Thursday
The Industry has Spoken (Again) – Part II
Joseph concludes his coverage of and insight into Ad Age’s AdWatch: 2003 Outlook conference, which took place last month in New York.
By Joseph Jaffe
Two weeks ago I began my AdWatch coverage with an assessment of the forecast presentation, followed by the first panel which focused on the bigger advertising picture. This week I’ll conclude with some of the most powerful thoughts or themes I took away from this panel and the ones that followed.
Things are Going to Change, but not on My Watch
It’s amazing to me how some of the most senior and influential figureheads in this business can also be so sheep-like. I keep on hearing talk of change or hints of action, but they always seem to be just around the proverbial corner.
Case in point
“We love TV, but it’s no longer enough” or “TV in itself is no longer enough to round out a total communications program” from Wendy’s Don Calhoon. That might sound inspirational enough but now let’s check the walk against the talk with Wendy’s 2002 spend numbers. According to Ad Age’s 100 Leading National Advertisers report (based on total U.S. advertising spending in 2002) Wendy’s spent 84% of its measured media spending on TV. Online came in at a click through like 0.036%.
How cynical I’ve become in just one year.
Let’s move on.
Say It with Me:
“Procurement” P-R-O-C-U-R-E-M-E-N-T. That’s PROCUREMENT.
The consensus was pretty overwhelming: procurement is here to stay; consultants are here to stay (phew!); purchasing driving pitches is here to stay.
Stephen King couldn’t have written a scarier headline.
I’m not sure when the line was crossed, but the day that agency pitches stopped being about top ideas and started focusing in on bottom line a vital cog became detached from the very mechanism that makes the entire business tick.
According to Grey Worldwide’s President Steve Blamer, the financial emphasis has put marketing clients on the sidelines and in some categories, such as DTC for example, the brand team is not involved in the process until the deal is actually done. And there’s nothing marketing folk hate more than inheriting an agency…
Universal McCann’s Chairman-CEO Robin Kent surmised that there will be some upside to the continuation of the procurement trend in that this will ultimately make agencies smaller. Another implication will be new perspectives and approaches on compensation altogether. Both are sorely needed.
Panel II — Consolidation: Is Bigger Better?
The second panel of the day focused on consolidation – you know, that which makes the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
IPG’s Chairman and CEO David Bell, Berlin Cameron/Red Cell’s Chairman Andy Berlin, Viacom Plus’ EVP Lisa McCarthy and Patrick Kelly, Pfizer’s President of U.S. Pharmaceuticals, were just some of the panelists on the impressive stage.
But it was Jon Mandel, MediaCom’s Co-CEO, who burst out of the starting gate with his analogy of nine-year-old boys and power – the belief being here that he who has the bigger stick, wins. Or to put it more upfront, “You can’t beat the market if you are the market.”
He segued into a discussion about the importance of talent and most of the panel agreed that ultimately, it all comes down to being able to tap into a reservoir of best ‘n brightest -- which is all well and good, except for the fact that consolidation and talent are as diametrically opposed as oil and water.
Jessica Reif Cohen, First VP, Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, questioned the impact on talent in light of the move towards procurement, waves of layoffs and tighter focus on margins, as well as the implications from bureaucracy and politics, two resident side-effects of size.
Or as the late Jay Chiat once said, “Let’s see how big we can get before we suck!”
Pfizer’s Kelly brought a more sobering reality to the conversation by rebuking Deutsch agency founder Donny Deutsch’s industry rants in favor of a pragmatic demand of wanting to get the best (read: acceptable) possible work for the best (read: lowest) possible price.
The conversation then degraded into an oversimplification and explanation of the differences between “good big and bad big, good small and bad small.” In other words, big is not always bad.
Whatever you say, Goliath.
Panel III — Communication Strategies: Maximize Your Media and Marketing Budgets
Panel three was a bit of a mixed bag, but in it was the jewel of the entire day’s proceedings – Keith Reinhard, DDB Worldwide’s Chairman. Reinhard doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to – in other words, gratuitous plugs or pre-selected sound bytes to appease the audience and fulfill the headline writers. So when he does talk about something visionary or slightly off the beaten track, it’s best to take note of his advice.
Reinhard gets it. In fact he was probably the only person present who spoke intelligently and articulately about what I call New Marketing and what you might call New Media or Digital Marketing.
The conversation began on the subject and importance of emotional connectivity and evolved into brand experiences. Both subjects are no strangers to the interactive world: the former typically as a hurdle and the latter as a springboard.
AT&T’s VP of Marketing Communications and Brand, Cathy Constable, volunteered the recent “Talk is Good” campaign as a testament to the power of emotional connectivity. I personally find this as asinine and believable as Citi’s “Live Richly”; however, the fact remains, “people use products, but they buy brands.”
Quite clearly, creativity is the means to achieve the emotional connectivity and/or brand experience ends, particularly in a landscape dominated by an oversupply of meaningless clutter. This is perhaps why we need to begin to rethink the very definition of creativity, and for that matter, media too. These were the thoughts introduced by Graham Bednash, Managing Partner of Michaelides & Bednash.
