Okay, this is a little over the top, but it makes you consider the concept of a great relationship when it comes to your creative agency. Do you want an agency that just meekly executes your every whim and wish? Or is a great agency relationship one with passion and commitment?

Beyond the basics of mutual respect, understanding and shared values, what do you think are the hallmarks of a great client - agency relationship? And what do you do to foster and maintain yours?

In the Wall Street Journal online today is a report that Wal-Mart is clearly suffering from not ensuring they owned the IP created on their behalf.

A video production company was engaged in the 1970s to video record management meetings at Wal-Mart and until recently have done so until their relationship was terminated.

Now the production company is selling these video tapes to anyone interested in paying for them, exposing Wal-Mart and their executives to often embarrassing disclosure.

Now they are looking for how they can stop this legally. Perhaps they should have taken legal advice when they put the original contract in place with the production company.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart discover the dangers of intellectual property agreements and copyright" »

A recent article in AdAge was sent to me by Patricio de Matteis at Accenture Marketing Sciences.

The headline read "P&G Pilots New Agency Model for a Digital Age".

Jack Neff, the writer states "P&G is testing a system that essentially designates one agency as a "single point of contact" on each brand -- and sounds an awful lot like the old full-service agency model the marketer, and most agency holding companies, dismantled more than a decade ago in favor of agency specialization."

But this is NOT an integrated agency offering. Instead what it is a lead agency or Central Strategy Group model which I detailed in a webinar almost two years ago.

Continue reading "P&G wants a single contact point for each brand across disciplines?" »

During last year we have had a number of highly successful projects involving changing the processes involved in advertising to deliver greater collaboration, efficiency and effectiveness.

This year we kick off our fortnightly P3 e-news looking at the issues and considerations marketers face in developing greater collaboration between their various communications service providers.

In the P3 e-news:
- delivering collaboration
- making more sense of media
- agency remuneration made easy
- television production advice

Delivering the benefits of greater collaboration

With increasing complexity advertisers are finding limitations in relying on media and creative agencies as their main advertising providers. Today, most advertisers are juggling five or more providers including direct marking, public relations, channel planners, promotions companies and more.

At best the management of this range of providers is time and resource consuming and at worst leads to a fragmentation in the brand communications with each provider doing their "own thing".

Identifying your key communications providers

The very first step is to identify the various providers currently on your roster. Often over time, advertisers will accrue a growing number of providers. In one case an advertiser had more than twenty graphic design providers through leakage outside the original panel of three.

Often in identifying the various providers, many advertisers will then go through a process of rationalisation to deliver economies of scale in their expenditure.

Defining your requirements and the role each will play

The next step is to then define your total requirements to fulfil your marketing plan. This includes budget, outcomes, planned campaigns and known activities.

Traditionally the activities would then be placed against the particular providers based on their core competency or the core service they were engaged to provide.

This is becoming increasingly difficult with most suppliers expanding and blurring their range of services to capture more revenue opportunities and technology assisting this in the digital domain.

Developing the appropriate structure to deliver outcomes

There are a number of different structural options for managing the relationships, from the traditional client agency relationship where the marketing team is responsible for the individual management and co-ordination of the various and usually small number of service providers to a collaborative adviser model where the service providers work collaboratively as advisers to the marketing team.

Many of these options were presented at a webinar in late 2006, which can be viewed by clicking here.

The right structural / organisational model depends on the culture, needs and requirements of the marketing team.

Implementing remuneration strategy to encourage collaboration

Many marketers attempt to create a collaborative working environment between their various specialist service providers. While this can be successful in the short term, invariably power struggles and demarcation disputes develop as the various providers compete for incremental revenue.

The most successful approach is to take a whole of relationship approach to the task including review of remuneration, service level agreements, reporting and deliverables.

In our experience, many of the attempts to create a more collaborative approach to service delivery is undermined by contracts and remuneration that rewards individual providers higher than collective outcomes.

