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Ad industry has lost sense of purpose and focus on creativity says AMV founder Peter Mead

The ad industry has lost its sense of purpose and identity and needs to start believing in the business of advertising again, founder of UK ad agency AMV BBDO Peter Mead has said.

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Speaking at today’s Secrets of Agency Excellence conference in Sydney, Mead emphasised the need for the industry to refocus on the importance of relationship building.

“They have lost their sense of purpose and their sense of identity – are we in the targeting business, are we in the creative business?” the Omnicom Europe chairman said.

“These are themes that have littered my long life in advertising. Every so often our business becomes introspective and loses the one central thing that we are here to create – great ideas that ultimately sell products.

“If we hang onto that central thought – which distances ourselves from clients, they can’t do it – we won’t lose our way. If we hang onto that and be passionate about it the world will turn in our direction.”

“The first secret is to start believing in our business again,” Mead said. “The secret is concentrating on the the creation of the best work you can. Find great creative people, support them to the hilt and make sure everyone in your company understands these are the geese that lay the golden eggs.”

Mead said the issue of procurement cutting budgets comes down to the industry failing to build better relationships with procurement teams.

“I wonder if we’re becoming a bit obsessed by procurement and  we haven’t developed the relationships with procurement people we should have in order to convince them of the value of a great idea,” he said.

Mead also expressed concern around the digital revolution, claiming the new focus on big data as a danger to creativity.

“I’ve been a bit of a sceptic of the all conquering digital revolution,” he said.

“One of of the people at the very top of our profession recently said the medium has become more important then the message – if that’s true we may as well all go home.

“I question whether we’ve gone too far in isolating our prime audience. We’ve become brilliant at targeting but maybe we should understand we’re in the business of persuading as well.

“There’s no point in getting to someone unless you can persuade them to do something.”

Mead continued by saying the industry is “in danger of confusing activity with progress”.

Referencing the quote “creativity is one of the last legal ways of gaining advantage over our competition” he said: “The great thing about creativity is machines can’t do it. Big data can’t do it. Sophisticated algorithms can’t do it. It’s still the magic only the human mind can supply.”

He added: “I don’t want our profession to finish up as mankind did in the Terminator films with the machines taking over.”

Mead emphasised the need to keep the “magic” around the business of advertising.

“You keep the magic of the process going,” he said. “We shouldn’t give away the magic of what we do too easily. All too often we give away the magic of what we do.

“We’re like bloody shopkeepers – we say to clients which one of these do you fancy?  At Abbott Mead Vickers we only ever presented one idea.”

Miranda Ward

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