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Summertime blue-sky thinking |
10th August 2006
| Marketing Week
The marketing industry may see itsef as cutting-edge, but it is living in the past and the rule book should be rewritten, says David Wethey
When you consider our fondness in the marketing communications business for advanced thinking techniques (eg Dr de Bono’s Lateral Thinking and M. Dru’s Disruption), we are an unbelievably conservative lot. The sad truth is that little has changed since I joined up 40 years ago. We are still using the military analogies (objectives, strategy, target) of Second World War battlefields. We are still slowing down creativity by copying Noah and housing copywriters and art directors two by two. My suggestion this August – the beach is always a great place to think – is that we should all conspire to change some of the rules. So you get real value from this copy of Marketing Week, I am going to offer nine revolutionary proposals. I hope you think them worth considering, and come up with a tenth.
So to start give creative work the same priority that food gets in restaurants. Do an agency tour in one of the great palaces. Just how much creation is going on? What is the ratio between input and output? Frightening isn’t it. Hot agencies produce idea after idea. How can you make your agency hot again?
Forget nine to five and turn agencies and marketing departments into 24/7 operations. It’s happened in news organisations, in broadcasting, print and internet media. Marketing is truly global; as you turn on your computer in the morning, someone the other side of the world is turning theirs off. Email never stops, and there is no reason why brands or agencies should either.
Follow integration to its logical conclusion and put agencies back together again. In the 1960’s I worked in an agency called Pritchard Wood & Partners. We did the full 360° (or as much of it as had been invented then) under one roof. Media talked to creative. The production people talked to art directors and the guy responsible for checking where the 48 sheets were sited. Account people project managed across the spectrum (PR, Sales Promotion and so on), and it seemed to work fine. Most clients prefer managing one agency to a scroe of them.
Scrap meetings. A few questions for you: Just how many meetings do you attend in the average week? Are they productive? Do they solve problems? Wouldn’t you be more effective if you insisted on having at least an hour a day (preferably more) to think?
Copy football and pay star agencies like stars. I am not sure where remuneration is going, as procurement experts run the rule over endless spreadsheets of people hours. But the assumption is that in a creative business inputs should determine cost. Surely that’s wrong. Value should be a function of outputs and outcomes. The agencies that demonstrate repeated successes should be able to command a higher price. Simple.
Build your marketing around FMOT (first moment of truth) and work backwards. I know I’m in danger of obsessing about starting planning at the point of purchase-but you know it makes sense. When we look at established brands with high awareness and established loyalty plans, the potential return from stimulating impulse purchase could be far higher than simply carrying on with trying to influence awareness and desire.
Change the rules on conflict. There is a real difference between state secrets and normal commercial detail. Yet agencies are traditionally precluded from advising competitors. Upstream and downstream from agencies there does not seem to be a problem. Manufacturers market whole stables of competitive products. Retailers sell them. Market research firms, production companies and photographers happily two-time. Isn’t there a way we can liberalise the market to enable the best brands to access the best talent?
Revisit the in-house concept. Don’t dismiss it because it hasn’t worked in the past. Most major companies have set up media units and marketing procurement. Would it not make sense to internalise some of the strategic, creative and project management functions as well. These in-house units would not be rivals to external agencies. For the most part they would be implants from them.
Fight the regulators. Why as an industry are we so supine in the face of regulators, pressure groups and legislators? It is unacceptable that the freedom of expression in the media is not available to marketers and agencies. I’m not suggesting we should shelve decades of self-restraint and insistence on the truth but, until such time as alcohol and confectionery (to name just two ‘villains’) are banned from sale, what is wrong with promoting them, and allowing consumers to judge for themselves?
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