Managing the process to deliver the desired outcome

Without a comprehensive approach to the way in which the service providers are engaged in the relationship, efforts to develop more collaborative working relationship are almost always doomed to fail through struggles over remuneration.

P3Biz has benchmarked, modelled and implemented a large number of remuneration and contract agreements to assist marketers build more sustainable collaborative environments. If you are interested in finding out more contact Darren Woolley or Tony Quail at P3 in Sydney 02 9279 4997 or Melbourne 03 9682 6800.

Making more sense of media

Looking for a new media agency? Perhaps wondering if your current agency is being properly remunerated? Want to benchmark how well your media planning is delivering?

Then you need to talk to Stephen Wright.

Stephen has more than fifteen years experience in media strategy and is the senior media consultant and director of P3Media. Contact Stephen by email at stephen@p3.com.au

Agency remuneration made easy

Facing a contract review or looking for a more effective way to remunerate your agency? Wanting to establish a more effective rate card of services? Or just wondering how cost effective is your advertising?

Then you should contact Tony Quail.

Tony is a commerce graduate and Chartered Accountant with a career that includes not only formal audit training at KPMG but also industry experience from the agency side, including Publicis Mojo, Simon Richards Group and the Clemenger Communications Group. Contact Tony by email at tony@p3.com.au

Television production advice

Planning your next big TVC campaign? Considering 3 quotes and not sure which is the best value? Need help deternining your next TVC budget?

You need to talk to Clive Duncan.

Clive has worked in film production, agency TVC departments and post production facilities for over 20 years, and is the senior TV consultant at P3TV. He has a unique appreciation for great creative and production qualities while also recognising the importance of delivering value for money. Contact Clive by email at clive@p3.com.au

P3 - helping people achieve commercial purpose through creative process

I have been asked thousands of questions but only a few have stopped me in my tracks, like the project managers who asked "Is it possible to change the lead talent in post production?" after their General Manager saw the offline of their latest commerncial and hated the talent.

A media colleague of mine told me that they were once asked in all seriousness, "How long is a 60 second television commerical?"

Well Carolyn Hall from the RAC in Perth has sent me to a link to a blog called "Adverbatims" which lists some really great quotes like:

"We need this to look really amazing - it's really got to stand outand wow the client. But the budget is small so don´t spend any time working on it."
(Agency, Account Manager to Designer)

In a perfect world, if there was no Christmas, when could we launch?"
(Client to Creative Director complaining about the production schedule because time set aside for the holidays and agency/office closures conflicted with their desired in-market date)

That's nice, but what happened to the online extension of the blue key visual?" - "Uh, we... we didn't do that one. We did the red key visual only, because blue pixels are heavier to download."
(Conversation between Client and Art Director)

Concept 1 is approved. Although why don't you show me something that incorporates concept 1 with concept 3 and uses the headline from concept 2? Make the logo bigger like in concept 2 and the copy larger from concept 3. You guys did a great job, you are right on target with concept 1."
(Client, Brand Manager)

There are loads of great verbatims there. The question is "Are they real?"

What do you think?

Author: Darren Woolley

Having graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science and worked in medical research at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne for six years, I was well trained and grilled in The Scientific Method.

The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe/process/environment.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.

The Scientific Method is core to the P3 role in measuring and improving efficiency in the marketing and advertising process.
Because while I agree with Bill Bernbach that "Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art" I also agree with sociologist and media commentator Leo Bogart that "Advertisements may be evaluated scientifically; they cannot be created scientifically."

That's why our role at P3 is to provide knowledge, information and advice on the process and not the creative concept. It is the advertiser who is paying for the concept to decide if this is the right concept for their business / problem / opportunity.

Author: Darren Woolley

Managing an advertising review or pitch, it is often interesting to see how the agencies relate to you as the pitch doctor. Many agencies, and in fact many advertisers, incorrectly think that P3 selects the agency or at least recommends an agency in the pitch process.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our job is to assist, manage and facilitate the process so that the advertiser can select the best possible agency provider for their needs.

