Marketers told to ‘unshackle’ from siloed thinking to better connect with audiences
Hearn
Marketers need to “unshackle” themselves from thinking in a channel or category perspective if they want to create really effective campaign, Dentsu Mitchell’s David Hearn has told a conference.
Speaking at today’s PRIA National Conference, Hearn, the director of Federal Government media relations, said clients need to take a step back and bring in their roster of agencies before they’ve decided on their marketing approach.
“What we’ve started to do tends to be the creative or media led room conversation. The client should engage the agency before they know the answer. Don’t try and bring people together and assume I’ve carved up this small amount of money for social, for PR and I’ve already got my agency working on a TV ad – we need to step back.
“This isn’t about how we use our industry first but about how do we connect with individuals and audiences.
“It will shift the role everyone plays in that response – there will be PR led responses, influencer led, media and creative will still play a role. Essentially what we haven’t done is start with that conversation.”
Hearn asserted that the separate disciplines of creative, media, PR and digital are all moving closer together and need to collaborate in a better fashion in order to better connect with an audience.
“It feels like communications in general is this air mattress that is only 70 or 80 per cent full and five-ten years ago we had PR in a corner, media in a corner, digital in a corner and creative in a corner.
“But as the air continues to fall out of the air mattress we’ve all just fallen into the middle and we’re a mass of elbows and knees and trying to work out the right conversations to have with our clients.”
He said the way the thinking that comes from the way industry categorises itself into separate disciplines needs to change.
“Fundamentally huge transformation comes when you allow yourself to unshackle from that sort of thinking,” he said.
Hearn said the wider marketing and media industry needs to ask what it’s “core truth” is which he asserted was to persuade an audience and stop being distracted by channels and formats.
“If we’re talking about the format or channels it’s just peripherals on the side. Essentially we’re trying to persuade someone that ultimately you should pick my option. We’re all here as an art of persuasion.”
He said while it is “terrifying” to admit, industry professionals “don’t control huge amounts”.
“We love to think we control, we love to think we create connections. Essentially people are the channel, we are not the channel,” he said.
“It’s terrifying for us but it’s a reality for us moving forward and if we do it gives us a level of clarity. It’s about how we connect with the individual not the format or channel.”
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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