UK Creative Industries

We launched our new site for the UK Creative Industries last week:

www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk.

Read about our 'year of creativity' in Marketing

Landscape painting reinvented!

It's not often you hear a marketing term used to described fine art, but this is how Simon Wilson put it when he spoke to an RSA crowd at the David Hockney Royal Academy Private View last Friday.

The new Van Gogh. i-Pad art taken to a new level. The scale is truly wonderful. I love it all, but particularly Yosemite.

Marketers wanted!

So says Andrew Hill, reassuringly in yesterday, Tuesday 24 Jan's FT (page 14).

"I used to think marketing was simple, compared with, say, product innovation. But - if their role is broadly defined, as it must be at global companies - practitioners of the discipline have a good claim to be doing one of the most complex, challenging and important jobs in modern business."

So, at last, the penny's dropped!

A new inspirational forum

I hadn't known what to expect when I signed up to attend this year's Academy of Marketing at Liverpool's Aintree race course (4-6th July).

But I found it inspirational. Future city scoping from IBM consulting; brand championship from local hero Warburton; and a raft of research papers covering topics as diverse as women in marketing; brand renaming; entrepreneurship in SMES; user segmentation in social media.

I look forward to getting the IPA involved next year.

8 highlights from Google's 2011 Zeitgeist conference

Thanks to Andrew McCormick, reporting in Marketing Magazine, as below, all of us can now take learning from the thought leaders in digital!:

In the age of the web, the government wants to be Alpha government

In his opening keynote address, UK Chancellor George Osborne gave an insight into the future of government's digital communications. 'All our public-service reforms will be digital by default, and ministers will have to justify why anything can't be digital by default and has to be done through conventional channels,' said Osborne. He pointed to Alpha.gov.uk, a bold experiment in delivering digital services that is definitely worth checking out.

Retail should revolve around ecommerce

Angela Ahrendts, chief executive of fashion house Burberry, said that digital has revolutionised the brand's approach. 'We said to the IT guys that they've been doing a good job at the back of the bus, but I need someone to help drive the bus ...we (now) have a million people a week go on to our website from all over the world. So if that's the front door of the house and more people are doing that than are visiting anything physical, shouldn't we make sure everything is geared around that?' Bus and house analogies aside, Ahrendts makes a salient point.

We have seen only the start of digital's impact

'We have not seen half or even 10% of the change that will happen,' said Publicis Groupe chief executive and chairman Maurice Levy, referring to the digital revolution. 'There are a lot of people that read the papers and not the web. We have a lot of people that are dramatically changing the way they are learning, shopping - even getting married. These people are changing the world and we are very far from seeing what will happen and the impact of everything.'

Brands can relieve poverty

Dame Barbara Stocking, chief executive of aid and development charity Oxfam GB, held Unilever up as a beacon to other brands. 'Unilever is buying up vegetables out of supply chains for its Knorr stock cubes,' she said. 'Now, we've got a five-year arrangement with them in Azerbaijan ...That's fantastic for the poor farmers because they have a guaranteed contract and that's what they're looking for.' The result is the alleviating of poverty and something that Unilever can be proud of.

Musicians can teach brands lessons in advocacy

Speaking about Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's Gorillaz project, Dan Duncombe, vice-president of digital at EMI, said some artists are pioneering online marketing. 'We know that outside of the artist being our best advertising, fans are our biggest advocates and we use that fan advocacy to extend the idea of that artist and their creativity. So through social-media mechanics, we turn two fans into four and four into eight, giving incentives, content, points - and points mean prizes and bigger opportunities,' he said.

Digital is not all good

'One of the unfortunate byproducts of the digital revolution is that our ability to process and communicate that which is numerical, sequential, rational, proportionate and intuitive, has leapt ahead of our real understanding of human psychology and human nature,' argued Ogilvy Group executive creative director and vice-chairman Rory Sutherland. 'So there is a kind of imbalance that's created, which, in many cases, leads to inefficiency in the value creation that businesses can actually achieve.'

YouTube's 'Life in a Day' shows the potential of online video

Film director Kevin MacDonald explained that YouTube's 'Life in a Day' project, the creation of a feature film from videos submitted by users around the world, points to a new way of storytelling and entertaining. 'We ended up with the idea that on a single day, we'd invite people to film their lives and answer a few simple questions. What do you love? What do you fear? And what do you have in your pockets? We had 81,000 submissions from 191 countries and 5000 hours of material.'

Self-drive cars

At any Google conference there is the obligatory 'out there' project. Last year the search giant wowed the audience with its impressive development of Google Translate. This year the star project involved 'self-drive cars'. This is not a theory, it is a reality. The only question is, which will be the first car brand to get involved and lead the way?

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk

Marketing isn't just for Christmas

I read a piece in The Guardian yesterday about the correlation between Christmas and suicide. Venturing into such dark territory it was easy for the journalist to then shine his not very bright torch on Christmas being ..."Dominated by the advertising industry." It seems that bashing advertising and marketing isn't just for the rest of the year but for Christmas too.

