BBDO’s Andrew Robertson and Others on the Challenges Facing the Industry
By Michael Bush ??Published: September 22, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — To no one’s surprise, the first topic of discussion at Advertising Week’s CNBC CEO Summit was the meltdown of the financial markets last week.
“You can’t talk about the impact in general terms,” Andrew Robertson, president-CEO of BBDO Worldwide, told the nearly packed PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditorium in Midtown Manhattan this morning. “You have to look at it on a client-by-client basis. But there are definitely clients where the emphasis is going to switch, and there will be clients for whom the value message is going to become a much bigger component of the overall messaging mix, because that’s something that’s going to be pretty motivating to consumers.”
Moderated by CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo, the panel, made up of Mr. Robertson; Nick Brien, CEO of Mediabrands; Sarah Fay, CEO of Aegis Media North America; and Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of Group M, discussed a variety of topics, but the fallout from last week’s financial mess was never far from top of mind.
‘Best-case scenario’
“I’m not sure how consumers will react to this,” Mr. Gotlieb said. “At the moment I don’t think the consumer can comprehend what has just happened. The best-case scenario is that the consumer doesn’t comprehend what went on and goes on merrily about their way.”
He said regardless of a person’s ability to fully comprehend what transpired, consumer confidence has a way of coming back. “There is quite a bit of elasticity in consumer confidence, and it does tend to bounce back, whether the situation is understandable or not,” he said.
Ms. Fay said one of the questions was just how big an impact Wall Street’s woes will have on ad budgets. She said her advertising media company has “just rounded down” its 2008 growth forecast, from 6% to 4.9%.
Mr. Brien said of the financial crisis: “Between natural-resource prices, the housing market, what’s happening on Wall Street as well as technology and its impact on marketing, it’s a more challenging environment in terms of turning suspects into prospects into buyers,” he said. “It’s going to challenge the professionalism of everything we do.”
Fundamental shift
The panelists also discussed the evolving nature of the marketing business, the need for more integration across disciplines and the growing relevance of data such as consumer behavior when it comes to constructing a campaign.
“The nature of marketing is going to be less about the vehicles we choose to target and how we use those vehicles,” Mr. Brien said. “It’s going to be more about the fact that we need to refine the persuasion-based activities we have all grown up with with user influence. This balance is going to challenge agency structures.”
Mr. Robertson called this the fundamental shift that people need to start recognizing in order to reach consumers.
“We have to stop thinking of media as bridges that we march messages over into people’s minds and start thinking about creating experiences that change behavior and providing access to those experiences in the most relevant places,” Mr. Robertson said. “That’s a different language and different way of thinking from the way the business was approached even three years ago.”
Consumers behavior
“Rightly or wrongly, the consumer trusts their peers more than they trust some of the most recognized publications,” Mr. Gotlieb said. “And because of that the communications today are not just about talking at the consumer. It’s about managing their perception and trying to get them to participate in the discussion in a way that is favorable to your client. The challenge is none of us can do all of these things. What we have to get to is a single, integrated strategy that can be implemented by multiple entities. None of us has the ability to implement all of the components of that strategy.”
Mr. Robertson said the only thing that matters to him is consumer behavior, and marketers should focus on creating experiences to change consumer behavior and not so much on messaging.
“We used to think about messages that created a case for a particular behavior,” Mr. Robertson said. “It’s not about that now. It’s about creating experiences that, by participating in them, change consumer behavior. I’m only interested in behavior. Everything else is just a proxy for it. Unless behavior changes, it’s all been a waste of time and money. That’s an important lens through which to look at everything, because there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on, none of which is going to change behavior. And our clients can’t make any money unless behavior changes.”
Go to War Against Wasted Marketing Spending
What Marines Can Teach CMOs About Success Under Fire
by Casey Jones
Published: December 17, 2008
As marketers, we jointly spend hundreds of billions of dollars communicating what we believe are critical messages to our target audiences. All of us, from entry-level brand managers to CMOs, know there is enormous waste in our industry. As Wanamaker famously said, “I know half my advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” My strong suggestion, especially in an economy where every single marketing dollar must count, is to improve your aim.
Without looking closely at your marketing spending, I can already tell you that the waste starts because astonishingly little attention is paid to the development of messages that will persuade your key customers and audiences to change their perceptions of your brand or love your products. Like a mob of first-week recruits at Marine Corps boot camp, most day-to-day marketing troops are spraying ammo (your money) at their targets. The first thing I learned many years ago on a Marine Corps rifle range was the acronym BRASS: breathe, relax, aim, squeeze, shoot. My bet is, especially in times of panic, there is a lot of shooting going on and not enough aiming.
The persuasive power of any marketing-communications effort is directly proportional to three things: the quality of the messaging; the quality, reach and frequency of exposure to those messages; and the voltage the creative adds to the messaging. Great creative can have an exponential impact on your brand, but if the message is worthless, if your aim is off, all the creativity in the world is going to be off-target.
The battle against waste
I’ve spent an entire career at war with waste. Part of what attracted me to Dell was Michael Dell’s obsession with optimization — of everything. The first thing I learned there was that we had a truly insane number of agencies. The second thing I learned was that there was absolutely no playbook — no standardized system for developing and determining the quality of the assignments we were giving those agency teams. I was not surprised, although you may be if you take a similar close look at your marketing processes.
Here’s the first step: Survey your assignment or creative briefs. Find out exactly how many people in your company are responsible for briefing agencies and spending the marketing budget. Use a simple survey tool such as Survey Monkey to determine how many assignments that involve messaging are being done per quarter. At Dell, the number was in the thousands, against a budget of more than $1 billion annually.
Now the somewhat tricky part: Have every team member who is writing briefs send a copy of every finalized brief that went to an agency to one e-mail inbox. Take the time or have your most strategic team member take the time to audit 5% to 10% of those briefs.
What you’ll find
What you will find will appall you. First, you will learn there is no standard approach for briefing the teams, internal or external, who create your marketing materials. Second, you will discover that the majority of the briefing documents focus on features rather than benefits and are poorly organized, poorly written, too long, overly complex and generally built from internally popular messages rather than key insights into what demonstrably persuades your customers or other key stakeholders. You will also find that a high percentage of the work done does not clearly communicate the key messages in even the best-intended brief.
If you take the time to audit messaging briefs on a regular basis, your teams will get the message, and their aim will improve dramatically. Don’t think you have time to focus on taking better aim in the middle of a market crisis? The question is: Can you afford not to?
Remember BRASS. Breathe: Set aside time every week to focus on what your brand is communicating. Relax: Remember that the brand will not fail if you pause for a moment to focus. It may fail, however, if you continue to waste marketing shots that are off-target. Aim: Make sure your messaging briefs are standardized and contain these essential elements:
Now put steady pressure on the trigger, squeeze and shoot. Bam! An on-target shot. Do it consistently, and pretty soon, your competitors will be waving white flags.