In its current iteration, media and creativity are both synonymous with 30-second television commercials. Reinhard, however, introduced some powerful thoughts that might help us get beyond the “interrupt, repeat; interrupt, repeat” monotony of mainstream media communications.
He highlighted the importance of helping creatives to migrate and evolve beyond the heroin fix of television, and in doing so helped identify why it’s just so hard to do so. Some of the reasons given included:
The “reel” problem – meaning if you can’t put it on a reel, it’s not worth it.
However, this is only because it’s where client demand is and for this reason, agency pay structures favor those who create the best television ads.
This being said, Reinhard paved the road ahead with the building blocks of multi-channel ideas and the execution thereof. He also identified the “tipping point” as being the day clients demand big multi-channel ideas and the good news is that this is beginning to happen.
Of course the problem now is that there is an entire community that doesn’t understand (or cares to understand) life after TV. He cites the ineffectual Cannes ceremonies, which still silos each media category instead of uniting them and organizing them around brands and ideas.
He specifically called out TiVo, Gaming (for example: McDonalds’ involvement with The Sims online) and the Web as indicators of where the audience is or will be.
Instead of worrying about how to divvy up budgets, Reinhard expressed that the focus should be on the consumer. He posited on what he called mental convergence i.e. will consumers use specific media for specific purposes e.g. TV for entertainment or the Web for information?
He also introduced a rather delightful quote, “The tyranny of or, as opposed to the genius of and,” which I’ll let you interpret the way you see best fits in the context of this conversation.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t spend much time on the other panelists, which included Greg Coleman from Yahoo! and Traug Keller, President, ABC Radio Networks, it’s because they just didn’t add anything remotely new to the forum.
Truth be told, I was somewhat disappointed with Interactive’s only representative at the day’s proceedings. Last year, AOL’s Ted Leonsis spoke about life after advertising; this year Coleman spoke about paid search. At the time, I almost fell off my chair that the best Yahoo! could come up with was text links. Now my disappointment is interspersed with a bitter aftertaste as I understand Coleman’s Overture pretty clearly.
GM’s C.J. Fraleigh delivered the lunchtime keynote and the day concluded with the final panel on Madison + Vine (I’ll save these two for a rainy day in the near future).
All in all, one of my highlights continues to be an emphasis on the significance of unique and relevant big ideas that are workable solutions before they are one-size-fits-all ads.
See you all at next year’s bash (or before.)
Joseph concludes his coverage of and insight into Ad Age’s AdWatch: 2003 Outlook conference, which took place last month in New York.
By Joseph Jaffe
Two weeks ago I began my AdWatch coverage with an assessment of the forecast presentation, followed by the first panel which focused on the bigger advertising picture. This week I’ll conclude with some of the most powerful thoughts or themes I took away from this panel and the ones that followed.
Things are Going to Change, but not on My Watch
It’s amazing to me how some of the most senior and influential figureheads in this business can also be so sheep-like. I keep on hearing talk of change or hints of action, but they always seem to be just around the proverbial corner.
Case in point
“We love TV, but it’s no longer enough” or “TV in itself is no longer enough to round out a total communications program” from Wendy’s Don Calhoon. That might sound inspirational enough but now let’s check the walk against the talk with Wendy’s 2002 spend numbers. According to Ad Age’s 100 Leading National Advertisers report (based on total U.S. advertising spending in 2002) Wendy’s spent 84% of its measured media spending on TV. Online came in at a click through like 0.036%.
How cynical I’ve become in just one year.
Let’s move on.
Say It with Me:
“Procurement” P-R-O-C-U-R-E-M-E-N-T. That’s PROCUREMENT.
The consensus was pretty overwhelming: procurement is here to stay; consultants are here to stay (phew!); purchasing driving pitches is here to stay.
Stephen King couldn’t have written a scarier headline.
I’m not sure when the line was crossed, but the day that agency pitches stopped being about top ideas and started focusing in on bottom line a vital cog became detached from the very mechanism that makes the entire business tick.
According to Grey Worldwide’s President Steve Blamer, the financial emphasis has put marketing clients on the sidelines and in some categories, such as DTC for example, the brand team is not involved in the process until the deal is actually done. And there’s nothing marketing folk hate more than inheriting an agency…
Universal McCann’s Chairman-CEO Robin Kent surmised that there will be some upside to the continuation of the procurement trend in that this will ultimately make agencies smaller. Another implication will be new perspectives and approaches on compensation altogether. Both are sorely needed.
Panel II — Consolidation: Is Bigger Better?
The second panel of the day focused on consolidation – you know, that which makes the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
IPG’s Chairman and CEO David Bell, Berlin Cameron/Red Cell’s Chairman Andy Berlin, Viacom Plus’ EVP Lisa McCarthy and Patrick Kelly, Pfizer’s President of U.S. Pharmaceuticals, were just some of the panelists on the impressive stage.
