Barraclough on marketing and creativity

Agency traffic departments are when it starts to go wrong

2009-11-09T14:56:00Z

The moment an agency begins to lose it is when it hires its first traffic manager. A traffic department acts as a buffer between the creative and account handling departments. It is designed to ensure work flows through the agency more smoothly, ensuring processes are duly followed and mistakes are eliminated.

Seems sensible, doesn't it? But it's not.

The trouble is that it becomes the moment the client is even further distanced from the creative process. Typically, account handlers have to arrange meetings with creative teams through the traffic department - even for some simple amends. The team spirit and sense of shared responsibility that often develop between account handlers, planners and creatives is fractured. Most critically, the responsibility for successful campaign management moves to people who are not directly answerable to the client. For example, a job is only urgent if a traffic manager says it is. The client, screaming for a fast turnaround, is not their problem.

Traffic departments, along with yachts at Cannes and 4 weeks to deliver initial concepts, belong in the 1990s. Nimbleness and flexibility are key to a modern agency's success and digital technology enables us to deliver on that. Creative people working directly with account handlers they trust is the best guarantee of great work that keeps a client happy. It's more fun, too. Account handlers have more responsibility and a better life. And creatives who win the trust of clients are more likely to win awards.

If you can't manage your agency so everyone works together and takes direct responsibility, it's not the size that's the problem, but the structure.

Charities are still getting it wrong at Christmas

2009-11-03T14:06:00Z

It's time for Christmas Charity appeals. I had 2 today. One from Children with Leukaemia, the other from Shelter. The former has sent me a book of raffle tickets with a Jaguar X-Type as prize. Very little in there about Leukaemia. In fact, they give as much space to a list of their celebrity friends as they do to what the charity is doing today. The body copy, being reversed out, is also hard to read. The 2 disembodied childrens' heads on the cover of the leaflet look like aliens. The one powerful human story they feature is tucked away inside the leaflet.

I've no idea why they've written to me. Have I donated in the past? I don't think so. The letter (from Ant and Dec) is so short they don't have space for things like that. Nor much about the charity and what it does. A P.S. casually added suggests I might want to 'think about a direct debit'. There are 20 personalised labels included too. This whole pack must have cost a few pence to produce. And yet it is a confusing, amateurish jumble. I'm not going to give just because the chirpy Geordies ask me to. There's a lot of competition around and this is not Comic Relief. It is a cause with which I have some affinity and they've blown it by not getting the basics right.

On the other hand, it looks like Shelter has gone back to basics. About 12 years ago I gave them a lot of money. I stopped giving when I felt Shelter was trying to "become a brand" rather than a charity for homeless people. No brochure this time, just a letter telling Emma's heart-rending story. They've also included a snowflake decoration onto which I'm supposed to write my name and return it with my donation. The care workers will then hang it up "to make their centre more cheerful". I'm not too fussed by this gimmick but at least they tell Emma's story properly. They also take the trouble to acknowledge my past relationship with the charity. I think I'll give.

I hope the Leukaemia pack works because it's a good cause. But with more focus on children, cancer, research and treatment and less on celebs it could have worked so much better. Christmas appeals are not rocket science. But you need to get the basics right.

Are you sneering at the Royal Mail and its postal workers?

2009-10-19T13:33:00Z

Everyone's bashing the Royal Mail and CWU. The Royal Mail are being criticised for poor management, arrogance and for failing to adapt quickly enough to the realities of the digital age. CWU are being criticised for much the same thing with Billy Hayes pilloried as a modern day Arthur Scargill (Wiki him if you're under 30),

There may be truth in both accusations. But I'm not going to explore the merits of the dispute.

What I really don't like is the sneering tone of affluent urban classes - "we don't really need the post these days, do we? I do everything on my Blackberry..." the sub text being "do we really have to subsidise the post for Ethel Miggins living in a rural Cumbria?" (Yes, you do).

It's the same unpleasant sneer that's you can see in the latest Dixons.co.uk campaign where they have a pop at John Lewis' middle England values. You always used to experience it when buying a hi-fi or computer - "You want what?...you ARE joking aren't you...?". And I sense other brands are adopting an approach of "you must be stupid/out of touch if you don't use our brand" for their advertising.

The mail service provides a lifeline for many communities and for older people. My mum would be lost without it. Direct mail still delivers high quality customers and donors for many brands. I was also reassured that my surgeon chose to communicate complex, life or death medical information to my consultant in a considered letter, rather than dashing off a quick email (with the inevitable typos). And I want my internet purchases to be delivered without an extra £7.50 charge for courier delivery.

