isn’t it?
Nick Cocks - 16/06/2008
Mr Banerjee is right. The kids today don't know nuthin about nuthin. But that's hardly news. The problem is now they think an MBA qualifies them to be some kind of oracle when all it really does is teach them to talk like an idiot - as you point out. They do seem to be quite common though. I'm not sure marketing has ever attracted the 'right people'. This train has always carried whores and gamblers.
Damien Parsonage - 16/06/2008
I think the main thrust of Steve's argument is absolutely valid. There's way too much "move over Grandad" attitude in digital. Snake-oil salesmen always try to laugh at those who ask awkward questions. To deflect attention from the fact they ain't got the answers.
Despite the "we're taking over the world" wishful thinking, almost all the stuff that gets talked about is still being created by traditional above the line agencies; Balls, Gorilla, Drench Dancing Brains. Yes, the landscape is different now, and digital is exciting - and frustrating - in equal measure. And yes, we need to work harder than ever to engage people now. But it's not time to rip up the rule book just yet. People still want to be entertained, amused and informed.
It reminds me of all the '68 revolution stuff that's being revisited 40 years on. Basically a lot of hot air, achieved nothing, changed nothing, and now all the "revolutionary student leaders" are rich bourgeoisie holding the jobs of those they allegedly despised forty years earlier. Way to go comrades!