At some point in every pitch the advertiser will ask me "Which agency would you choose?" and our answer is always the same "We don't have to live with the choice, you do". Therefore when asked to choose an agency we will then work with the advertiser to help them structure their thinking and their emotions or "gut instinct".

There are set and agreed criteria that each agency ios judged against and on the basis of which the agency is successful or unsuccessful. There are non-defined emotional criteria that the ganecy is also judgeed against.

Our task os not to tell the advertiser how to think and feel, and is not to make recommednations on who to choose. In selecting an agency it is our job to assist the advertiser so they can choose the right agency for thier needs against the criteria that is important to them.

Author: Darren Woolley

I ran into a client on Oaks Day at the Flemington Races last week. They were having a terrific day in one of the media proprietor's marquees in the Birdcage, but for some reason the discussion soon turned to work and especially the current state of their relationship with their advertising agency and agencies.

The big "What cheeses me off" for this marketer is the fact that their agency is typically running 20 minutes late for every meeting, sometimes up to 45 minutes late. So here is the marketing team sitting in the meeting room waiting for the agency. There can be three or four people from the marketing department waiting 20 minutes, that is 1 - 1.33 head hours wasted waiting for the agency.

I asked them how did this make them feel? Typically, the response was that the agency consistently running late and leaving them waiting made the marketing team feel like the agency didn't care and had no respect for their client's time.

I commented that this was funny, because I usually find that it is the marketeers that are always running late from back to back meetings. As I have commented on in previous posts. In fact it has got so bad that I have two rules:

1. If I am going to be more than a few minutes late I will call ahead to advise of my revised estimated arrival time (often met with surprise as apparently few people bother to demonstrate this level of integrity)

2. If I am left waiting more than 15 minutes without a reason or a request to wait I leave, leaving behind a message for my appointment to call to make a new appointment. (Even if this is potentially major new business, it is not worth working for anyone who shows such a blatant disregard for the value of your time).

Having mentioned that I find it is usually marketeers that leave suppliers like myself and agencies waiting, the client I was talking to confessed that no matter how late the agency is, their boss, the head of marketing is always later.

The funny part of their story was that the agency always apologies for being late, even though clearly they are not so sorry that they change their ways. However, the head of marketing never apologies. It is possible that this is their way of asserting their position and at the same time wasting everyone else's time.

Next time you are waiting for someone who is running late, why not say to them on their arrival and after their glib apology "when you are late it wastes my time and I feel like you are not taking this process/project/job seriously or showing enough respect/care/thought for me and the team". Then lets see what their reaction is.

Author: Darren Woolley

Most marketers tell me that they are incredibly busy. In fact so busy they do not have time to review how to work more effectively with the agency because they are too busy working with the agency.

A bit like that saying "when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp."

In the book The Big Moo one of the stories questions "Is bigger better?". The writer argues that big organization have a problem and that is a group of two people need only one meeting to exchange information but fifty people need 1,225 one on one meetings to have a similar exchange. Things slow down.

Marketeers, with so many stakeholder groups seem to have more meetings than anyone else. One marketeer last week, when finally arriving 25 minutes late for a meeting said to me "I have had back to back meetings all day. Haven't even had time for lunch."

The Leading Edge found in their survey that in the United States, 42 percent cited procrastination, 39 percent picked lack of team communication and 35 percent chose ineffective meetings among the top time wasters.

The Ayres Group reports that there is some 25 million meetings take place in corporate America daily. Roughly half that time is wasted. Why so many unproductive meetings?

Among the most common problems with business meetings are that they:

* Try to accomplish too much. You can't do an information dump, solve problems, make decisions, plan for action, etc., all in one short meeting.

* Lack clear objectives and/or organization. If objectives have been identified, the agenda may not properly reflect them. [Not all meetings benefit from an agenda. If problem solving is the objective, for example, the nature of the problem(s) may not be apparent until the group meets, making an agenda premature and possibly a deterrent.] There may not be an established process to allow each person to contribute to meeting the objectives.

