News

Parent companies ‘should let their brands do the talking’ insists Ten’s Howcroft

Russell HowcroftNetwork Ten’s executive general manager Russel Howcroft has accused companies of confusing the public by slapping their corporate name on advertising in a needless bid to take ownership of their brands.

He told a panel discussion that companies such as Unilever and Procter and Gamble should let their brands do the talking and keep the corporate identity in the background.

“I don’t buy a Unilever and yet these days they do like to brand their advertising,” Howcroft said. “It’s like the parent wants to own the child and yet I am buying the children, not the parent.”

His comments came during a discussion on ‘brand purpose’ at a seminar organised by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA).

Howcroft also accused brands of being self-obsessed and “forgetting the transaction”.

Continuing the analogy with parents, Howcroft said: “There is this desire as a parent to claim ownership over your successful children, and as we all know, it’s much better if you’re a great parent to stay in the background and let your kids fly with their own brand and their own voice.

“Why are they trying to claim ownership? Even with Proctor and Gamble, there’s this temptation (to put their name on advertising) and that’s where it can get confusing. You can have different brands with different target audiences and different reasons to exist and they can sometimes be at odds with another brand which happens to have the same parent.”

He added that brands get caught up in the belief that it’s “all about them”.

“We are in an obsessive me, me, I, I era What they are doing is forgetting the transaction. The transaction is ‘I am here to give you the consumer a reason to buy, to entertain, to engage’,” Howcroft added.

“I don’t know that this obsession with self is really where the joy is for the consumer. I can see joy for the brand itself and that self-obsession, but not the consumer. It’s almost like they’re saying ‘thank you for buying me, together we can change the world’. I think we’re in lala land.”

Earlier, Telstra director of segment marketing Andy Bateman rejected that ‘brand purpose’ even existed, arguing there was only corporate purpose and brand strategy.

“I am puzzled by the trendiness of the brands constituency that has started to put those two words (brand and purpose) together,” he told the discussion. “There is no such thing as brand purpose. There is brand strategy.

“What I see a lot of is the drafting of corporate social responsibility strategy into a brand strategy and calling it brand purpose, which it is not.”

But he added that corporate purpose is “very very important”.

“We have seen it galvanise 40,000 people.” he said.

Bateman also rejected Howcroft’s view that “big brand work” can change the culture within an organisation and alter “how we view companies”.

Using Commonwealth Bank as an example, Howcroft suggested the bank’s CAN campaign changed internal behaviour and how staff deal with customers.

“Without advertising driving that it would have been very difficult to change behaviour,” he said.

Bateman responded: “I don’t think you can advertise your way to change. You need a corporate strategy that is about change and a whole set of behaviour enablers and a business model that gets you there.

“I think it’s a somewhat flawed argument to say that you can advertise the change and the people internally will change, if you don’t change anything else.”

Steve Jones

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.