I want to tell you about something inspirational; something that has inspired me and might inspire others. I toyed with art, imagination, insight, curiosity. Even love.
But given these are recessionary times, I came up with money.
Does this seem like a grubby and uninspirational theme? If so, this might be part of the problem. Planners do not centre themselves sufficiently around money. It’s to do with our natural sensibilities; we are more likely to be frustrated novelists than frustrated accountants.
Imagination, empathy and clarity are cornerstones of our art. But they are (of course) just means to an end. Account planners are money making machines. They exist to make their clients money. They are the bridge between a creative endeavour and an improved balance sheet. They are better placed than any other advertising discipline to achieve this.
Agencies sometimes talk about channels that “sell” (such as DM) and channels that “build the brand” (such as advertising).Is this meant to mean that advertising doesn’t sell? Perhaps it builds a great image for a bankrupt company. Perhaps what is meant is not that advertising won’t work, but that it is intended to have some kind of vague “long term” sales effect. But how can advertising have a long term sales effect without a short term sales effect?
People who say “the purpose of advertising is to build image” risk not giving a proper reflection of how advertising is intended to make money. It makes the client think you don’t really care about business in general (or, worse, their business in particular.) Perhaps subconsciously a lot of us don’t really believe that our advertising will make money. In these cases, talk about “brand image” is comfortingly woolly. It absolves us from responsibility.
The ways of spending money used to be simple. You did some advertising. Sometimes it made money, sometimes it didn’t. And sometimes you didn’t really know. But now there are lots of different ways to invest. Lots of different ways to make money (or to waste money).
With more alternatives, the issue now is not even whether you make your client money; it’s whether you make them more money than the other alternatives they have available.
The winners over the next ten years will be those who come not just with wonderful ideas, but with sound financial arguments as to why and how these wonderful ideas will make their clients money. They will have a theory about exactly how they aim to make money for their clients. Not just in ten years time, but in one year’s time. I have seen the future, and it has a spreadsheet.
Have the right frame of mind. Judge everything against whether you really think it will work. You might come with a wonderful insight, you might have cleverly turned the problem on its head, you might have produced a clever twist worthy of an APG Grand Prix. But it might just not be right. If you’re a good planner, you can probably argue pretty effectively that black is white. It is important to step back from time to time and remember that it isn’t.
Treat the client’s money like your own. (Not literally; this is embezzlement). Be careful with it, don’t waste it, spend it wisely. This means putting in place a strong, logical financial argument. It also means using your gut feel: if this were your money would you actually spend it on what you are suggesting? If the answer is “no”, you might be doing something wrong.
Here’s something to try. Try doing the job for cheaper. (Because this is what someone else will be trying to do.) Halve your budget, set yourself the same sales target, and see what you come up with.
In this case you’ve got to be rigorous. You can only make money if you influence behaviour. Your starting point must be getting people to do something, rather than getting them to think something. New users or existing users more often? Instead of what? Where, when, with what, with whom? You know the drill.
Monetise this behavioural shift. How many people do you have to get to do what how often in order to meet your objective? Is this sufficient to justify your spend? If not, think of something else.
Now give yourself a media budget of zero. Okay, now give yourself a media budget of minus £1m. This means the solution is not just a piece of brand communications but a way of generating money in its own right. What would this look like? Communications that people are willing to pay money for? Service initiatives that are not really communications ideas at all? What fun you’re having already.
Trying to make money and save money for your clients is actually a brilliant way to spark the imagination. After all, capitalism is based on this premise.
Generating revenue means being different. Saving money in communications means boxing clever. So “money” prevents lazy solutions. It spurs us on to better things. Which is why I thought writing about it might be an interesting theme.
Matt Willifer is Head of Planning M&C Saatchi and Chair of UK APG
I think you make some great points, I just have one correction, DM IS a form of Advertising. I think a channel that builds the brand might be television.
Posted by: James Colistra | Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 18:01