* Lack clearly defined roles for participants. Too often team members are asked to carve out valuable time for meetings in which they have no real role. "I talk, you listen" isn't a good format because no one listens. It's BlackBerry® time.

* Minimize differences of opinion and conflict. Emotion is given no place in American business - certainly not in decision making. We don't know how to handle strong emotions, so we suppress them in meetings. We even expect our meeting leaders to suppress them for us. Yet it's emotion that contains the passion and commitment we strive for.

But meetings do not have to be time wasters. Lorraine Pirihi of the Office Organiser provides 9 Ways to Improve Your Time Management by Having Super Productive Meetings

1. Ask yourself, is this meeting really necessary? Do you need a face-face meeting? A phone call, email or conference call might be a better solution.

2. Invite as few people as possible. Only have the necessary participants attend.

3. Have a written agenda with clear objectives. Ensure it is circulated well in advance to those attending. Indicate timeframes allowed to discuss each item.

4. Double check the meeting venue has been organised the day before. If refreshments are supplied include water and fruit. Ensure the meeting area is quiet with no distractions.

5. Start and finish on time. Respect your time and everyone else's.

6. Have an effective chairperson. Unsure who to choose? At the beginning of the meeting count up to three. At three, each participant points to the person they believe will keep the meeting on track.. The person with the most votes is elected.

7. Circulate the minutes within 48 hours. Ensure all actions have the appropriate person written next to them.

8. Stand up and stretch every 30 minutes. It's good for your mind and body.

9. Ensure all mobile phones and pagers are turned off. It's amazing - people have been known to survive without their phones and live to tell the tale.

I know that in almost seven years of consulting, I have only had company regularly set and send an agenda prior to the meeting and stick to it. And it appeared to work effectively for them.

There is another great book on time management called "The time trap", but if only you had enough time to read it.

Author: Darren Woolley

Hopefully going to tender for a new agency is a sign of growth or expansion rather than a sign that the wheels have fallen off the existing relationship. But no matter what the reason for pitching your business, there are some key considerations that need to be made before you go to pitch.

1. What do you hope to achieve?

Often when a pitch process becomes protracted or stalls, it is because the pitch team disagree on the desire outcomes or at the least the selection criteria for the agency.
A fundamental step before any pitch is to clearly articulate and agree the desired outcome in detail and the selection criteria essential to achieve that outcome.
These should be developed in clear and quantifiable measures, not just vague platitudes.

2. Do you have the time?

Most clients usually underestimate the amount of time required to run the pitch. Typically, a review of eight agencies to a short list of three for a strategic or creative presentation can require 600 - 800 hours of internal head hours depending on the size of the agencies and the account, the scope of the review and the levels of approval.
3. Is it worth the cost?

Time is money and never more so than in a pitch process. All of the hours are head hours taken away from productive, income-generating activity. When we discuss this with many clients, they are shocked at their cost. It makes the fees charged by pitch consultants seem like chicken feed.
On the agency side, many agencies have been known to invest tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in a pitch, often on the production of theatrics alone.
So why do they do it? Because you've got to be in it to win it.
4. Will it be fair and equitable?

Everyone has a story about a pitch being pre-determined, or one agency having the inside running because they know a key client decision maker. Likewise, advertisers have been known to run a pitch purely as a way to negotiate a lower remuneration rate with the incumbent. Or to go to the market to spot check the current rate they are paying.
With any tendering processes, there is a responsibility to act with due diligence and integrity.

5. Is it worth the risk?

To get any sort of meaningful result from a strategic and creative pitch means a client has to expose the potential suitors to details about their business and their brands.
Even with confidentiality agreements, this information could be exposed to your competitors during the pitch process, or even be used by unsuccessful agencies in presenting their credentials following the process.

But the main cause of security risk is the large number of external suppliers that come and go through the various agencies during the pitch, such as print reps, always looking for some valuable information to trade.

