The industry has certainly changed in the last 30 years – some of it for the good, but unfortunately a lot for the not-so-good. There was a time when ‘quality’ was probably the greatest asset of the client, agency or media owner. With few exceptions, agencies were ‘tribes’ – they were fiercely competitive, spent little time in each other’s company, and truly believed in their individual ethos, brand and product. If you moved you were treated as a pariah and outcast, a traitor to the cause. Unable to hack it, to deliver to the required standard. Pride was a huge factor, and all strove to add that little extra that would discern their product and presentation from those of their competitors. Today the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’ are the prevalent characteristics on display.
It shows. Hell, we haven’t seen an incredible campaign in South Africa in years. One that generated yards of newsprint PR, that had the South African public talking. A campaign that ingrained itself into the fabric of SA society – ‘Chuck us a can, Charlie”, ‘Makes you think doesn’t it?”, and ‘Yebo Gogo” all spring to mind.
Still, I suppose there are more reasons for the above than loss of loyalty and team spirit. Maybe the marketer who’s more concerned with product intrinsics and bottom-line than brand building? Maybe ad-agencies’ over-reliance on production values over concept? Maybe the SA consumer becoming resistant to good ideas, and great communication?
What we also haven’t seen for years are legitimate pitches. Sure, pitches still happen, but clients are driven to them for one of a few reasons: the pictures don’t deliver; sales are down, and a new advertising agency will regenerate them; or maybe the client wants a whack of input, but cheaper. Go back 20 years and pitches were for new products being launched, or maybe a new company had entered the SA market (which, unlike today, wasn’t ‘aligned’ worldwide to a communications company, based on a ‘worldwide standard’ in terms of what they’d pay).
Back then advertising was a career, not a stepping-stone. Salaries were highly competitive (margins were better), and as a result the flow of personnel was from marketing and media companies into ad agencies. Today the pressures of finance bite. The really talented ad professional spends a few years in the industry and then moves to client marketing departments, or to media owners, both of whom can offer better short-term and more long-term rewards and prospects.
I also have to comment on the media industry, don’t I? Here a question I’ve asked before warrants repeating: what happened to the days of serious arm-wrestling for another percent or two, heated exchanges punctuated liberally with four letter expletives, demands and counter-offers, really believing in your product, its efficacy, and its price? Today if you just sit quietly and are non-responsive, either more discount is thrown at you (because over-inflated prices allow for this in the first place), and promises of position, added-value, and the impossible, are all forthcoming. Alternatively, you’re just bloody lucky to get anything. It seems clients spending huge volumes are treated similarly to those hardly spending a cent. This is because sales personnel are just too ignorant to understand yield, margin or profit, and are therefore let loose as nothing more than tea-drinkers!
Harry Herber is group managing director of The MediaShop.