All change in adland?

Department of inconvenient questions: All change in Adland ?

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....

Never mind agile...do the Hokey Cokey

(image source:pexels)

There is a great deal of corporate activity and musical chairs going on in both agency and client land ( both manufacturer and retailer side ) , as players large and small seek to find safer new ways to futureproof their current business models in the face of encroachment by new entrants with their new fangled ways and fancy dance steps :

In summary it seems everyone is trying several approaches to secure space in the new ecosystem whilst scaling up in their historic core areas , thereby covering all the bases.

Management consultancies are said to massing at the gates of Adland as I write these words; meanwhile clients are increasingly said to be bringing parts of the media and creative functions in house.


New,supposedly more ............( insert adjective of choice here : disruptive/ agile / ethical ) start ups are mushrooming in CPG/fmcg ,especially in plant based alternatives to meat ; or in subscription and direct to consumer based businesses such as Dollar Shave Club .


Major branded packaged goods companies are busy buying up or building stakes in these self same new wave/ startups (Danone buys non dairy specialist Whitewave , Nestle buys artisan Blue Bottle coffee, Unilever buys Dollar Shave, Tyson meat buys into plant based meat alternatives , Mars buys into pet health care etc.,) whilst also simultaneously seeking to consolidate with other large and similar businesses.


Meanwhile retailing is undergoing major shifts, with multiple profit warnings ,store closures and insolvency in the UK as traditional bricks and mortar based businesses seek to embrace omnichannel : Walmart buys Flipkart , Tesco and Carrefour cooperate to bulk up their buying clout , JSainsbury buys Asda from Walmart in the UK....just as Internet based competitors move into the bricks and mortar world(Amazon does or will do everything from food to fashion to pharma eventually,Alibaba in China entering partnerships with bricks and mortar stores Bailian and teaming up with 13 Chinese real estate developers and Chinese Hema supermarkets).


The pace of change is dizzying and accelerating ; the mass market middle ground is no longer considered strategically a safe place to be ... meaning going forward businesses need increasingly need to have a laser focus on their brand's true core ,differentiating competencies whilst planning for an amorphous and fluid approach on how they deliver them.

Department of inconvenient questions ...How often do you?

(Image source: Pexels)


Business today is all about multiple and frequent if not real time measurements of success and the efficient use of human and financial capital.

The business of reporting or indeed staying abreast of key metrics has become a business within a business and a badge of honour in its' own right....knowing your very latest numbers, the numbers talk.. right?


The Department of Inconvenient questions has recently completed the least thorough piece of research review ever into that sensitive area of marketing business called "How often do you spend quality time with your brand and wider business strategy? Do you regularly look at the strategic plan after it is written and hopefully signed off by head office ? How often is it used as a touchpoint to ensure alignment of daily activities? Ironically an enormous amount of time is spent creating strategic plans...which are then often underutilized .

My point is that more time needs to be spent regularly and systematically to stay in touch with and review the big picture strategic direction, as many markets today are subject to more significant and frequent game changing events than at any time in my almost 40 year career...this both in the board rooms, maybe especially in the boardrooms as well as in every brand or business unit.

You could stop here ...... but below is just a selection of typical number based events and frequency one might hypothetically need to navigate as a classical senior marketer:

Daily:sales dashboard, financials, research numbers, social media .

Weekly: sales ,s&op review,listings and customer updates , marketing activity,innovation and new launches project updates. Weekly call with head office

Monthly: sales , brand share and activities reporting, financials vs annual plan, action plans, listings , promotion and new products funnels and post launch tracking , sales forecasting,quality/ industrial reports.

Quarterly:detailed business updates for head office.

Annual: strategic plan followed by detailed budget for n+1 split to sku, month and customer.

Department of inconvenient questions

( Image title/source/ author: Crop triangle; Wikimedia common; author: Eddie Oosthuizen; user:AbdealiJK Travis)


As a food guy with extensive international brand and new product development marketing experience as well as unfortunately a failed restaurateur I enjoy reading Linkedin posts about amongst other things innovation and technology ( thanks LPK, Tom Goodwin and others)and various other food specific threads on hot food related topics such as plant based everything, alternative proteins( anyone for cricket?), lab grown meat and so on ( other soap boxes are available)...