Author: Darren Woolley

An article titled "Marketing Reality Check: Blogs, Pods, RSS" recenty appeared in AdAge in the US.

The article by Abbey Klaassen, published August 20, 2006 said that "The Reach Most Marketers Crave Still Comes From TV, Print and Internet Ads" as if this is somehow ground breaking news.
As proof it provided research summaries such as:

"According to Jupiter Research, 7% of American adults write blogs and 22% read them; about 8% listen to podcasts and 5% use RSS feeds".

"According to a separate study by WorkPlace Print Media, 88% of the at-work audience doesn't even know what RSS is".

"Recent data from word-of-mouth research group Keller Fay indicate 92% of brand conversations were taking place offline -- far more than the commonly assumed rate of 80%".

"Only 1% of the country's 210 million mobile-phone subscribers said they choose service providers based on entertainment options, according to Jupiter Research"

"A study by Frank N. Magid Associates, 66% claim they never watch video online and 41% never listen to or download free music online. When it comes to paid content, 84% have never paid to watch or download video and 71% never pay to listen to or download music. Sixty-nine percent never use social-networking sites, 71% have never posted a comment on a blog and 79% have never written their own blogs (though 15% do so frequently)".

"Pew Research Center for the People & the Press surveyed 3,204 adults and found that those who logged on for news spent an average of 32 minutes online daily, significantly less than the time the same group recorded for other media sources -- 53 minutes watching TV news, 43 minutes listening to news on the radio and 40 minutes with a newspaper".

The conclusion is "We understand that while they're powerful new tools, the bulk of human interaction is still high-touch rather than high-tech," said Brad Fay, chief operating officer at Keller Fay.

But the problem with this whole article is it is a prime example of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle from quantum physics. Here you are presented with a whole lot of data about penetration of new technology into a market place at a point in time, but nothing about the trend in uptake in the technology.

Of course not all new media opportunities will be embraced by the population. But the internet and digital technology is changing the communication and marketing opportunities faster than ever before. For marketers to embrace the opportunities these media present they need to have in place rigorous measures to monitor effectiveness and calculate ROI. Otherwise you could quickly find yourself throwing good money after bad with no real insight or learnings.

Author: Darren Woolley

For anyone that has been through a pitch to select a new creative or media agency, one of the key issues is managing the industry and managing the media.

Just look at the recent Myer media pitch, which is currently underway.

The pitch makes ideal news because there is invariably going to be a winner and losers. But while many advertisers and marketers take a silent approach, it is actually much better to spend time planning the process and the way you are going to engage the media and industry to minimise the feeding frenzy that occurs and ensure the best possible outcome.

The problem is that very soon after the news of the Myer media review broke there were headlines such as "Singleton pressed to cut its fees" and "Melbourne agencies prepare for battle" with the corresponding industry chatter.

I think I received more than twenty calls in two days asking me if I knew of or was working on the Myer creative pitch so I can only imagine how many calls the Myer marketing department received from agencies wanting to get in on the pitch.

This is a distraction that any marketing department wants to avoid.

The way to manage this is to:

1. Have media liaison plans in place to handle all media enquiries quickly, rather than avoiding the problem and hoping it goes away

2. Have a standard response for all enquiries to the marketing department. Even consider appointing someone to handle all of these enquiries or if you have an pitch consultant, refer all enquiries to them.

3. Brief all staff on an appropriate response so that if they are contacted they have something to say that reinforces the agreed position.

By the end of the week Myer had their act together with headlines such as "Singleton hangs on to Myer retail account", "MYER RENEWS SOM CONTRACT, BLASTS "CRAZY" PITCH RUMOURS" and "SO&M retains Myer" filling the trade press and hopefully hosing calming the creative agency feeding frenzy triggered by the media review.

Author: Darren Woolley

There is a great DVD at Amazon called "Truth In Advertising" where the actors say what they think instead of saying what they usually say.

Very funny and very insightful. It is a fun way to remind yourself of what not to do.
Check out a snippet of the video on YouTube here.