On this crude logic the angel Gabriel should have been villified for representing Christ's first real marketing message but got off much more lightly than John the Baptist who was equally on message but off his head?

In the same newspaper, there is talk of the forthcoming VAT increase and 74% of retailers in the British Retail Consortium expecting to raise the prices of their goods in the shops in 2011. Advertising and marketing do not cause that to happen, any more than they cause people to commit suicide. In fact it's probably such monocausal logic that leads lonely people to stress in the first place. Surely individual backgrounds, life journeys, peer pressure, oh, and journalists writing about the 'haves' and 'have nots' have someting to do with it?

Bad news sells newspapers but don't journalists also have a duty to spread Good News at this time and the roles of advertising and marketing in lubricating the economy - goodness knows we need that in the light of banking's failure to do so - as well as keeping the prices of their own newspapers at affordable levels for most of us to be able to read their wise words?

Instead, a bit like with the scribes who failed to see historical prophecy becoming reality with their own eyes, journalists today too often rely on their favourite scapegoats for explanations and wildly inaccurate assertions of biblical proportions when this and every other season should really be about The Truth?

The inception of vuvuzelas

Following my post on Google's Zeitgeist report, I was interested to read the Netimperative piece on top tweets of 2010.

Even talking about 'top tweets' is itself a 'breaking phrase' or 'trending topic' as it would have been meaningless just a relatively short time ago. While the Gulf Oil spill dominates Twitter's charts, who would have thought that a word in common use such as 'inception' could take on an entirely new life becaue of the film. Great film though and loved the ending which, unsurprisingly, I didn't see coming!

Vuvuzela is, on the other hand, a word I'd never heard of until this summer's FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Couldn't even have guessed at the meaning of it, though the idea of it is permanently planted in my mind now. Probably could have guessed at England's underwhelming performance; a familiar nightmare squashing marketing dreams.

When status counts

Went to the Royal Charter Ceremony of the Worshipful Company of Marketors last night!

Apparently it was in 1135 that the very first livery company - the Weavers - was awarded the Royal Charter. So it's only taken marketing another 875 years. It's in recognition of the company's services to the profession and to the City.

Seriously though, the pomp and ceremony was spectacular - particularly the pikemen. The Guildhall surroundings were awesome. And HRH The Duke of Edinburgh added a touch of glamour.

Congrats to Past Master Keith Arundale and Present Master Venetial Howes for making it happen.

A strong marketing constitution

The enthusiasm for the marketing profession and marketing output was palpable at this year's US Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) conference. Keynote speakers got standard ovations; when creative output or business results are shown people cheer
and clap.

There was a real sense of pride and purpose. And a sense of importance. No wonder the conference was named 'Masters of Marketing'.

The ANA even have a Marketers' Constitution, with 10 behaviours that masters of marketing should exhibit; and they recognise companies and individuals who have been outstanding performers. Food for thought, for the UK's browbeaten marketers.

So what does the Marketing Constitution say?

1. Marketing must become increasingly targeted, focused and personal.
2. Marketing must build real tangible brand value.
3. Marketing must become more effective - more creative, insightful and accountable.
4. Marketing must become more integrated and more proficient at managing multi-platforms.
5. The marketing supply chain must become more efficient and productive.
6. The marketing supply chain - agencies, media and suppliers - must become more responsive and effective.
7. Marketing leaders must be better highly skilled diverse leaders.
8. Marketing must be indisputably socially responsible.
9. Marketing must be unencumbered by inappropriate legislation or regulation.
10. The marketing discipline must be elevated and respected.

Perhaps it's time for the Marketing Society to dust off its Marketing Manifesto?

City analysis

As part of the IPA's City Programme we produced the following range of publications:

Best practice in narrative reporting 2009 (12.08.2009)
Best practice in narrative reporting: an international perspective analyses 50 reports from the 2008-2009 financial year, including the top 10 consumer marketing spenders from the USA, Europe and Asia, and a further 20 UK reports, representing top media spenders in the UK.
To download PDF please visit:
http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/Best-practice-in-narrative-reporting-2009

KPI’s for marketing reporting (23.04.2008)
This publication sets out why marketing KPIs should be included in the company reports of the FTSE 350, what the measures of marketing success are, and how to predict them; from which 20 performance indicators are identified. It also explains why marketing KPIs are currently left out of such reports, for example a lack of involvement from marketing departments in preparing them, a lack of confidence in the credibility of marketing data amongst report preparers, and a lack of a coherent framework against which marketers can provide the data the boardroom is after.
To download PDF please visit:
http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/KPIS-FOR-MARKETING-REPORTING


How Analysts View Marketing (28.07.2005)
IPA research among 50 leading City analysts representing the FMCG, automotive, telecoms, financial services and alcohol sectors, which shows there is an ‘information deficit’ when it comes to tracking advertising and promotions (A&P) activity.
To download PDF please visit:
http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/How-Analysts-View-Marketing