On Wednesday, presentations got underway at the ICA’s FutureFlash conference in Muskoka. Speakers touched on everything from the challenges marketers face in reaching time-constrained consumers, to a radical reformation of the marketing industry itself. Below are some of the most compelling and provocative ideas that were shared by speakers during the first day of the event.
Bryan Wiener, chairman, 360i:
- Consumer behaviour is radically changing, but the marketing industry isn’t keeping pace
The marketing industry risks becoming irrelevant to business if it doesn’t start to change rapidly, said Wiener. The main issue? The current advertising ecosystem was built to serve the television, and it still operates this way despite the overwhelming influence of digital. Television can still be a highly effective marketing medium in certain circumstances, but it’s starting to hold us back, Wiener noted. There are a few brands that have managed to throw the rulebook out the window, though, and there are lessons marketers can learn from these trailblazers. Wiener’s favourite example of an unconventional marketing strategy is that of Red Bull. The company spends a whopping 33% on its marketing budget, and the result is that its extreme stunts and branded content have earned it more YouTube followers than Justin Timberlake. There’s a three-step process to adapting your campaign to the modern era, Wiener said. First, you need to throw out last year’s budget and start from scratch – no more adjusting numbers from one year to another. Each project going forward should be seen as its own, new venture. Next, break down any instance of a silo system among your agency partners or within your organization – it’s time to be integrated. “What got us here won’t get us there,” Wiener’s slides noted. “[Marketers] have to be catalysts for change.”
Matt Murphy, group creative director and partner, 72andSunny:
- Brands should never half-ass anything – when you commit to an idea, see it through completely
Nowhere was this more apparent than in 72andSunny’s work for K-Swiss, which featured the foul-mouthed central character of TV show Eastbound and Down, Kenny Powers. The decision to feature a campaign starring a fake athlete was potentially brilliant, but also risky. Murphy remembers the brand being nervous before the campaign launched, but 72andSunny had faith. Once the work was released, and the team realized that everyone else could see the humour in it, the work took on a life of its own in “the culture,” as Murphy called it. K-Swiss wasn’t the leader in the athletic footwear industry, but the campaign was “just brave and bold enough that people began rooting for the underdog,” noted Murphy. The lesson? If you’ve got a crazy idea, commit to it. It’s the only way to get others on board and for the work to succeed.
Martin Weigel, head of planning, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam:
- The marketing industry is addicted to short-term results. This is bad for brands and bad for business
Weigel had some unsettling statistics to share with the FutureFlash delegates:
- Today the average agency-client tenure is just three years.
- Only 28 CEOs in the S&P 500 have spent 15 years or more in their post.
- Half of viewers stop waiting for an online video to load if it takes 10 seconds or longer.
“We live in impatient times,” Weigel noted. In a system that looks to extract value from products and brands in order to pass dividends back to shareholders and the C-Suite, “culture has relocated itself to the present moment,” said Weigel. Business and marketing by proxy is “blind to anything that isn’t happening right now.” Agencies chase earned media impressions, video views and social media shares, and consider these numbers to be the most important measurements or indications their advertising is working. This, however, is not brand building, said Weigel, and brand building is far more important to the long-term success of a business. Building a great reputation for a brand, one that solidifies it in the minds of consumers, is something that takes time and patience. The focus in marketing, he argued, needs to shift away from quarter-to-quarter sales and margins, and back towards long-term ambitions and expectations – it’s the only way to create value for a company, instead of just extracting it. In Weigel’s opinion, brands that are doing this well right now include Nike, Old Spice and Booking.com. “We need to start rethinking the role and value of the corporation… to start understanding the needs of ordinary people,” he noted. “We should be lending our voice to the growing demand for a reformation of what the corporation exists to do, and its role in society.”
