In case you haven’t noticed — and many in the advertising world are still suffering the disease of disillusionment — the rules of the old ad game have changed dramatically.
This is not simply because the economy in Ukraine and around the world has taken a sharp turn into the ditch. Instead of Darwinian evolution, the ad business changes have been revolutionary.
It is easy to suggest that most of this change has come about in the last decade or so because of the Internet. This is true, but the consumer has also changed. In times past, television advertising was about getting Gross Rating Points (GRPs), or sufficient number of viewers to eyeball your commercial. Influence was not measured, only opportunity.
Today it is not sufficient to shout at a potential audience. You have to reach out and metaphorically tap the consumer on the shoulder, turn him around, and shake his hand. A hug wouldn’t hurt.
In other words, it isn’t about winning GRPs, but about winning hearts and minds.
With this in mind, and particularly in view of the current recession, I have put together what I believe are or should be the Five New ‘Old’ Rules of Advertising.
1) Charge while others are retreating. This seems as obvious as rainwater, but many companies – particularly local companies — don’t get it. Now is the time to advertise.
In sports terms, it is easiest to score when the other team is off the field. We are told that 50 percent of the billboards in Ukraine lack advertisers. Only 15 percent of the boards are blank due to the ban on tobacco and alcohol that became effective Jan. 1.
Additionally, broadcast ad rates are falling faster than timber in an ice storm, more than 50 percent. The smug media agencies that year to year raised prices and called it by the phony name “media inflation” are backing off — big time.
For advertisers today, it’s the day-after-Christmas sale at Macy’s. There are bargains galore, a total somersault from just six months ago. And guess what? Your competitors are on the sidelines.
2) It is not how much you spend but how effectively you spend it. Think simple. Think local. The Holy Grail of advertising is to create messages that drive people to action — not big budgets.
Long ago, advertising agencies sacrificed sharp, message-driven communication on the altar of creativity, though the creativity was really — and most often – just sophomoric entertainment.
Get your agency to speak to you in terms of messages that are real, rather than unbelievable product attributes. Tell the ad folks to deliver those messages in an honest, straightforward way.
If the agency insists that the commercial can only be shot on a river in Brazil, suggest that the agency get a Brazilian client. You want to shoot it on the Dnipro.
3) Wean your marketing director off those little 30- or 60-second movies on traditional television. They had a great 50-year run, but now it is time to put them in the bottom drawer, along with that crystal paperweight.
However, I spent four days with three grandchildren, age 6 to 11, in the United States over the holidays and not once did they turn the television on to watch a program. The TV was just a screen used for playing games. A mama’s real disciplinary threat these days is not about taking away the television, but the computer or the latest gee-whiz handheld computer game. Client behavior changed dramatically, and ads have to adapt.
In Ukraine, commercials still come sandwiched into 12 minute commercial blocks, giving viewers a convenient time to get up and, well, slather mayonnaise on a ham sandwich. Let’s face it: Only we in the ad business stay glued to the TV during lengthy commercial breaks.
4) Advertising must not be afraid to realize its traditional role is changing. When you get an ad guy and a public relations guy in the same room, you would think one was on Mars and the other on Venus. Even if on the same team, they compete. Tell your ad and PR people to get over it. The public communication disciplines are merging with changing times, and this is a good thing for advertisers and for advertising.
Perhaps someone should come up with another name for advertising, public relations and promotions. These days, they are all heading down the same highway in the same lane.
5) Finally, advertisers — not media agencies, not advertising agencies, not the varying channels of communication, and not PR agencies — are in the driver’s seat. Drive.
Demand that your production be message-driven rather than a one-line joke funny only to a creative director. Demand simplicity, and you will get better production that delivers messages at less cost. And don’t be impressed by the term “award-winning” in front of an agency’s name. In Ukraine, winning an award is like shooting fish in a barrel. My eight-year-old could do it. The only award you want to see from your agency is a framed graph of your sales going onward and upward. Now that’s something to celebrate.
Michael Willard is chairman and CEO of Willard, an advertising and public relations company with offices in Kyiv, Moscow and Istanbul.