Author: Darren Woolley

I picked up Paul Arden's book again for the hundredth time and was flicking through it when I discovered Paul Arden appears to be a huge fan of scam advertising as a way to win creative awards and build your reputation?

In his book, "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be" on page 99 he gives Junior Account Handlers instructions on how to defraud client funds to pay for speculative creative ads that if the client doesn't like you can run yourself on an Irish radio station and then enter into awards for fame and fortune.

Makes me wonder if any of his creative awards were for scam advertising.

Sure, scam advertising appears to be largely a thing of the past with all major award shows cracking down on it five years ago, but for a industry that often struggles for credibility with clients, this coming from such a luminary is very disappointing.

Author: Darren Woolley

Statistics are an important tool in analysis data, but often stats are misrepresented to give the impression the publisher wants to convey.

The recent "Media Buyers Survey" from Free TV Australia has some interesting stats. Based on an online survey of "around 100" media buyers from "Australia's top media agencies" the survey is a measure of the perception the media buyers have of free to air TV, which is surprisingly similar to the information provided on the Free TV website.

The question is, does the Media Buyers Survey support the facts about the performance of Free TV or the marketing ability of Free TV Australia to influence the minds of their audience, the media buyers of Australia.

What do the advertisers themselves think? After all, the advertisers are the ones that are actually paying for the media, the media agencies are just advising and placing the media on their behalf.
I am not questioning the performance or otherwise of FTA TV, but I do object to the sloppy use of statistics to support a case, where the sample size and selection process is either misleading or flawed. There are standards for the design, analysis and presentation of survey statistics supported by the Australian Statistician.

On page 3 of the report they have a chart of "Household penetration of technology" that is referenced to their own estimate and various sources but no date. Then the balance of the report provides the response to very loaded questions like "Television is the best way to reach grocery buyers with children". Was this the question to which they agreed or disagreed? Were they given a number of options, like agree, strongly agree, disagree, strongly disagree? Or was the question, please rank these media buy their ability to reach grocery buyers with children.

The results were mostly given as a percentage. But then only 86% had an opinion on page 9 as to if Free-to-air TV strengthens the performance of other media. Does this mean only 86% of people understood the question, or had an opinion, or did only 86 respondents answer it? We may never know because none of the axes were labelled.

Before you believe any statistic, make sure you understand the methodology, the result and the significance of the result.

Author: Darren Woolley

It is interesting to think that marketing and especially advertising are one of the few professions that has a department dedicated to "creativity". So much so that many advertising agencies even have a department called the creative department.

More interesting is that the structure of this creative department has not significantly changed in most of the major agencies in more than forty years. Today, writers and art directors are still teamed together under the management of the creative director just as they were first done in the 1960s.
While many would say "If you are on a good thing, stick to it". But perhaps it is more a measure of the attitude of "We have always done it that way", one of the key drivers of the status quo.

There is a great story I was emailed and you can read in our December 2005 P3 e-news about the ramifications of this attitude.

For proof this attitude is alive and well in the advertising category, only two weeks ago at the Advertising & Marketing Summit in Melbourne, a CEO of one of the major agency networks suggested there was a lot to be said for the old media commission system. The same system thrown out by the advertisers almost ten years ago. Seems even when things do change, not everyone moves on.

Author: Darren Woolley

When Agency.com in the US was asked to pitch for the Subway business, they turned the client request for a 5 minute video on the agency into a viral campaign opportunity that has the the advertising blogosphere talking.

While theatre in a pitch can go either way, demonstrating practical know-how on using channels for your own business is always a winner. This is really worth watching.
Check out the story online at AdAge.

Author: Darren Woolley

At last week's Advertising & Marketing Summit in Melbourne there was general agreement that what advertisers wanted from their creative providers was "Big Ideas". The "Big Idea" is an interesting concept, recently discussed in AdNews last Friday

The trouble is that if you ask a range of people involved in the process "what is a big idea?" you will get as many different answers as you ask questions.