It may well be that a strike is one of the last throes of a dying industry, but we would all be poorer without it. I do hope the sneer does not become the tonal template for Cameron's Britain. It's all too reminiscent of the unpleasant 80s when we knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Ok ya?

Could the new Dixons campaign rank amongst the worst advertising ever?

2009-10-13T09:23:00Z

If you've not seen the new Dixons ad it simply says "Step into middle England's best loved department store, stroll through haberdashery to the audio visual department where an awfully well brought up young man will bend over backwards to find the right TV for you - then go to dixons.co.uk and buy it".

If the sneering tone wasn't off-putting enough, the strapline is "Dixons.co.uk - the last place you want to go." Yup. You couldn't make this up.

I've found it's always a good idea when trying to win customers off a competitor not to remind them what the competitor does a lot better than you. In my experience the men and women at said department store are uniformly helpful and knowledgeable. If "bending over backwards" to help you means they are "well brought up" then I'm all in favour. It's why middle England goes there. Oh and best not to sneer at your potential customers' shopping preferences, either.

Finally why should I buy it at dixons.co.uk? Are they cheaper? Quicker? Badly brought up? They don't do haberdashery? No reason is given. It surely can't be price because the nameless store is never knowingly undersold.

By all means produce a knocking ad when your competitor has real weaknesses. But this doesn't. It is smart alec advertising. Junior team stuff. These customers are shopping in a traditional way for a reason. Ask yourself why and come up with a positive answer to shift their behaviour. And grow up.

Any creative team without a good writer is seriously missing out

2009-09-24T15:21:00Z

There are creative teams coming out of college not knowing who's the writer and who's the art director. Fine up to a point. Why make a distinction when the best answer is a great idea that can come from either or both? Unfortunately, it's a more naive and unrealistic position than ever.

Most creative work these days from TV ads to banner ads, from email to radio, from posters to websites, demands words. Some of it demands a lot of words, such as the leaflet explaining home insurance or the web page introducing 'member benefits'. In fact, the web has led to an explosion of copy with online interaction still predominantly a text-led experience.

Employing the best writing craft in all these cases will have a direct impact on the ROI of a campaign. And many consumers, especially those over 40 (i.e. the ones with all the money) still appreciate correct English. So do all clients I've ever met. A basic grammatical error or obvious spelling mistake reflects badly on a brand and erodes its 'trust and reliability' values. If you don't believe me, get a job writing for the BBC or Daily Mail and use "it's" when it should be "its". See what happens. Even the tortuous copy sometimes created for SEO can still be correct English.

Why can't young creatives write compellingly or correctly? When I last looked schools still taught English. Yet when I take the IDM's Introduction to Copywriting course I find most of the delegates (predominantly young clients) would actually prefer a course in correct English (punctuation, grammar, spelling etc) rather than good copywriting. To be a copywriter, you need to master both, although many wrongly assume one equals the other.

Writing is a great career and you don't find many halfway decent writers out of work. And if you still want to work in a team, sort out who will write and then become brilliant at it. You'll always be in demand and you'll have a great career.

P.S. Thank you to Jon Allen for correcting my English in this blog.

Why is Barclaycard mailing people with no income?

2009-09-08T09:23:00Z

My daughter is 21 and full time at Art College.She has no job. Yet Barclaycard have written to her inviting her to apply for a Barclaycard Goldfish credit card. The enticements include a £30 shopping voucher offer and 0% APR on all purchases for 3 months. The card is very much positioned as one with which to do your shopping. The letter invites her to switch all her weekly purchases to Goldfish to earn £120 to spend on the High Street.

So I hope you don't mind, Ms Mockler, Customer Service Director at Barclaycard, but I've taken the pack before she has a chance to apply. She already owes on her student loans and on her bank overdraft. In fact, she has SERIOUS BAD DEBT RISK tattooed on her forehead. Most of the small print is too small to actually read but I'm sure it says somewhere she needs to be earning money for her application to be successful. Maybe you could have put it in the letter?

Or better still, not send her the mailing in the first place. Maybe you need to be tighter with your selections or improve your propensity models? Otherwise the bank will build up all these bad debts and we know what happens then, don't we?

Don't you hate it when brands tell you what you think?

2009-09-01T10:06:00Z

I received a mailing from Volvo. It told me I would rather be "picking strawberries in June (even though it's September), hitting the perfect volley or skiing on the best snow of the season". They say they recognise that I'd rather be doing any of things, because there's more to life than Volvo. Of course this is true for all cars. Most people are not very interested in cars. Customers buy Volkswagens because they simply want a reliable, quality product. They buy Fords for the same reason. They don't understand what happens under the bonnet and they don't care.