This is all very stimulating intellectually , but then yesterday I read another food innovation/ tech story ( from "Food Navigator Asia "yesterday which I will try and append in the comments) which disturbed me in my own comfortable ,urban bubble.

So today this post from the newly created Department of inconvenient questions...staffed by completely unqualified people ie me , and with no commercial or other interest in this area, other than being a would be occasional world citizen, from the comfort of my armchair of course.
Why are people still starving in 2018 when the technology apparently exists to make important steps towards eradication ? Who,why and what are blocking the adoption/ commercialisation of things like Genetically modified crops , and now so called Golden rice aka vitamin enhanced rice, which is touted by its' proponents as a "life saver" ? I tried and failed to find some simple stats on global hunger to illustrate the scale of the problem , but need obviously to improve my search skills. Meanwhile just check your preferred news feed...


As this is a business blog I will try and stay away from making politically charged comments, but if the technology exists to make a meaningful impact in reducing starvation in places challenged by climate , know how or conflict then why isn't it happening? Do we need more private charitable initiatives by the likes of Bill Gates or, more action from eg the United Nations? Or is it a matter of freedom of choice , as some farmers fear being locked into particular seed suppliers.


This stuff is worthy of more debate and action than much of what gets debated around the conversation ecosystem..


ps: are some agribusinesses still routinely needing financially to throw away food in order to manage market prices or because their produce is deemed somehow not pretty enough ? Another committee maybe , or a working group?

Bunfight at Calorie Corral

Bunfight at Calorie Corral







The UK government has recently come out 'buns blazing' to call out the food industry once more , this time to reduce the calorie count in packaged and foodservice foods across some but not all food categories by 20 % by 2020... or else.

However well intentioned and however necessary , this is another example of a laudable but ultimately poorly constructed initiative to tackle the consequences to the individual and to society of the obesity crisis facing the UK and indeed many other countries.

The UK authorities have in recent years undertaken public health campaigns,including the usual threats to the food and drink industries, to tackle salt , fat and sugar reductions as well as promoting healthier a lifestyle and more excercise ; more recently we have had a public airing of the potential merits of tax based incentives including a so called "Latte levy" to discourage the use of non recyclable take away coffee cups.

The fundamental problem is that once more the latest foray , focussed single mindedly on reducing calorie intake ,is an overly simplistic approach to a complex problem which fails to tackle some of the other root causes and behaviours behind the nutritionally poor dietary habits of many in the UK.
The threat of sanctions to the food industry for instance simply reinforces the view already embraced by some interest groups that "Big Food" is intent on systematically damaging the health of consumers by enslaving them to "Ultra Processed " foods . This is not , as I have written before, a particularly good business model , even in the hopefully unlikely scenario it were to be true. Sadly the criminal and negligent actions of some in the food business have in fact opened the door to this type of conspiracy theory showing scant to insufficient regard for food safety and transparency standards, never mind consumer health.

So taking a broader look at this what strikes me most is the lack of focus on education : by educating young and old alike about the benefits of better nutrition , healthy eating , cooking and healthy lifestyles one might hope to see a change in consumer behaviour. It is not as if there are no healthier choices available ; in most cases, we are more spoilt for choice now with healthier food options than has probably ever been the case.

Of course there is also a positive contribution to be made by a more holistic approach ,including offering healthier options either by recipe reformulation or by the option of reduction of portion sizes , but fundamentally if the behaviours and attitudes of consumers don't change it may not change the bigger picture very much . I am also in favour of controlling content and access to advertising of unhealthy foods to children for instance... but at heart changes for the better come in a free society because it is consumers who wish to change...

What is the role of the food business in public health debates ? Utilize all that consumer insight, engage , be proactive, promote sensible consumption , balance and healthy lifestyles , be part of the solution.

Targetting, like dating but scarier

Targetting ..like dating ,but trickier?

Just like marketing as a whole has become more complex these days so it is with targetting., which is the business of brands looking to meet consumers to live happily ever after, or at least until the next purchase.

Pre internet there was a widely held school of thought in packaged consumer goods which promoted the notion of targetting precise consumer clusters with your branded offer, which often meant any given category might contain a multiplicity of brands targetting specific consumer profiles, segments , benefits and needs . Then as now there were different approaches to the resulting issue of selecting the most appropriate brand strategy,typically of either using one umbrella brand with sub brands to cover category wide opportunities ,all leveraging the core brand benefit, or launching multiple stand alone brands with the attendant additional marketing and organizational costs and complexity.

