Advertising is still in need of some TLC
In this week full of Valentine’s love I am reminded that it has been almost a year since I wrote a love letter to my beloved Advertising.
This was prompted after attending the annual Advertising Association (AA) conference and getting fired up to defend the industry that the majority of us work in.
Fast forward to this year’s AA conference and my hastily put together defence of the Ad business had been updated and improved (no doubt very expensively) by Deloitte.
In a sumptuous package of data and statistics Deloitte have calculated that the Advertising industry contributes £100 billion per annum to UK PLC.
ONE HUNDRED BILLION.
Now that’s a big number.
About half an hour after this report had been revealed, I asked – at the same conference – a question to a panel of journalists “How would they be featuring this stunning bit of news in their various organs?”
The answers varied between showing a picture of Sir Martin Sorrell and talking about fat cat salaries, through to slagging off ITV’s latest results, to not at all.
Clearly the line between Church and State hasn’t yet been totally demolished, and these were journalists that had agreed to speak at an advertising conference.
It was also a theme at MediaTel’s own ‘Year Ahead‘ event – under Chatham House Rule, so I must be careful – where your resident foghorn asked the question to Raymond Snoddy and Torin Douglas.
“Do you report on advertising as much as you used to?” I asked.
The answer from these wise voyeurs of the media world was far better than that of their fourth estate colleagues at AA, but no less distressing.
“We write about media and especially media technologies more…but advertising less.”
This neatly summarises the mess we find ourselves in.
When Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion it made the front page of Metro.
When Chris Blackhurst, editor of the Independent, talked about advertising agencies at the AA event he harked back to 1979 and Saatchi and Saatchi getting Margaret Thatcher elected for the first time. 1979! Really? Is that the best we can do?
We clearly all need to love advertising more and be clearer what it is.
My old mum used to see a poster for a lost cat on a tree and call it an ‘advert’.
My kids will call a leaflet for local Pizza delivery firm an ‘advert’.
I have had numerous clients who rightfully insist on referring to the ‘sponsored links’ on Google as ‘adverts’.
To be fair, I think the media fraternity is better than most at this and indeed in my career lifetime we have gone from media being a dirty word in advertising to media being the powerhouse driving the revenues in the global holding companies.
Indeed, the organ in which I now write has surfed the wave of media’s unstoppable assault of the top table. MediaTel’s nomenclature of not only the parent brand but also it’s key events like Media Playground mean that it has increasingly attracted not only the expanding media village, but also new members to the congregation, such as the digital technology companies, who in turn attract the avaricious and sharply suited money men of private equity and city analysts.
I described the AA Lead event as being like the Town Hall meeting of the Advertising world, led by Sheriff Cilla Snowball, making us all hand our Colt 45’s in at the door as we play nicely for the day.
At Media Playground I look forward to still being at the wild frontier on the edge of town, where the newest gun slingers turn up hoping to raid the big bank of advertising.
The fact that one is held at the Guardian and the other at RBS in the city hopefully helps my tortured analogy.
But wait, what’s this?
After six years of operation, Media Playground has become a partner event for the inaugural Advertising Week Europe.
This event, imported from New York where it has been running for “nine unbelievably successful years“, champions advertising in a Mad Men-esque style unashamed – as only the Yanks can be – to shout from the roof tops.
Media playground sits happily in the middle of this incredibly busy week bookended by a gala launch at St Paul’s and a wrap party at fabric.
One of the early pitches I heard for Ad Week from the founder Matt Scheckner (think Zero Mostel in The Producers) was; “It is where the Ad Business meets Show Business.”
Having just sat through the Baftas (ironically the key venue for Ad Week) this made me think how the film business, whether it be the BAFTAS or the Oscars, showcases its industry with a style and panache we can only dream of.
When we aren’t bickering amongst our various tribes we are cutting margins off our partners and asking for untenable agreements from our suppliers.
In Europe we have four of the big six global marcoms holding companies – WPP, Publicis Groupe, Havas, and Aegis (until, like the Vapours, they turn Japanese).
Great companies; well run and producing great work for their clients, value for their shareholders and, in the main, happy employment for their people.
We have successful television, print, radio and even Internet companies (all, largely funded by advertising). There are few other industries where Europe still holds such sway in the world.
It is just a shame it took the American’s to bring an event like Advertising Week to London.
So let’s all get behind Advertising Week, whatever our tribe – and I, unlike last year, will spend a week being proud to work in advertising and not pretending I’m a plumber.
Greg Grimmer is a consultant at Enter