{"id":1369,"date":"2020-09-03T10:39:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T09:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/?p=1369"},"modified":"2020-09-11T12:30:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T11:30:25","slug":"mark-reads-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/mark-reads-folly\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Read’s Folly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Things always seem to kick off at WPP when I\u2019m away. In April 2018<\/a> (when the Cog Blog was on a break..) Sir Martin Sorrell left his creation. This time it\u2019s some poorly thought-through remarks from Mark Read, Sorrell\u2019s successor that have fired up a number of advertising luminaries over the age of 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what Read said<\/a> to an analyst as reported in \u2018Campaign\u2019: \u201cIf you were to sit through a client presentation or if you were to sit through meetings we have, it\u2019s not Mad Men<\/em>, we\u2019re not sitting there thinking about 30-second TV ads \u2026 We have a very broad range of skills and if you look at our people \u2013 the average age of someone who works at WPP is less than 30 \u2013 they don\u2019t hark back to the 1980s, luckily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Campaign\u2019 headlined Gideon Spanier\u2019s story: Mark Read on reopening offices, job cuts, Accenture and his \u00a348 expenses.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fuss has been rather less about the extravagance of the \u00a348 and rather more about what many see as an ageist remark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, Read has (sort-of) apologised (and before someone has a go at me the grammar and punctuation are all his): \u201cAll ages are we valued at WPP and the last thing I would want to suggest is otherwise and of course experience is valued. I was asked by an analyst if we had too many people who just did TV ads at WPP and this was my response. I guess I said it to try to make the point that this wasn\u2019t what our people did. I certainly don\u2019t want suggest that age is any way a good thing on its own and I\u2019m sorry that is how it reads.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, it\u2019s worth getting even the smallest facts right. The Mad Men era was not the 1980\u2019s. The final series ended with Don Draper dreaming up the famous Coke \u2018Hilltop\u2019 ad which aired in 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, as Cog Blog aficionado Alan Brydon pointed out on Twitter: \u201cI seem to recall that the 80s were full of stunningly successful ad campaigns, with brilliant creative and media work driving huge sales for clients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertising today is not exactly brimming over with \u2018stunningly successful\u2019 campaigns. Rather, as all kinds of surveys have shown trust in advertising is close to an all time low. Creative standards are by general consent abysmal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can argue that this is due to all sorts of factors, but to suggest that we are living through some sort of golden age brought about by the diversified skills of a holding company is as absurd as suggesting that we can learn nothing from the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I was a client looking at the output from my agencies; advertising, media, research, data analytics, PR, social media, influence marketers, I think I may find myself pining for the time when commercial messages of all shapes and sizes just seemed to work better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s the age issue. I was genuinely amazed to discover that according to its CEO, WPP\u2019s average age across the business is under 30 (apparently it isn\u2019t, by the way). Admittedly they have sold Kantar \u2013 where much experience and wisdom resides \u2013 but even so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ageism is nothing new, as I know from personal experience. Claire Beale (whom I had never met) wrote a spiteful piece in \u2018Campaign\u2019 (the industry\u2019s mouthpiece, remember) when I took over Universal McCann EMEA saying that surely they could have found someone younger for the role. Clients disagreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I write, Gideon Spanier has addressed the ageist point.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is weird (as Bob Hoffman says<\/a>) that we don\u2019t seem surprised when people over a certain age win the Nobel prize. Or Emmys. Or Oscars. But it is clearly beyond the wit of old gits to write an online ad or plan a multi-media campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a certain irony that the financial driving force of WPP, GroupM was started and built by the likes of Irwin Gotlieb, Rob Norman, Nick Theakstone, Steve Allen and the rest. No disrespect to them but even back then they weren\u2019t kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shouldn\u2019t the Board and management team at WPP at least reflect this commitment to the young? I haven\u2019t checked, is the WPP Board\u2019s average age younger than that of the average FTSE 100 Board?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cindy Gallop<\/a>, Dave Trott<\/a>, Bob Hoffman and many others have done a great job demolishing the age argument but it is worth making the additional point that spending time on great TV ads might be just what clients need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the only<\/strong> thing (that was<\/strong> a mistake of the past) but big, fame-generating ideas which inevitably start life on TV before taking flight across all communication channels (and not just ad channels), combined with real results tracked and measured by great data people wouldn\u2019t be such a terrible idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things always seem to kick off at WPP when I\u2019m away. In April 2018 (when the Cog Blog was on a break..) Sir Martin Sorrell left his creation. This time it\u2019s some poorly thought-through remarks from Mark Read, Sorrell\u2019s successor that have fired up a number of advertising luminaries over the age of 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[11,7,4,10,6,5,9,12,2,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1375,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions\/1375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}