[The following piece appeared in the September 12th Campaigns & Grey 25th Anniversary supplement in the Philippine Star.]
Other than the fact that women in advertising agencies no longer wear pantyhose, the hit TV series Mad Men is one very distant and now unfamiliar flashback.
In one scene, Roger Sterling, co-founder of the fictional Sterling Cooper agency, could say of a big client: "My name's on the building. They can wait for me." Sterling would stand no chance surviving in today’s advertising scene. There’s less indulgence. It’s less about the marketer, his ego and lifestyle. Advertising has gotten more serious and challenging. There’s never been a better time to be in advertising.
And a worse time, too, if you don’t know what the future looks like.
The Philippines is already on the cusp of a creative crossover. I’d give you 2 to 3 years if you insist on being a ‘mad man’ who thinks advertising is all about the following:
1. Advertising that’s neatly packaged in a 30-second TV spot or a full-page printed material. Think communication, not advertising. There are more platforms and touch-points to consider in reaching out to your target audience. Mobile apps, social networking, the smartphone, the iPad will soon become as significant to the marketer as ABS-CBN. ‘Digital’ is a world in itself that has no boundaries.
2. The ‘consumer’ can be captured through mass marketing. He or she is no longer a simplistic statistic that can be easily persuaded by crafty jingles, selling lines and product demonstrations. He’s breaking free from the chains of captive and disruptive advertising. He needs to be engaged, not just entertained, and he’d tell you your product sucks in real time, via a blog or a Facebook posting, and would make his extensive network of friends/consumers empathize just as quickly.
3. The big creative idea can only come from a small group of smartly dressed agency executives. Ideas can come from anywhere in the digital era. Use that savvy then to spot the creative opportunities and turn them into stories (not just storyboards) that would engage your very complex and powerful consumer.
4. Becoming a legend in the league of David Ogilvy or the Saatchi brothers. If you want to retain the client-agency trust you’ve enjoyed through the years, sober up, be professional and just make each output work. Beware: There’s always a shop knocking on client’s door that has charges less on account of less overhead and a leaner infrastructure. He also won’t make client wait.
5. Loads of martinis. Because there’s less money available for martinis and other indulgences. The sacred agency compensation scheme has been revamped and it continues to dwindle. On the bright side, digital opportunities are endless, and no one as yet knows how to charge for it.
The world is changing, faster than ever before. Advertising is no exception. The old model of the monolithic-one-stop-agency-that-earns-a-lot-through-catchy-commercials has been broken. Make yourself an integral part of the new (digital) reality. If you take that to heart, and the shifting paradigms on ‘who’s the consumer’ and ‘creativity is everywhere’, then you’re ok. You’d also realize that the world of advertising, er, ‘communications’, would still a lot like Mad Men, at least in one aspect: it’s fun, never boring.
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