Image : Rene Asmussen on pexels.com
Am I alone in being bored by the debate around transparency in media cost and measurement metrics,fake consumers or "disrupted" business models ? As a consumer bored by the lack of originality of much of todays creative ?
Shouldn't we all be doing more about improving the quality of creative that's out there today rather than restructuring ? Just maybe , and yes this is a radical notion , better creative would yield better returns for all in the ecosystem....
A recent post by Alberto Brea talked about the development of the traditional advertising business model in the face of industry disruption ( ie increases in client side in-house creative teams ,or the entrance in force of management consultancies into adland) and suggested the likely new operating model would see the ad companies concentrating on either the creative or the production ends of the process, right around the time Sir Martin Sorrell did exactly that as the first step of his new venture.
As a client side marketer for over 30 years I have seen any number of versions of the agency model ,which has shown such flexibility as to make a Transformer character envious ... and I suspect somewhat cyncially this has rarely been driven by a desire to make better creative , with some notable exceptions ( the launch of BBH in London comes to mind).
The real agency :client tensions have consistently in my own experience had as much to do with money ,with clients looking( apparently surprisingly) for true transparency and measurability around costs and returns as they ever have about the creative product.
Oddly enough the consumer whose needs and desires we collectively strive to satisfy has not always come first in the discussion . Pinpointing my need state and likely choices is valuable science, but then hit me with great creative or I choose ad blocking...
The likes of Bob Hoffman have written most eloquently and persuasively about the issue of transparency in media costs and audience metrics ;others like Marc Pritchard at P&G and Keith Weed at Unilever have talked tough and followed through, with little or no impact on their brands.
There are those who say that consultants move into adland is doomed by the apparent contradiction between the necessary impartiality and objectivity demanded of a business consultancy , not to mention the working culture and environment which is deemed likely to be hostile if not fatal to the creative soul ....we shall see.
From my own perspective , now on the outside looking in, I would love to be seeing more debate about improving the creative product and delighting consumers....
