Cover Story: DM's most creative clients

work.

He suggested that some of them "wouldn't recognise a good idea if it
ripped its clothes off, daubed itself in fluorescent paint and ran
screaming 'buy me, buy me' through their offices".

Yet there are some direct marketers of whom the opposite is true:
clients who consistently commission high-quality creative work, who
champion creativity and inspire their agencies to come up with hugely
successful campaigns.

Marketing Direct conducted a straw poll of DM creative directors to find
out which clients take the boldest approach to creativity these days,
and the five marketers profiled here are a selection of names
mentioned.

Some might argue that the very format of direct marketing constrains
creativity, when compared with a big budget TV or cinema ad. However,
Steve Harrison, creative partner at Harrison Troughton Wunderman (HTW),
believes that DM actually has a creative advantage and likens it to
modern conceptual art, as opposed to a traditional painting on a canvas.
"In DM, we send everyday objects, but imbue them with commercial
meaning. There are few limits to the type of things we use to dramatise
our selling propositions," he says. "You have much more freedom of
creative expression."

So what lends such clients the ability to inspire strong creative
work?

In last month's column, Nohr listed four pre-requisites that are needed
for creative ideas to flourish, namely: a culture that champions
original thinking, an acceptance of risk, the ability to hold your nerve
and clear, strategic thinking.

Creative credentials

All five candidates profiled here measure up to these credentials, and
the good news for the DM industry is that they aren't such a rare breed
as they once were. According to Nohr, in the past creativity among
direct marketing clients may have been held back by two factors - the
perception that DM was doing a sales job and not a brand job and that
direct marketers were not hired for their brand skills, but for their
technical skills with data.

Nohr says that is now changing and, as a result, sectors that
traditionally used to be dominated by highly commoditised mailings, for
example financial services, have seen companies such as M&G and First
Direct breaking the mould.

According to Story UK creative director Dave Mullen, the last five years
has seen an increasing emphasis by clients on creativity. "Before that,
all our talk about the importance of creative work had largely fallen on
deaf ears. Clients understand its value now and there is more focus on
what it can deliver."

Some inspirational clients have their own creative leanings. Marc
Michaels, for example, attended art college and practises Hebrew
calligraphy when not running the Central Office of Information's direct
marketing arm.

However, not all have such artistic credentials. Anthony Newman of
Cancer Research UK came from a data background and Honda's Steve Oliver
is a graduate in business studies. And, as Newman points out, the
client's job is to give good strategic input, rather than "write the
headline into the brief".

Fight for brave ideas

But agencies say it can sometimes be a hindrance if a client wants to
get too closely involved in creative execution. Mullen says the ideal
client is one who can think creatively in a strategic way. "Sometimes
the worst kind of clients are those who want to pick up a pen and write
all over something."

Instead, having the ability to trust an agency's creative department is
key. Colin Nimick, creative director at OgilvyOne, says that distrust of
creatives can be a huge barrier to good work. "There are some clients
who are always trying to second guess the creative department and
suspect that it has some ulterior motive," he says.

But while having an eye for good creative work is important, having the
confidence to fight for brave ideas internally is also essential. HTW's
Harrison says that one of the strengths of Morag Brennan, brand and
acquisition manager at HTW's client M&G, is that she understands the
vital issue of compliance in financial services marketing, and as such,
she can argue for work to get through that others would allow to be
killed off.

As Marc Nohr says: "Buying a brave campaign is one thing - keeping it
bought is something else."

MARC MICHAELS

DIRECTOR OF DIRECT AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING, CENTRAL OFFICE OF
INFORMATION

Marc Michaels, the Government's direct marketing chief, and the biggest
commissioner of DM in the UK, is widely-recognised as a champion of
creativity.

"There is always an assumption that the Government will be cautious, but
we need a creative, brave, engaging work approach to get onto people's
agenda," he says.

Perhaps it helps that Michaels has a creative temperament: he went to
art college and has completed an apprenticeship to become a Hebrew
scribe.

But he says he went into marketing not because it was "creative, but for
the sake of getting end results". He has worked at the coalface of
direct marketing, joining the Central Office of Information in 1987 and,
in the early days, designed and wrote mail packs.

Agencies that work with him point to his experience. "He's a consummate
direct marketer," says Marc Nohr, who worked with him on the
award-winning Department of Health's anti-smoking campaign through
Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw. Michaels says that being 'creative' doesn't
necessarily mean producing beautiful or wacky work.

Arthur Parshotom, creative director at Draft, says Michaels comes from
the "properly practised creativity" school of marketing. "It's not about
gimmicks - it's not about creativity for creativity's sake. It's about
being relevant, but having a point of difference. His skill is to know
what works, but to give it a twist, so that it is fresh and
engaging."

