Was P&G being anti-social?

Should you advertise on Facebook? Or as the P&G marketing chief questioned, should you monetise the place where people dump their partner? Even though P&G may not have had a good experience, several brands have, particularly some of those looking for a direct response. So where does the truth lie?

You do get the sense that a lot of marketing folk believe social networking offers advertising's holy grail. A warm and friendly media where people move effortlessly from arranging that weekend's eating and drinking to debating the merits of the latest mobile PAYG offer, organic yoghurt brands or travel insurance cover. A giant focus group where consumers eagerly discuss ways to save money on gas bills and the best places to shop for interior lighting. And where brands in those sectors can piggy-back the chat.

The trouble is life is not like that. If you are not careful selling on networking sites is a bit like someone coming into a bar and trying to sell you replacement windows. Or life insurance. Er not now, thanks, I'm trying to enjoy my drink and have a debate on the worst ever song lyrics.

People appreciate that Facebook has to make money but advertising that intrudes or is perceived to be 'big brother-ish" will irritate, especially when brands try to muscle in on private conversations. If I am moaning to my mates about how crap my bank is, do I want big corporations monitoring my conversations? Facebook has already had its fingers burnt with Beacon and is now much more wary of the way its data is used.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, you may find 'targeted' advertising even more annoying than generic advertising. Why? Because getting it a little wrong is worse than not trying. It's like Americans calling football soccer. Or Dad believing Coldplay are cool. It's why so much marketing to 'yoof' falls flat. Get the vernacular slightly wrong (is this blog sick, bare or random??) and you're instantly exposed as a fraud. Besides, it's hard for brands to enter 'conversations' with anyone. They have to toe the corporate line and sound contrived when they try to be 'on your side'. Nor can they react quickly enough to chat properly. What they can do, as the BBC, Sagazone, Sainsbury's and countless others demonstrate is facilitate conversations without getting involved.

When it comes to exploiting social networking we need to be sensitive. Brands should be encouraging feedback and comment, delivering more interesting content without pretending to be the consumer's best mate.The big networking sites offer great opportunities but there has to be empathy to tone and sensitivities to privacy or the uniqueness of the medium will burn out very quickly.  However, as with ITV Catch Up, there are cases where consumers accept intrusive advertising as the price to pay for interesting content. But get the balance wrong and consumers will switch and start again with something fresher (wasn't Second Life the last big thing?). No monopoly lasts for long in Web 2.0.

What will marketing do for Brown, Cameron and Clegg in the election?

It's the ads wot dun it for Obama. With $150m he massively outspent McCain. On TV, phone calls, mail, online ads, networking, virals, press, PR etc....He spent over $2 million on Google alone. Advertising plays a huge part in US elections. But it hasn't yet here.

The difference between a UK and a US election is that we elect a party, not a president - although the leaders' personalities are important. The issues here will focus more on managerial competence and the economy. There will be some stuff, but not a lot, about Gordon Brown's emotionally stilted personality and David Cameron's lack of gravitas. However, when Labour tried to play the 'Eton toff'  card it backfired horrendously.

TV advertising is most effective when attempting to get the electorate to take a certain view of a candidate, as it does in the US. However, even Hugh Hudson's stirring film on "The Life of Neil Kinnock" failed to convince enough people that the "Welsh windbag" was ready for office. Since Major, Labour has not had to paint the Tory leaders as 'nasty people' as they all did a good job on that themselves. But the next election will be the closest yet and marketing techniques are likely to play a bigger role.

Direct marketing will be used to target key voters in marginal seats...less to convince them to vote Labour, Tory or whatever but more to ensure they actually DO bother to get out and vote for their stated preference. Direct mail is costly, but it can be effective in this role. Lord Ashcroft is controversially funding direct campaigns focused on marginal seats for the Tories.

