All We Hear Is Radio Bla Bla

At Cannes we heard news that UK agencies appear to have no interest left whatsoever in radio. That everybody is focused on TV and online.

Creatives don't want to work on radio because they think it is boring, that it has little creative opportunity, that they cannot get a raise or become known by making great radio work. This means radio work often gets farmed out to juniors or neglected, not given the care it deserves.

Radio isn't a big impactful medium, it won't do anything for your brand... so let's focus on the TV and online stuff shall we?

The problem with that view is that it is totally wrong.

If you think radio is useless then you are not doing it right. Use it like any other medium and make the most of the opportunity. Treat it with respect, understand how to make it work, and then make bloody good stuff.

Has everyone forgotten the Budweiser Men of genius work? Radio spots so good that they turned it into a TV campaign, which wasn't as good as the radio. Have we forgotten that radio is really good at reaching people while they are near a computer? A nice way to promote your new digital work no?

Agencies complaining about low budgets, why not consider if that dirt cheap, badly shot on a shoestring 20 second TV ad you just made, which will air 3 times on an obscure satellite channel (UK Gymnastic 2 +1); might be better as a national 40 second radio campaign on the same budget. Giving you time to actually be creative instead of having 5 seconds to shoehorn in a cheap gag.

I've seen cases of miniscule budgets turned into double figure ROI using radio. You would think people might notice this...

We have some brilliant writers in this country, let's remind them why campaigns are about the bigger picture, not just the fashionable bits.

A Certain Ratio

Reading a great presentation by Griffin Farley yesterday, there was a little line that talked about the importance of Production values in the digital age. It strikes me as amazing that I haven't seen more written about this, and thought it was worth adding my comments to:

Production VS. Media (Draft 1!!)

Traditionally advertising weight has always been largely about media spend. A simple equation usually worked, the more people see your ad the more likely they are to remember the product and buy it/respond.

More spend = more exposure.

Except now, the power of sharing means production values are infinitely more important than ever before. Not necessarily that bigger means better, but the production has to fit in with the idea. Where there isn't budget, production should look unique or be stylised to create maximum effect, just like old cartoons used angles and styles to get round the lack of money for drawing and animating.

E.g.: Old Spice's Online Responses were low budget individually compared to the ads, but were right for the idea; whereas the actual ads were bigger budget to suit the ideas.

The production quality and relevance now plays a HUGE part in whether something gets shared or not... to the extent where the priority between media and production budget should really be shifting; where production and creative quality actually change the media schedule.

Think about it. If you spent £50k to make an ad cheaply in 1999, and ran it on a media budget of £500k; you got £500k of media. If you spent £50k to make an ad cheaply now, and £500k on media, you might get £500k of media plus a couple of £100k of online sharing media value. But if you made that ad with a £150k budget, great director and soundtrack, you still get your £400k media exposure, but are far more likely to get thousands or even millions of pounds of media value through online sharing and conversation.

Look at W+K with Honda, they made big budget ads but reduced media spend; end result was huge online viewing, sharing and publicity.

It won't work for everyone, online can be notoriously fickle. But in principle it seems to make sense to me.

I think this problem has been one of the main issues for some clients and agencies in adapting to the online world, often described as being a change from broadcast to interactive funnelling or any one of twenty different models; if you have always worked in an industry where spend + creative were key, and production was just part of getting the creative across...

Something like this:

Media Size Squared + Creative Quality + Production Quality = Resonance*

*Cultural impact, how much it is remembered, talked about, etc

(Huge Spend + Crap Ad + No Budget = Bludgeoned to submission ::: E.g.: Allied Carpet Sale!)

(Low Spend + Great Ad + Great Budget = Known only to D+AD Judges ::: E.g.: Lego Kipper)

... Then it's no wonder you have trouble adapting to the newer ways of doing things. People always talk about how sharing and creative has changed, but less so about media, and very rarely about production values. What we have now is I think closer to this:

Creative Quality + Production Quality = Initial Resonance

Initial resonance x Sharing + Paid Media Size = Total Media Size / Total Resonance

I may try and simplify those, but at the moment it's what I have!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject...

