APMA chairman lashes culture of procurement saying ‘creativity only survives against all odds’
Dave Lo speaking at the Star Awards
The chairman of the Australian Promotional Marketing Association (APMA) Dave Lo has taken a huge swipe against the use of procurement processes by businesses to hire agencies saying it is creating an environment where “everything is costed and yet nothing is valued”.
Lo, founder of Zoo Republic, made the remarks in his opening address at last night’s Star Awards which honour the best of experiential and promotional marketing, on a night dominated by Leo Burnett Melbourne which took home six Gold awards and the Grand Prix for its work with SPC Ardmona and Honda.
He said: “We are being asked to do more with less and many businesses underestimate the commercial power and impact of a truly great commercial idea.
dave is right, and this phenomenon isn’t confined to the advertising industry
the world is run by accountants
“everything is costed, nothing is valued”
In my many years of experience agency side, working with the best TVC production in Australia and elsewhere, so much of the time the production company goes out of its way to do favours for the client and stretch the budget asking favours of crew etc. often working with a budget that is unsatisfactory in the first instance.
Generally, the better the work is – think the most famous, popular work you can think of – the more it requires a creative, iterative process where work is improved on the hop, as it is created (this is because as the work becomes tangible, the team is in a better position to make informed choices about it and the seek to improve the result). This also requires diversions, flexibility and good faith from a production company. My point is in every good production team there is already a lot of added-value going on; people busting a gut to make a project work. A procurement mentality undermines this good-faith. They don’t appreciate what a good thing they’re getting in the first place.