This may also be the first election where online techniques play a major part. I don't think there was generally enough excitement in 2005 for people to be sufficiently engaged. With a close result being forecast this will change. The glory of digital is that it takes on its own life. Rumours spread, virals are swapped, people chat and 'small issues' can snowball. For party managers, it can be very hard to address or counter issues once they've caught alight in forums.

However,  digital evangelists need to recognise that most people who actually vote will not be school leavers or hardcore gamers. People who vote tend to be older and go to the BBC for their news and analysis. Webcameron is nothing more than a PR stunt.

Most advertising and the TV ads will be designed to encourage and enthuse supporters and activists. The effect that marketing has on switching votes is limited. People don't even vote the way their newspaper tells them. News management and a sound PR strategy are more important. Did Hague ever recover from the baseball cap? Or Kinnock from tumbling into the sea? Or Howard from 'something of the night'? But these images only reinforce a perception that's already there.

So I predict for 2010 that we'll see a significant spend on marketing, especially on direct (mail, email and maybe phone), but the role it will have in vote switching will be limited.  It will get the vote out and bolster existing support. And the internet will play a much bigger part in setting the news agenda. For what it's worth, I believe the Tories have not quite got their hand firmly on the tiller and are more likely than Labour's battle-weary professionals to make mistakes. The Liberals will be severely squeezed. It could well be a hung parliament with even more pronounced regional variations. Get involved and enjoy it!

Is your direct marketing or digital agency ready for recession?

The credit crunch is sinking its teeth into agencies. On the streets of Soho we've witnessed a depressing number of agencies close or merge while from others we hear sorrowful tales of job losses. Others claim to be doing well and perhaps they are.

Both agencies I helped found were born in difficult times. But launching in a recession imbues you with sound business practices. Anyone who has ever wondered whether the agency can afford a kettle will always keep a pretty tight eye on costs. And the Managing Director who knows what it's like to make a cup of coffee for his or her client will always service clients better than those who sit in a glass office issuing instructions.

At a recent reunion of the BHWG founders, someone suggested the moment an agency starts its downhill slide is the moment it invests in a traffic department. From that point on campaigns are managed for the benefit of its own systems rather than the client's needs. Responsibility for delivery is passed from people with the client at heart to those who are balancing account handling, production and creative departments in equal measure. End result? Overpriced work produced at a pace that suits the agency.

Whatever the case, I can't help feeling that maybe some DM agencies have not woken up to the new realities. And I don't just mean by investing in a credible digital offering. Some senior people I meet are still wafting around as if it were the mid nineties, working in agencies with top heavy management, slow processes, inflexible responses, unrealistic creative proposals and a lack of disciplined analysis. For instance, testing is an alien concept to them.

Some of the bigger ones, who found ‘direct response too limiting' and mutated into ‘below the line generalists', have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. They have abandoned the disciplines of targeting, proposition-driven creativity and ROI driven strategies that make our industry so attractive to brands as we enter recession.

Nor have digital agencies necessarily mastered the marketing disciplines required to turn their technical skills into effective customer comms. For instance, to too many of them, deadlines seem an alien concept.

So how should an agency prepare for recession? Some see redundancies as a quick fix to keep figures sweet for ‘Group'. Certainly, every Senior Manager should have client responsibility and any non revenue-generating position - internal, IT, facilities, administrative, HR, finance, traffic - needs to be questioned before taking the axe to client-facing and creative staff. AMV BBDO did not become the UK's biggest and best agency by regularly shedding staff.

As important as keeping overheads under control is the need to focus your proposition. In a recession, clients look for ROI and quick gains. It's a time to re-learn your ROI skills. Rediscover testing matrices. Use test results to work out why some creative ideas work better than others and get creative teams to apply those learnings. Be smarter with your data analysis. Use web analytics to sharpen targeting and messaging. Suggest ways to migrate more customers online and test it. Revert to writing creative briefs with propositions and benefits. Breathe new life into dormant clients and revisit past ones. Show clients how you can improve their results for less than they spend now. It really isn't rocket science.