The advertising industry is reeling from the double blow of the economic downturn and the voracious march of constantly changing technology. However, with suffering comes opportunity. Luke views these testing times as a good thing. When times are easy complacency can easily become the enemy. Proactive creativity is the solution.
The downturn has meant consumers are consuming more media than before, ergo the role of media providers is greater. Yet conversely fees are being cut, and will continue to be so. Adaptability is therefore key for advertisers, along with the ability to sell more imaginative, value adding advertising solutions.
William Owen, Strategy Director of Made by Many continued along the same theme. The brief is dead, agencies need to develop "the brief" collaboratively with their clients proactively. To do this the agency model needs to change. In the past the strength of the advertising model lay in its buying power and the ability to tell stories, as fragmentation occurred, so did agencies and this is currently where we are today. But it's not quite enough, William calls for an evolution towards the earned media model, which brings groups of people together and manages communities. In summary moving from:
- Mass media to networked media
- Interruptive advertising to earned/useful advertising
- One directional to participatory
- Mediated to direct
- Tried formats to new formats
- Campaigns to platforms
- Based on faith to measurable
Robert Tansey, Group Brand Marketing Director of BSkyB took to the stage to give the brand's perspective. The biggest change is in engagement, as an example of this there are currently 126 million blogs online and 38 per cent of them talk regularly about brands. It is therefore important to find ways to engage people in a positive way and get them to understand the brand. Advertising is only part of this content is the other side of the coin.
Robert warned that content creation isn't easy, and probably not the realm of the advertising agency, he pointed to the recent Cadburys campaigns which took three years to develop three minutes of content. In summary long live the traditional role of advertising, but supplement it with content.
Session 5 sees David Seers, Director of Content at COI, Susan Aubrey-Cound, Director of Multi-channel development at M&S and Chris Bibby, Direct Marketing and CRM Director at Virgin Media discussing how cross media content can drive brand and sales.