What I can't stand is the assumption Volvo is making about my lifestyle. Let alone the cringe-making yuppy imagery in the brochure. I'm almost 50 for chrissakes, not 30. I have three children (probably like most Volvo drivers but not like the energetic singles in the brochure) and I don't pick my own fruit because we have a Waitrose. In Tennis is shorthand for swinging where I live and skiing stories compete with inheritance tax as the dullest dinner party topic of all time.

So unless you REALLY know me and understand that I'm a mad cycling, wine-drinking, Cure fan with a family don't make presumptions. And the truth is I bought a Volvo because my wife feels safe in one. And what better reason can there be than that?

Have you been involved in a 'fixed' pitch?

2009-08-13T10:56:00Z

By 'fixed' I mean the result clearly having being decided before all or some of the participants had presented. Unsurprisingly you will never hear anyone admitting to this, either on the agency or the client side. But I bet most of you recognise at least one of the following situations:

1. A pitch process is created to give the incumbent agency a 'kick up the arse', to get them to reduce costs without any intention of replacing them. 2. The client has chosen his favourite agency but is obliged to invite presentations from others to satisfy colleagues and 'due process'. 3. The client just wants to see some ideas without seeking to make an appointment.

Do these things ever happen? Well, I'll leave you to make your own minds up. Of course, there is nothing wrong in either wanting to shake up an incumbent or wanting to appoint an agency without seeing any others. It's just not ethical to put others through the considerable cost, time and effort when they have no realistic chance of success. Although nicking ideas from a 'beauty parade' without paying for them is unforgivable.

So what's the best way to avoid any unfortunate misunderstanding?

When I was much younger, ignorant and impetuous I used to believe that intermediaries who manage the pitch process, such as the AAR, were a bad thing. That they got in the way of a relationship developing between client and potential agency. I now acknowledge I was wrong. We've been involved in a number of pitches managed by the AAR, and they have been meticulously fair - whether we have won or lost. Rather than get in the way, they've helped ensure the client is clear about the brief and realistic in their expectations. They've prevented the farce of "short lists of 17 agencies with 9 invited to present..." And with the AAR involved I feel comforted that the process is being run with unimpeachable integrity. I know they would run a million miles from anything that smacked of 'fix'.

That is not to say that any pitch run without an intermediary carries a risk. Far from it. But I would urge any client reading this to talk to someone like the AAR before setting out. It may cost a bit of money but it's far more expensive to make the wrong decision.

Why did the NSPCC fall foul of the ASA?

2009-08-05T12:18:00Z

This week the NSPCC fell foul of the ASA for claiming that "1 in 6 children are sexually abused". But it would appear this terrifying stat does not represent the number sexually abused in the physical sense as you or I might understand it. It might include seeing a parent naked coming out of the shower. The data was gathered 10 years ago anyway which questions the use of the present tense.

Besides, why do NSPCC use a statistic that clearly stretches most people's credibility when they must have a library of stats and stories that are genuinely appalling? When the cold truth is shocking, why exaggerate? Sexual abuse of children is patently the most appalling thing. By claiming it is almost commonplace you risk diminishing its impact and damaging your credibility as a witness. I cannot understand that.

For some advertisers these days, the advert itself is not that important. It is a small piece in a bigger jigsaw. Most ads only have a short shelf life so if they never run again, it doesn't really matter. The ads role is to provide a headline figure that once it hits the news rooms, the PR machine takes off. The Daily Mail is outraged. The Chief Exec is interviewed by Newsnight.The bloggers and online chatters go beserk. That's what happened with the 'MMR link to Autism' research in 1998 that has subsequently been utterly discredited, yet continues to make its tragic mark. It is the premise upon which all those one-off political party posters are based.

I would prefer to believe that the number of upheld complaints is part of a healthy tension between advertisers pushing legitimate claims and regulators protecting the consumer. Occasionally it goes too far one way or the other. Sometimes the nit picking nature of the complaints makes you despair ("the hotel is 160 yards from the sea, not 150 yards as claimed"). But we should be grateful that in the ASA we have an independent arbiter of statistics, otherwise we'd never know the difference between them and all those damned lies.

Is Cash4Gold doing anything wrong?