Let's Stop Reacting, Let's Start Planning

One thing that regularly pisses me off about adland and marketingworld is the amount of corporate and hyped up posturing that goes on. Adcontrarian pointed it out nicely in S&S's new video. [Note - The video itself is nicely done but suggests that we are all fixated with what we used to do rather than what we should do. A few slow thinkers aside we are Ad Agencies, not 'Passive Ad Agencies']

As an industry we are so good at overreacting with changes in the short term, and crawlingly slow at changing in the long term. Every week an agency says they have a new way, the future of advertising, the new media outlook, the end of advertising, or some bollocks idea they rushed out to get headlines and only sounds half decent because they got their best copywriter to word it over their weekend.

It's like Gordon Brown promoting changes in the Labour Party by talking about David Cameron being the next Prime Minister. It is a futile and embarassing ironic attempt to avoid being seen as backward by declaring yourself archaic.

Either that or it is over the top hype mongering in the name of specialism. "TV is dead" say the digital specialists. "[insert tech idea] is the future" say unknown tech firm hoping to cash in. It's the upper market equivalent of SEO spambots. "Get to number one in google now!" 'Well, if you are that good why aren't you number 1 in google for 'SEO', and why are you spamming me??'

Let's not even get on to agencies proudly declaring their 'creative led' attitude that turns out to mean the creative is first in line for the axe when something goes wrong.

I get the feeling that there are agencies out there still so rattled by missing the initial influx of digital change that they are desperate to arrive first at the next big cultural shift. They seem happy to be wrong 400 times to be right once, which is never a good style for adland. "Oh yes, we know our last campaign was totally misguided but cloud sourced augmented reality truly is the new iPad app".

This industry is full to bursting with intelligent, charismatic, forward thinking people. We need to make use of them, develop properly instead of hyping up every new thought to an inch of credibility because we don't want to look like we are being left behind while other agencies float off in their hype bubble.

Let's stop reacting, let's start planning.

Image from Skeletorscorpse

Interesting Defence of the Big TV Ad

A nice thought on why big tv ads are still relevant in the age of digital and social communication from James at 77pr.

The role for the 90sec ad

Was Ist Das?

Been enjoying a debate with my favourite AngloDeutsche head of state over his interesting ideas on the future of content and how traditional ad agencies might not be able to cope.

I think its well worth joining in on:

The Kaiser

You Say Potato I Say ...er... Fries.

In addition to my interview tomorrow I am now meeting the planning director of a (mostly) digital agency as well about a possible job. I love those kinds of emails, out of the blue when you are waiting agonisingly for graduate responses!!

In investigating their site I found out they are behind this perky piece of potato presentation. A great example of how simple ideas can get people talking. It also nicely matches the brand's image. And no, I am not going to use the V word...

Potato Parade

Future Marketing Summit Day Two - Part 5

Next were Google and BBH to discuss the joint British Airways and Google Earth advertising.

The ads featured shots using Google earth, with cloud pricing. While the site was designed to let you view the destination, but with a cloud image with the BA price on!

One highly interesting point was on the net ads, Google intentionally asked BA to lower the Google branding and increase the BA branding on overlay ads because Google didn’t want to be associated with ads that get in the way of sites.


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Lastly, was Jon Hamm, the founder of Greenroom digital.

He discussed how this is an exciting time for agencies and clients, a time to take risks, to become even more creative.

He also mentioned how media consumption is becoming more and more chaotic, and how the power of social media is still increasing.

An interesting point he gave was about the nature of ‘viral’ distribution is moving to ‘resonate’ and ‘right place’ distribution. Its not just about putting a funny video up, its about putting it in the right place and making it resonate with the public.

One good point was how measuring views is not the only important metric anymore, it’s about how many people in the core audience viewed it, what did they say, and what sort of response it got.


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After all these interesting people, it was left to Douglas Broadley of Imagination to sum up. Here are his major points.

“Amazing!” – What an insight!

The gloss of Kevin Roberts words was appealing, but things are not always that glossy in real life.

The idea of owning a conversation is ridiculous…

Agencies forgot to make a plan B! Hence all the recent panic!

The continuing difficulty in finding people who can move between disciplines.

Those who are quick on their feet will succeed.

Integration should just happen, but people get in the way. Integration is not a ‘nice to have’, it has to be meaningful.

Meaning will engender greater belief, which will help engage.

We need to define what unites brands and corporate cultures.

Integration is about Integrity.

People talk when you are found not to be true to their meaning, you can no longer be dishonest, people will find out.

I think this guy knows his stuff. A good choice to sum up.