But it was Jon Mandel, MediaCom’s Co-CEO, who burst out of the starting gate with his analogy of nine-year-old boys and power – the belief being here that he who has the bigger stick, wins. Or to put it more upfront, “You can’t beat the market if you are the market.”
He segued into a discussion about the importance of talent and most of the panel agreed that ultimately, it all comes down to being able to tap into a reservoir of best ‘n brightest -- which is all well and good, except for the fact that consolidation and talent are as diametrically opposed as oil and water.
Jessica Reif Cohen, First VP, Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, questioned the impact on talent in light of the move towards procurement, waves of layoffs and tighter focus on margins, as well as the implications from bureaucracy and politics, two resident side-effects of size.
Or as the late Jay Chiat once said, “Let’s see how big we can get before we suck!”
Pfizer’s Kelly brought a more sobering reality to the conversation by rebuking Deutsch agency founder Donny Deutsch’s industry rants in favor of a pragmatic demand of wanting to get the best (read: acceptable) possible work for the best (read: lowest) possible price.
The conversation then degraded into an oversimplification and explanation of the differences between “good big and bad big, good small and bad small.” In other words, big is not always bad.
Whatever you say, Goliath.
Panel III — Communication Strategies: Maximize Your Media and Marketing Budgets
Panel three was a bit of a mixed bag, but in it was the jewel of the entire day’s proceedings – Keith Reinhard, DDB Worldwide’s Chairman. Reinhard doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to – in other words, gratuitous plugs or pre-selected sound bytes to appease the audience and fulfill the headline writers. So when he does talk about something visionary or slightly off the beaten track, it’s best to take note of his advice.
Reinhard gets it. In fact he was probably the only person present who spoke intelligently and articulately about what I call New Marketing and what you might call New Media or Digital Marketing.
The conversation began on the subject and importance of emotional connectivity and evolved into brand experiences. Both subjects are no strangers to the interactive world: the former typically as a hurdle and the latter as a springboard.
AT&T’s VP of Marketing Communications and Brand, Cathy Constable, volunteered the recent “Talk is Good” campaign as a testament to the power of emotional connectivity. I personally find this as asinine and believable as Citi’s “Live Richly”; however, the fact remains, “people use products, but they buy brands.”
Quite clearly, creativity is the means to achieve the emotional connectivity and/or brand experience ends, particularly in a landscape dominated by an oversupply of meaningless clutter. This is perhaps why we need to begin to rethink the very definition of creativity, and for that matter, media too. These were the thoughts introduced by Graham Bednash, Managing Partner of Michaelides & Bednash.
In its current iteration, media and creativity are both synonymous with 30-second television commercials. Reinhard, however, introduced some powerful thoughts that might help us get beyond the “interrupt, repeat; interrupt, repeat” monotony of mainstream media communications.
He highlighted the importance of helping creatives to migrate and evolve beyond the heroin fix of television, and in doing so helped identify why it’s just so hard to do so. Some of the reasons given included:
The “reel” problem – meaning if you can’t put it on a reel, it’s not worth it.
However, this is only because it’s where client demand is and for this reason, agency pay structures favor those who create the best television ads.
This being said, Reinhard paved the road ahead with the building blocks of multi-channel ideas and the execution thereof. He also identified the “tipping point” as being the day clients demand big multi-channel ideas and the good news is that this is beginning to happen.
Of course the problem now is that there is an entire community that doesn’t understand (or cares to understand) life after TV. He cites the ineffectual Cannes ceremonies, which still silos each media category instead of uniting them and organizing them around brands and ideas.
He specifically called out TiVo, Gaming (for example: McDonalds’ involvement with The Sims online) and the Web as indicators of where the audience is or will be.
Instead of worrying about how to divvy up budgets, Reinhard expressed that the focus should be on the consumer. He posited on what he called mental convergence i.e. will consumers use specific media for specific purposes e.g. TV for entertainment or the Web for information?
He also introduced a rather delightful quote, “The tyranny of or, as opposed to the genius of and,” which I’ll let you interpret the way you see best fits in the context of this conversation.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t spend much time on the other panelists, which included Greg Coleman from Yahoo! and Traug Keller, President, ABC Radio Networks, it’s because they just didn’t add anything remotely new to the forum.
Truth be told, I was somewhat disappointed with Interactive’s only representative at the day’s proceedings. Last year, AOL’s Ted Leonsis spoke about life after advertising; this year Coleman spoke about paid search. At the time, I almost fell off my chair that the best Yahoo! could come up with was text links. Now my disappointment is interspersed with a bitter aftertaste as I understand Coleman’s Overture pretty clearly.
GM’s C.J. Fraleigh delivered the lunchtime keynote and the day concluded with the final panel on Madison + Vine (I’ll save these two for a rainy day in the near future).
All in all, one of my highlights continues to be an emphasis on the significance of unique and relevant big ideas that are workable solutions before they are one-size-fits-all ads.
See you all at next year’s bash (or before.)
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