2009-07-30T09:39:00Z

The Cash4gold ads are unashamedly tacky. They sell hard but clearly work in terms of getting people to call. They UK ads are direct copies of their US counterparts, but now with words like 'jewellery' anglicised and with English actors. Although in real England you'll be hard pressed to find a Geordie needing tickets for a European game...for Newcastle?...ha ha ha. The ad is functional and direct, if not pretty.

But who are we to carp if the ad delivers them the business they need? It's not what you might expect from Guinness or Sony but it's doing a very job to a very different target market. Are they obliged to produce a D&AD contender? No.

So what's the issue? Isn't it more to do with morality and ethics? Are the ads not preying on vulnerable people in difficult circumstances? Would we accept personal loans being sold as hard as this? No.

Yet they are urging people to part with a potentially valuable asset in exchange for cash. Does that always make financial sense? Are the valuations always accurate? Not if you read some of the US shoppers' forums. And if you opt for 'Fast Cash' transferred directly into your bank account you have to accept the valuation they give. You lose your 12 day 'cooling off' period. There are other issues too, including the terms of returning jewellery if you DO change your mind. You certainly need to read the small print first, but how many people will?

Nothing Cash4Gold is against the law - High Street jewellers offer cash for gold too (although they don't come into your living room and entice you to do it) - and I think it's fruitless to get involved in a debate about the creative quality of the TV ad. Just be sure Granny is aware of what she's doing before she sends in her antique wedding ring in exchange for a few pounds to pay for a birthday present.

The Taxpayer's Alliance, 20:20 London and the DCSF are all wrong...and right!

2009-06-02T14:57:00Z

The series of 22 weekly videos to mobiles, designed to prevent teenage pregnancy have been severely criticised by The Taxpayer's Alliance. Based on figures from the BBC, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) initiative cost £45 per subscriber as only 5,576 had registered for the free downloads. The DCSF countered by saying it was only a trial and the figures didn't take 83,000 youtube views into account or the 265,000 visits to the website. However, a conversion rate of 2% is disappointing.

The DCSF is right to test new approaches, especially to hard-to-reach audiences. But are Government educational videos really the best thing to send to kids' mobile phones? How hard are they to view on a tiny screen that's been through the washing machine a couple of times? How much would anyone want to follow it after the novelty's worn off? Are kids in deprived inner cities really likely to sign up? Even with the faux teenage txt spk on the homepage? Are the scripts as authentic as The Inbetweeners? Teenagers instantly spot a 'fraud'.

The campaign was produced by leading digital agency 20:20 London. Would a more traditional DM agency steeped in a culture of test, refine and roll out have recommended this campaign? Many digital campaigns are still technique-driven rather than based on sound ROI principles. To only distribute 5,000 of anything free is not a great return, especially if you've spent £250,000 doing it.

For instance, on these figures it would have been cheaper to phone everyone up and have a chat about their sex lives. Or send them loads of free condoms. Surely a sassy viral, along with some deft deployment of social networking and a reality TV celeb to get it off the ground would have reached more teenagers? Even a few witty txt msgs would have done the job better.

But I doubt the Taxpayer's Alliance would buy that either. After all, they oppose all tax rises as a matter of principle, even if they might pay for a better NHS, more people surviving cancer, better educated kids or safer streets. They are they Daily Mail in finance format so anything that upsets them must have merit. And hey, we've all learnt far more from campaigns that bombed than those that worked. So well done DCSF for trying, but next time work harder on the maths. See me after school.

Waitrose and Kitcatt Nohr have got the essentials wrong

2009-05-27T18:21:00Z

I'm a big fan of Waitrose and a customer for nearly 30 years. I'm also a genuine admirer of Kitcatt Nohr, one of the best agencies in London. So there was a double sense of disappointment when I received the new Waitrose essentials mailing fanfared in Marketing Direct yesterday.

To start with, I fear that it was one of those jobs where the format came first and the creative was then shoehorned to fit. Why else, for a concept focusing on 'the week', would you have Monday and Tuesday on one side and the rest of the week on the other? Oh, and I never understand why brands feature illustrations of fresh food when good photography is so much more effective.

There are more important flaws. If you are going to suggest meals, then please give the recipes. That means the ingredients and how to cook it. Saying "you can find the recipe for this delicious meal in store" is just annoying and people won't remember to do it. Besides, if you give the full recipe you encourage the shopper to buy all the necessary items on their next trip.

