Saying and Doing

I should say at this point that it is no great exaggeration to state that I owe my career in large part to Procter and Gamble I worked on the business in the UK and then globally at Leo Burnett the CEO at Aegis who subsequently hired me was exPampampG and my experience certainly did me no harm They taught me more than any other advertiser with whom Iamp8217ve workedWhen Burnett first won the business from what was then YampampR in the early 1980amp8217s I remember having a drink with the other Procter agency Media Directors As the new boy I said I found the whole business overwhelming weird evenProcter had their own language of acronyms their own TV deals their own rules and guidelines I admit I struggled in the early weeksJohn Perriss the Saatchi Media Director described them to me as the quotbest client in the worldquot To paraphrase him quotThey believe in advertising theyamp8217re fair theyamp8217re highly professional and ethical they believe in paying their agencies top dollar for the best people They spend a load they pay on time Theyamp8217re loyal to their agencies Theyamp8217re the bestquotI remember thinking John had drunk too much of the KoolAidI learnt and he was 100 rightThere was and is something else about Procter They saw themselves then and I suspect they still see themselves as leaders of the industry as having a responsibility to speak up for advertisers They never used to talk publicly but their support of ISBA and the various industry bodies and JICs was impressive if understandably selfinterested PampampG got what PampampG needed because PampampG turned upNowadays they talk a lot more in public which is a good thing and Marc Pritchard is much in demand on platforms understandablyYou just know thereamp8217s a but coming amp8230I have a sense that today they talk more and do lessIn 2017 at a similar event Pritchard made what Mark Ritson called quotThe most important marketing speech of recent timesquot The Cog Blog summarized it hereThere was much talk of insisting on Facebook etc introducing objective measurement and verification Of keeping to MRC standards Of cutting out the inefficiency of all those middlemen involved in online buyingProcter introduced a boycott of some of the social media platforms soon after Most shrugged and just carried on with business as usual I donamp8217t think that boycott is still in placeToday what are the biggest issues facing the advertising media business Fraud certainly Hate speech Lack of editorial control over online media platforms Lack of truthfulness Political interference in investigative reportingHow many of these issues does Marc cover in his 2023 speech As far as I can tell the answer is none I wasnamp8217t there and have only read the article Instead he talks of understanding consumers more increasing reach reducing excessive frequency ensuring more of a focus on advertising effectiveness and working more productivelyNone of these things are unimportant but are they really the most important issues of the day They sound a bit 1980s to me updated with the latest in personalization creative diversity and a few attention metricsThe ad business is facing many huge issues How we tackle them is a subject for much debate and discussion The blurring of the line between interference in editorial matters and supporting responsible journalism well done GroupM for their Back to News initiative is but one exampleAd fraud which remains rampant throughout the programmatic ecosystem and appears to be largely ignored by the ANA whose latest pronouncements couldnamp8217t even agree on an estimate of the size of the problem remains a massive drain on marketing budgetsThese are the sorts of issues where an advertiser like PampampG can truly provide leadership Not everyone will agree with whatever they say but just by speaking out they would aid discussion and debateAnd that would be a great thing if rather more controversial than maximizing reachSelfpublished at MediaVillage through the wwwAvrioB2Bcom platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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