I once managed to persuade Rupert Murdoch into Leo Burnett (I was Media Director) for \u2018The Chairman\u2019s Lunch\u2019. This was held every month or so, hosted by the late great Richard Wheatly for senior clients. My job was to get a \u2018media character\u2019 along. I invited Murdoch; this was in the early days of Sky. He said yes. Amongst the clients present was someone senior at Kellogg\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
At one stage Murdoch asked the Kellogg\u2019s man how many boxes of cornflakes he sold. What would it cost to advertise Sky on the back of the packet? My memory is the Kellogg\u2019s guy knew the volume of boxes sold but had no idea how to price an ad on the back. He said he saw no reason why this couldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To my shame (and against myself given the rest of this post) I didn\u2019t contribute anything; I guess I just assumed this was an interesting exchange, nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning, early, I had an angry Kellogg\u2019s CMO on the phone. What was I thinking; didn\u2019t I have any idea about the production timetable on cereal boxes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apparently, Murdoch had his people call the CMO first thing to close the deal and to ask when they could expect the first boxes with Sky ads on them to hit the stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast forward a few decades. A Board Advisor from one of the platforms arrives in London by private jet to see a major advertiser\u2019s CEO. His message was \u2018why are you wasting all this money on TV advertising? All you need is us\u2019. Luckily the CEO is well enough informed, and close enough to his CMO to deflect and refer. The Advisor flew home with nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another couple of decades passes. I am on a call with a large US-based client. This client has decided to make a major advertising investment in one of the platforms. All dealings would be direct, not via any of the roster agencies. Everything would be via the client\u2019s FD and team; marketing would not be involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked how the client would know if this activity was working. Easy, came the reply, the platform concerned tells us, they share the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What all of these stories \u2013 separated by 40-odd years \u2013 have in common is how great salesmen, Murdoch, the Advisor, the platforms themselves, go about convincing their prospects to buy whatever it is they\u2019re selling. They bypass those who may be sufficiently well-informed to question what they\u2019re being told and instead go to the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agencies have increasingly become bit-part players; they\u2019re not consulted by the upper echelons of their clients\u2019 managements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One large agency told me the other week (loudly, and slowly) that I had to understand that it\u2019s all about JBPs (Joint Business Plans, for sake of clarity) these days, and that at the end of the day the agency can only advise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agencies, like any other professional advisor exist to advise. The point is their advice was once upon a time considered essential. It was rare for any client to agree an over-arching deal with a media vendor without the agency\u2019s input.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But over time we\u2019ve become note-takers, ciphers, rather than valued advisors. That\u2019s what a lack of trust does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main platforms are remarkably good at selling. They avoid the \u2018experts\u2019, those with the awkward questions and go straight to the top. Let the grown-ups do the deals and then the foot soldiers can sort the detail. Keep the experts happy by sponsoring the odd talking shop. No top manager is ever going to admit being played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Would the CEO call his agency? Nope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s one likely outcome. The investment in advertising on the platforms to the exclusion of most everything else won\u2019t work for brands. There\u2019s already plenty of evidence it doesn\u2019t work. The value of brands will decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And who\u2019s fault will that be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have one guess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I once managed to persuade Rupert Murdoch into Leo Burnett (I was Media Director) for \u2018The Chairman\u2019s Lunch\u2019. This was held every month or so, hosted by the late great Richard Wheatly for senior clients. My job was to get a \u2018media character\u2019 along. I invited Murdoch; this was in the early days of Sky. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897"}],"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=1897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1898,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions\/1898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}