Brands Deserve Better Media
A weekly column from @tomjdenford
Last week I encouraged us to remember that we are all in service of the brands we love. Whatever we do in marketing, if we are not focused on always making brands stronger then we are misdirecting our energies.
So, baby steps. Next, let's define the boundaries of the challenge for brands.
The best and most brutal assessment of the performance of brands that I've heard in recent years was the opening remarks at the ANA's Media Conference in Orlando in March 2022. ANA CEO Bob Liodice took to the stage and showed two simple data sets: The first was the share price performance of leading brands across the last 5 years; the second was the trillions of dollars invested in advertising across the same period.
His point was, that despite staggering investments in brands, the underlying businesses were not showing the growth that those CEOs might have expected from that investment. In short, advertising was failing brands and falling short of the CEO's reasonable expectations.
Bob went on to detail a litany of specific concerns; from waste, ad fraud, data security, lack of creativity, anemic innovation, and so on.
"In the short run the stock market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine." - Warren Buffet
Advertising is still largely a discretionary investment, albeit an important one. At the company board level advertising is not considered critical for company survival. The marketer knows differently and that good advertising provides a competitive advantage. It has a ‘long run’ impact.
Investments in brands should add 'weight' and heft to the companies that are investing in advertising. Every dollar of brand investment (yes, including the hundreds of billions spent in media each year) must build those brands stronger in the minds of our customers.
We have a ways to go, but we can build a system that serves brands better.
To be better we will need collective action, but the industry is currently divided: We have grown used to being entrenched in our domains; the marketer, the agency, the publisher, the tech, and the data. What we are missing is a binding narrative and common agenda.
If we believe that brands deserve better media and if we are going to succeed in giving the brands we cherish a better result from media, then we must all raise our eyes to the horizon and emerge from the trenches we have dug ourselves for too long.
For collective action, first we need collective understanding. Whether we are a marketer, a consultant, an agency, a publisher, or a vendor. From the biggest brand to the smallest content owner, I encourage us all to be more mindful of each other's needs and ambitions. We are all ultimately serving the same objective here, so better empathy and understanding is a strong starting point. From that, we can build.
When brands flourish, we all win.
Tom
COMMENTS