Recession, a Trust Crisis and the Advertising Industry

Media: the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely. (Dictionary.com)

There is no getting away from negative media these days. Every time I watch the news there's another natural disaster, another corrupt politician and countless crimes committed.

Media. For a five letter word it sure is responsible for a lot. Media is relied on to deliver the news and advertisers rely on media to reach their target audiences. Is this irrevocable relationship between media and advertising affecting public perceptions of advertising?

The media has, for the last few years, been overflowing with news about the economy. Nicola Mendelson, President of the IPA, said at an RSA event (The Mad Men we Love to Hate: Our Changing Relationship with Advertising) that the financial crisis is a crisis of trust. The recession has resulted in a nation of angry people, angry at the banks for irresponsible spending and angry at MPs for exactly the same thing, despite the austere spending cuts affecting taxpayers. According to the Guardian, 90% of people think banks are not well run, thus there is little consumer confidence in them.

Kantar recently published a report entitled Crisis of Trust. It details the severe levels of distrust in the UK towards journalists, major corporations, police officers and politicians. I know marketers and advertisers aren't mentioned in the report and they aren't bankers, but I also know the UK public trusts the government more than they trust advertisers. Ouch.

Trust in the government is declining but they don't seem to be changing their ways. Advertisers, however, know that they have no choice but to change their ways and be open and honest in their communications. Consumers are smart and nothing gets passed them, I know, I'm one of them- and so are you.

Do you think this Crisis of Trust will affect the way you look at ads? I think so. Advertisers work for large corporations, they work for the government and they sit in big fancy buildings just like those people in the city who spent your money. But here's the thing, advertisers spend their lives trying to understand the public, monitoring society and cultural shifts. Advertisers need to have an incredible understanding of the people who will see their ads in order to have any kind of success. The recession means everyone spends less, but have you noticed advertisers aren't trying to make you buy wildly expensive items at the moment? (This doesn't count if you read Harper's Bazaar or drive an Aston Martin.) They're showing you how to feed your family for a fiver, which is great for your budget but is also telling society that it's OK to spend less on essentials. Every little helps, right? (Nerdy little Sainsbury's vs Tesco quip for you there.)

Here a couple of facts that might help you like advertisers a little more. ;-)

Not only are they affected by the economy, they contribute to it.



UK GDP and Adspend 1983-2009
Source: WARC (www.warc.com)

It's clear from this graph that when the economy takes a hit, so does the advertising industry.

In 2008, the advertising industry contributed £15.6bn to the UK economy. (Take that Mrs. I'll Expense My Husband's Porn) That's about how much the government spends on public sector IT every year. That's a lot of money.

*This post is full of links but they don't seem to be coming up - trying to fix it! (Can't be fixed - references below)

Credos (2011) Advertising: what the UK really thinks [online] Available from: www.credos.org.uk [Accessed 18 October 2012].

Dictionary.com (2012) Media [online] Available from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/media?s=t [Accessed 27 November 2012].

Guardian (2010) Social attitudtudes survey: what does Britain think about inequality, bankers and the NHS [online] Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/13/social-attitudes-survey-british-data [Accessed 27 November 2012].

Kantar (2012) Crisis of trust [online] Availble from: http://www.kantar.com/public-opinion/policy/crisis-of-trust/ [Accessed 28 November 2012].

Mendelsohn, N. (2011) “How the role and values of advertising has changed since the days of Mad Men”, RSA, The Mad Men we Love to Hate: Our Changing Relationship with Advertising, London.
(Available online from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh0ql1w8X-Q) 

PC Advisor (2012) Prime minister's advisor wants £10bn taken out of government IT spend [online] Available from: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/software/3410874/prime-ministers-advisor-wants-10bn-taken-out-of-government-it-spend/?olo=rss [Accessed 28 November 2012].

WARC (2010) UK GDP adspend 1983-2009 [online] Available from: www.warc.com [Accessed 28 November 2012].

The Real Mad Men

Last week, I ran a Bucks AdSoc event called The Real Mad Men, an event title shamelessly stolen from the book the event was about. Andrew Cracknell, author of (you guessed it) The Real Mad Men: The Remarkable True Story of Madison Avenue's Gold Age, When a Handful of Renegades Changed Advertising Forever, came into Buckinghamshire New University to discuss how advertising got started, the journey it went through and where it's going now.

Andrew began by stating that, working in this industry, it is necessary to know about its history. The Mad Men lead a Creative Revolution by tearing down what was already there and rebuilding a more inspiring, intellectually creative industry. This era gave birth to persuasiveness, simplicity, humanity and candour within the industry and everybody in advertising owes something to the Mad Men.

Between 1948 and 1968, there was an explosion of art in New York City which naturally helped to drive creativity in advertising and change the way advertisers communicated the products they were selling. This was lead by first and second generation immigrants, whose parents and grandparents had arrived at Ellis Island in hope of the 'American Dream'. This group of people had brought their own traditions and cultures with them and once in America, they developed in a new way.

With a fresh sense of creativity came a new challenge. The Mad Men had to convince their clients that these alternative methods of advertising would be effective. At that time, clients were the part of the chain that 'ruled the roost', then the researchers, then account directors and at the bottom of the ladder - the creatives. This system wasn't ideal when it was the creative people in agencies who were  making essential changes in the industry.