MORAG BRENNAN

BRAND AND ACQUISITION MANAGER, M&G INVESTMENTS

In 2001, with the FTSE in freefall, M&G Investments launched a campaign
stating controversially that: 'In our opinion there's never ever been a
better time to invest in the stockmarket'.

The ad kicked off a series of brand-building campaigns, which have been
described by Marketing Direct's sister magazine Campaign as "The
Economist campaign of this century".

Morag Brennan played an integral role in the campaign's development.

In 2000 she commissioned a study into the M&G brand's strengths and
weaknesses to discover its essence. This led to the hiring of Harrison
Troughton Wunderman (HTW) to build what M&G calls its Brand Idea.
Brennan says that M&G had to differentiate itself, while not alienating
its loyal customer base, and needed a "big idea" to do so. "Consumers
are exposed to 3,000 marketing communications a day," she says. "If
you're going to get noticed then the creative work has to be
impactful."

M&G has become one of HTW's flagship accounts. Creative partner Steve
Harrison says Brennan understands "that an agency needs to work to a
tight and mutually agreed brief, and that it needs clear, decisive
feedback from one key client once the work has been presented".

M&G has reaped the benefits. In January, parent firm Prudential
announced that it had achieved record investments. Meanwhile the
creative work has won more than 20 major awards.

ANTHONY NEWMAN

DIRECT MARKETING DIRECTOR, CANCER RESEARCH UK

From park benches engraved with the names of people who have survived
cancer, to t-shirts bearing the message: 'I shouldn't be here', Cancer
Research UK has achieved the unexpected in a sector traditionally
dominated by shocking or depressing images - it has evolved its message
into a positive one of hope.

Since 2002, Anthony Newman, the marketer behind this transformation, has
refocused the campaign to look at survivors of the disease, rather than
those dying or dead from cancer and has boosted donor numbers.

The most recent work, themed 'I shouldn't be here', won a gold at the
Cannes Lions Festival. Colin Nimick, creative director at OgilvyOne,
worked closely with Newman on creating the brief. He describes Newman as
a client who will go with suggestions that are not always to his
personal taste, if he thinks they will work.

Nimick adds that Newman's real strength is that he knows what parameters
to lay down for the agency. "He pays real attention to the results,"
Nimick says.

Newman believes that the client brief to the agency is not the place to
be creative. "Clients should not try to write the headline into the
brief," he says. "Briefing the agency is about being clear on the
business problem, product, market, fact-based insights and so on. I've
seen briefs with exciting insights, snappy propositions and beautifully
written pen portraits that mislead the creative teams. The client should
know its business, audience and product best, so it should have good
input to creative judgement."

STEVE OLIVER

HEAD OF CUSTOMER DEPARTMENT, HONDA UK

With its Power of Dreams campaign, Honda UK has reinvigorated its image
into a dynamic and cutting-edge brand.

While outgoing marketing director Simon Thompson may have been the chief
architect of this strategy, direct marketing chief Steve Oliver has
successfully translated Power of Dreams into below-the-line channels
such as Honda's website, magazine and literature.

After realising that not all Honda customers understood the Power of
Dreams concept, Oliver sent all new customers a welcome pack, created by
Hicklin Slade & Partners, containing a 'Book of Dreams' to involve
owners in the company philosophy and explain the Power of Dreams
theme.

Honda has since seen an improvement in customer satisfaction and
increased repeat purchases. The packs won a gold for art direction at
the DMA awards in 2005.

Oliver says he's not a very creative person himself. Once an agency
relationship is established, he will trust them to get on with the task
of creative execution. "If you have a sound relationship and are paying
for the right people, you are going to get results," he says.

HAMISH TORRIE

BRAND EQUITY CHAMPION, ARDBEG

Hamish Torrie admits he's an unconventional marketer: "I don't do market
research on Ardbeg, and I don't write briefs." Instead, marketing for
the single malt whisky brand is based on "a kind of telepathy" between
himself and Story, the agency Torrie has worked with for the last six
years.

Since Glenmorangie acquired the Ardbeg distillery on Islay in 1997,
Ardbeg has built up a huge following via its CRM programme. Enthusiasts
become members of the Ardbeg "Committee" and the brand communicates with
them via quirky mailers and newsletters. Ardbeg does virtually no
above-the-line advertising, but has recruited more than 30,000 members
to the Committee and has attracted a younger crowd to its product.

Its work has consistently won creative awards. Last year, it won a gold
medal at the DMA awards for launching a brand, Serendipity.

Story creative director Dave Mullen describes Torrie as "in touch with
the creative product. He could pick up a pen and write something for
you, and he usually has half a dozen ways of tackling something."

Torrie agrees he spends much of his day thinking about ideas for the
brand. But he stresses that it's very much a two-way process, pointing
to the long-standing relationship between the agency and client. "It's
about getting creative people together, but also keeping them there,"
says Torrie.

He also stresses that creativity is not just about flashes of
inspiration: "It's about forward planning."

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