Some creative people think a big idea is writing a gag into the script or getting a concept past the client that will make their collegues laugh or be jealous or both.

Some production people think the big idea comes with a big budget that lets them use the latest (and therefore the most expensive) technology.

Some account management people think a big idea is the one the client is happy with and even better happy to pay for.

Lets take the Foster's campaign for Carlton Draught as it was presented at the Summit as a case study.

The much lauded "Big Ad" is seen as a "Big Idea", but what is it that makes it so? Is it the huge production budget, enormous cast and impressive visual effects? Is it the cleverness of the script? Is it the wry humour or the silliness? Is it the idea of ripping-off the British Airways ad from the 1980s to flog beer? Or is it the strategic insight into the beer drinker that recognises that beer is fun and that it is fun to take the piss out of advertising? Or is it all of the above?

In the case of Carlton Draught, the Big Ad is just one execution of a campaign that has been running for two years or more. Each execution is based on the core strategic idea. The problem is that many people cannot recognise a big strategic idea until they see the execution of that idea as either a advertisement or an event or media execution. That's why people really only noticed the big idea in the strategy with the release of the "Big Ad".

Just suppose the big idea is the one that captures the consumers attention, engages them and converts this interest into purchase intention or even better actual purchase.

An idea is worthless unless it is executed. Until then it is just a thought. In the case of Fosters, the case study talked about double digit growth in a flat market.

So when an advertiser talks about wanting the "Big Idea" from their creative providers, do they mean the strategy, the script, the production or the whole box and dice?

Hopefully they mean one that delivers a return on investment. Because then marketers will be justified in paying for big ideas because big ideas will be the ones that deliver big returns.

What is your interpretation of a Big Idea?

Author: Darren Woolley

I recently facilitated a session with an agency and advertiser where the discussion about "Who owns the brand" came up.

The advertiser was saying they wanted the agency to take custody of the brand expression as the marketing department was decentralised and highly fragmented, therefore there was a need to have someone responsible for making sure all brand expressions (in this context marketing communications such as direct mail and advertising) were consistent to the brand.

I asked "Who owns the brand?"

Most people said the client / company owned the brand because they owned the copyright/trademark. Some said the company owned the brand because they valued the brand as an asset. An agency person said "we all own the brand". When I probed further, they meant that the marketers and the agency owned the brand.

I challenged them with Al Ries definition of a brand in his book "The 22 Immutable laws of branding". A brand is pronoun associated with a word in the mind of the consumer.

If you accpet this definition, and I have not seen one that reasonates any more clear, then suddenly the person that owns the brand is the consumer, because the brand only lives in their mind.

On this basis the role of the Brand Manager and the various communication specialist they engage becomes so much clearer.

Author: Darren Woolley

An article today in AdAge tells of how Miller Beer in South Africa used a local storytelling tradition to turn high brand awareness into trial amongst the non-users.

The power of storytelling is extensively reported for both change management and knowledge management as a powerful technique for capturing and transmitting information in an effective way.
Increasingly these techniques are being used in consumer research and now as this Miller brewing example shows, advertising itself.

An Australian company, Anecdote, are experts in these techniques. I noticed they are running a series of seminars that are really worth attending to develop expertise in this emerging marketing and advertising discipline.

Author: Darren Woolley

It amazes me that when we discuss process with many creative agencies they react by thinking we are trying to formularise creativity. In one case a Group Account Director told the client "if P3 continues reviewing the agency the creative magic would disappear". In fact what we are really doing is creating a rigorous process to protect and foster the creative process.

Clearly defining the brief, objectives, timelines and budget then creates a space for the creative process to operate from. Think of it as building a foundation on which the creative idea can be built or the launch pad on which the concept can soar.

Without a disciplined and defined process, creativity can quickly become compromised and confined within the parameters imposed on the concept after the fact. This is invariably the case when the agency complains about the client stifling creativity.

Author: Darren Woolley