In 1950s America, ads contained illustrations rather than photographs. This allowed advertisers to exaggerate certain details and lifestyles to better sell to the American public who aspired to a perfect, picket fence surburban life. For example in the ad below, the illustration shows a typical 'WASP' lifestyle and depicts alternative colours and models of car. However, as Andrew said, this was all bollocks and the public knew it.

It was up to those behind the Creative Revolution to address this issue. They did this by using photographs and cleverly written copy. It was that simple.

When the rest of America was being encouraged to Think Big - Bernbach's VW campaign told them to Think Small. This campaign was simple, but it was intelligent and managed to 'sell a Nazi car in a Jewish town'. Many other agencies tried to jump on the bandwagon but had only recognised the simplicity and not the thought behind the idea. This produced a number of substandard ads which their agencies thought were creative but fell flat. As a result, creative teams were valued more and so moved up the agency ladder.

The point behind this concept is that brands needed to talk to people like grown ups, talk to humanity and avoid talking to faceless consumers. Furthermore, it was essential to talk to people about products rather than talk about products to people. Style and gloss in advertisements remained important, but it was vital to underline fashion with ideas and recognise a product when it was brilliant.

All of this has trickled down into advertising today. Simplicity, honesty and understanding audiences remains at the heart of advertising. When the Creative Revolution was happening, the people in the leading agencies were looking to be more open with the public and stop lies appearing in ads. They were reaching out to society and when I asked Andrew what role advertising will play in society in the future, he said it won't change. 



Advertising makes me Angry

Does advertising make you angry? If it does, it may be because it's in the palm of your hand, screaming at you from your smartphone. Or because it's leering down at you making you feel small and, to be frank, a bit ugly. Perhaps every now and again it strolls up to you, taps you on the shoulder and whispers "You should have bought the other mascara."

Here's the thing. Advertising doesn't scream, leer and it certainly doesn't stroll. Advertising is content that is placed in media where planners think it will get your attention and be relevant to your life. Consumers are a complex bunch, hence the endless tracking studies, neuroscientific experiments and market research. We all know complex people, the ex-girlfriend you just couldn't read, the parent you cannot get through to and the friend who won't tell you what's wrong. Despite this, people seem to think advertisers have magic dust that they sprinkle on billboards, TV ad breaks, magazine pages and computer screens that makes people non-complex. That's why they're so brilliant at getting into people's heads and manipulating them into spending more than they earn, or changing their hair colour to look beautiful. If you read that last sentence and agreed with it, advertising is not the problem. Advertising does not have that kind of power. Consumers on the other hand, well they're in charge of themselves which gives them the power. If advertising was that powerful, the industry wouldn't be bending over backwards to understand how the mind works and how it reacts to marketing messages.

I recently watched a film from a conference held by the RSA discussing advertising in society and that's what inspired this blog post. It made me angry. Advertising itself doesn't make me angry, but misplaced perceptions, definitions and identification of advertising does. Much of the discussion in this film was based around the importance of advertising within public taste and that ads have got the power to do good. I agree with this and advertising does stay within public taste (unless the whole point is that it doesn't and this is often a tactic employed by charities) and there are many cases where advertising has made positive changes in society.

In the film, the speakers started discussing marketing to children and this is what annoyed me. This is obviously a widely debated, sensitive subject so I understand how it's easy to digress when talking about it but it all got a bit stupid at this point. When speakers are told to talk about advertising in society, they should talk about advertising in society. Two of the presenters rambled on about marketing to children and one even presented a Playboy pillowcase which was  apparently aimed at teenage girls. A pillowcase isn't an ad. Playboy would absolutely never be allowed to advertise to children, they are scarcely allowed to advertise to adults. Therefore that example meant nothing in terms of advertising. That's a debate about the sexualisation of children which advertisers would never support.

The other speaker said we should celebrate culture (advertising is inspired by culture so we can tick that one off) and ban advertising to children. Ban advertising to children?! They enjoy ads and view them as a way of finding out what's new in the world of toys. The children's ads I have seen are about toys, magazines and TV shows all age specific. Of course children will watch ads and say "Mummy I want that! Can I have it? Please?!" To put it very simply, it's up to Mummy to say no. A ban on advertising to children is not only impossible but pointless. However, it would remove advertising as the scapegoat and perhaps people would then be able to get down to the root cause of the materialistic nature of children, which in the film was blamed on advertising.  

Back to the point, what struck me about this discussion was the amount of power afforded to the advertising industry. As I mentioned earlier, the consumer is far more powerful so why do people think ads affect us so much? Advertising is nowhere near as powerful as people perceive it to be.

Hands up if you think when you spray this on yourself you become a supermodel in designer clothes. No one? Didn't think so. 

I've come to the conclusion that people who hate advertising probably don't know what it is. So in my Heart of Advertising blog I will try to explain why advertising isn't a satanic force and that advertisers are in fact very sensitive to public issues and abide by the regulations imposed upon them. And maybe advertisiers do like to enjoy the occasional 'media lunch', but hey, we all have our vices.

Guardian (2012) Playboy TV's lorry advert banned by watchdog [online] Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/07/playboy-tv-lorry-advert-banned-watchdog [Accessed 12 November 2012].
Youtube (2011) Advertising in society: what's the deal [online] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chotX0c3aQA&feature=youtu.be [Accessed 9 November 2012].