Marketing to the marketers
What sort of marketing appeals to the people who do it for a living? Jason Mountney finds out on a piece that first appeared in Encore.
Andy Lark has a confession. “I’m an advertising tragic,” says the chief marketing officer at Commonwealth Bank Australia. “I’m hopeless. When I see an ad, I can’t help wishing we’d done it or feeling glad we didn’t.”
For many in Australia’s marketing industry, every ad break, newspaper insert and commercial interruption to their favourite radio show is analysed, mentally dissected and held up against their own output.
Some impress and leave green-gilled professionals wishing they’d come up with that idea first, while other campaigns leave them thinking, “there but for the grace of God…”
Compare the Meerkat head and shoulders above anything else on TV in the last five years!
Compare the Meercat *is* is old old old. First used in the UK in early 2009!
I’m disappointed Lark chose to perpetuate that old chestnut regarding Agencies working to impress others and win awards. Bollocks. For the most part. Sure, this has happened in the past, and few probably still do, but I’ve worked on major brands, sexy brands, and stuffy brands, and quite frankly, awards are generally a very very lucky by-product these days. Marketers are so risk-averse, not to mention creatively-challenged (despite thinking of themselves otherwise), that just getting a solid idea across the line and produced un-bastardised (and one that’s measurable) is a feat in itself.
The check-list starts with effectiveness, followed by creativity these days. Which, in my opinion, is the right way to go about it. Get with it, Andy. By the way, what’s wrong with aspiring to awards and recognition, if, afterall, it delivers for the brand? I don’t think you can argue distintive and unique creative doesn’t work. It just so happens that these new ideas win awards too.
By the way, I’m a suit. So I should know. I sit between the client and the creative.
Yeah but not here and doesn’t change my opinion.
you’re right Bob is a rabbit
agencies = the clever conceited, with a much lesser regard for effectiveness
after all, it’s not their own money that they’re spending!
if advertising is so effective, why dont more ad agencies advertise?