Today the "Evidence Based Marketing" doctrine holds and demonstrates that actually not only ( and here I exaggerate deliberately) are the old truths unfounded , but that evidentially it is broadly sufficient to have as a target anyone with a pulse and access to a wallet( which removes any biais towards cute puppies...) . The examples in "How Brands Grow" by Byron Sharp are startling. The book is pretty much a giant wrecking ball to previous marketing beliefs and operating systems in branded consumer goods , and had me on the edge of a minor existential crisis for a while...

And yet this new broad based mass market reality doesn't make targetting any easier for marketers today, the dating game of brand seeks consumer goes on and has become arguably more complex. Today the consumer always brings their today's best friend along , social media and their friend outrage.

Marketers must now navigate an increasingly complex series of potential gaffes :being seen as unauthentic by jumping on the fashionable bandwagons of the day ,showing a lack of respect and sensitivity towards topics such as Inclusivity ,diversity , cultural misappropriation, gender stereotyping, corporate social responsibility and respect for the environment.

The recent and public debate about the charity label for the Johhny Walker brand of whisky featuring a female icon is a timely example of the potential pitfalls . The sceptic in me wonders how many whisky drinkers actually select a whisky brand based on the number of women in the boardroom or the distillery. It is also way too easy for this initiative , as others have pointed out elsewhere, to be seen as patronising to women, which is surely the very opposite of the brand owner's intentions.

In retail by contrast consumer shopper behaviour has increasingly been to gravitate away from the mass middle market one concept fits all targetting model and towards dare I say it more targetted offerings, be it in grocery or fashion...

So from a Brandbuilder perspective what lessons can be drawn to help brands find their Happily ever after consumer partners?

Put simply,brands must show respect to consumers and be true to who they are and what they stand for. The better you know and respect your consumer , the more you discuss, listen, and ask for permission, like in any relationship, the less you are likely to offend .

A job-it' s tale:from zero to hero and back again

"A Job-it's tale: from zero to hero and back again "
or the fluctuating value of experience (apologies to the estate of JR Tolkien)

When you start your professional career, looking for an entry level graduate position is the likely first step and also the first hurdle. It seems experience is often valued above academic achievements, which is nuts. People looking for entry level professional positions are likely by definition to be inexperienced.

As your career develops, experience is still a valuable currency ,as increasingly it demonstrates accomplishments as well as serving as an indicator of development potential.

When you get to be very experienced however you generally find at a certain point that your accumulated experience becomes pretty much worthless, perhaps as it tends to come with accompanying years on the clock. There may be a few exceptions such as post acquisition ,where the acquiring company sucks up the experience and knowledge DNA of their acquisition , followed normally by disposal of those same people.

I think it is great to see so many successful young entrepreneurs ,often straight out of university, but I wonder about their lack of real life business experience and the impact on the advice they are selling... is experience not seen as either necessary or a benefit;or do they tap into it via mentors , non executive directors or external consultants ?

Before I reached 30 ( which was 6 years into my career/ experiential learning curve) ,I was told I was too old for a career in consulting . By the time I was 40 I was told I was too old to be considered for admission into an MBA course by a highly rated Business school...

Before I go for my afternoon nap I would like to clarify that I put talent above in post seniority in almost all cases. Experience without talent , application, relevance and a thirst for continuous learning and growth is of limited use in business,or in life generally .

So what about using that body of experience of the many people who like me are no longer necessarily looking to work full time ,but wish to leverage their experience and to continue to learn, to be challenged and rewarded? A previous employer of mine BESTFOODS had a great scheme ; it created a corps of retired colleagues who were drafted in to carry out temporary , ad hoc business projects globally wherever there was a specific skill and experience need that matched the profile of a particular person.

My business Brandbuilder consultancy Ltd was set up after I fell out of corporate life for the last time after 30 plus years , in order to give businesses of all sizes bespoke access to my strategic and operational brand marketing skill, experience and passion on a completely flexible basis. From facilitating one off strategic planning or ideation days , project work , helping new market entry , mergers and acquisitions ,or periodic strategic input .Check out my profile on Linkedin and contact me for an informal chat about your ideas and whether I might be able to make a difference.