Worse than that, having taken up 7 panels with suggested daily meals, only 2 panels remain to feature no less than 56 essentials products! They are therefore reproduced so small, you have little idea what many of them are. I genuinely struggled to identify the product in column 1 row 3 on the Monday side. Or column 2 row 4 etc etc. If you can't easily recognise the packaging and labelling of a range, the whole point of the pack is lost. A more conventional format could have allowed sufficient space.

Through years of working on Nectar, Sainsbury's, Persil, PG Tips and many other Lever brands I confess to being a coupon junkie. But I thought everyone knew that in retail you stagger coupon validity dates to encourage repetitive behaviour? What Waitrose has done is basically given me £4 off my next shop. That's not quite the behaviour they want to encourage.

They should be offering more than 4 coupons. Better to do 8 x 50p coupons than 4 x £1. It looks a better deal. You should then allocate half those 50p coupons to specific essentials products. That way, Waitrose oven chips (for instance) are no longer £1.25p but a massively compelling 75p! A few 'allocated coupons' will do more to promote the range and the value concept. Net coupon value often makes little difference. Shoppers either use coupons or they don't. Always worth testing though.

Don't give me any guff about Waitrose customers 'being different' and impervious to promotions or 50p offers. These are people shopping in Tesco half the time for their 'basics'. Hence this campaign.They are as incentive-driven as anyone else. They avidly collect points with Nectar, Clubcard, Boots, Air Miles etc.

I hope this campaign works well because I admire both organisations involved. It just could have been a lot smarter. Doubtless it will win an award.

Should postal workers deliver BNP leaflets?

2009-05-18T11:46:00Z

Certain postal workers are refusing to deliver BNP election leaflets. They claim they are offensive and they don't have to do so due to a 'conscience clause' the CWU agreed with Royal Mail that means its members don't have to deliver material "if they feel threatened or it is against their personal beliefs". The Royal Mail has a constitutional obligation to deliver these leaflets.

As with all these issues the question is how far do you go? Would we want postal workers to distribute child pornography? Of course not, but child pornography is illegal. Do we want fundamentalist postal workers (of any religion) opting out of delivering atheist material? Not really. Being an atheist is still legal in this country. If you accept a job as a postal worker, you are inevitably, on occasions, going to distribute material you don't agree with or is against your personal beliefs.

The BNP is still a legitimate organisation, although both its leaders and membership indulge in questionable activity. Sharing platforms with the Klu Klux Klan I don't consider to be acceptable politics. And they are driven by racism. They promote repatriation, an end to all immigration and support the rights of 'ethnic white Britons'. Whoever they may be. The Ghurkas' cause must have confused them big time.

Campaign magazine quite rightly got an earful for offering a platform to the BNP's deputy leader Simon Darby, a man with white supremacist sympathies. Campaign had a choice and made the wrong decision. Under current legislation, the Royal Mail does not have that choice. But I can see why a black or Asian postal worker would not want to distribute something that is designed to create hostility towards them.

The traditional, liberal part of me says that democracy dictates that the postal workers should deliver these leaflets. The political, instinctive animal in me tells me they should not. I'd follow my instinct every time.

After Chelsea v Barcelona, do brands want the passion of football?

2009-05-07T10:52:00Z

Take it from me, there were highly-charged scenes at Stamford Bridge last night after we were denied a number of nailed-on penalties ultimately leading to the cruellest of defeats in the 3rd minute of extra time. I've rarely, if ever, felt as low after a game. You can't help feeling that this was the result that UEFA really, really wanted.

Do brands worry about allying themselves to such raw emotion? I totally understood the anger at the end of the game yesterday, including Drogba's frustration. I'm not sure all the marketing suits do. Many would prefer an anaesthetised version of the game football, with the best side winning and the losers, along with their fans, generously shaking hands with the opposition and cheerfully admitting they were beaten by a better side. The dispassionate, disinterested, half empty boxes at Wembley perhaps being the ultimate icon of this brand-friendly, corporate football. They don't want us questioning the parentage of the referee or the opposing fans in traditional anglo-saxon. Or worse.

Anyone who goes to football regularly knows it is not like that. There is misery, fear and loathing alongside joy. Palace v Brighton is still a throw back to the worst of the 70s. Liverpool fans still taunt United about Munich. Watch the Dutch continue the war against Germany. Real v Barca is the civil war that never ended whilst Rangers and Celtic do the same for religion. Villa v City is tasty. Even the smock-wearing East Anglians will join battle. I also accept there is a still a neanderthal element amongst Chelsea support, as there is with all clubs (possibly excepting the MK Dons franchise).

But I wouldn't swap it for anything. And certainly not for the supposed better manners and sportmanship of middle class English rugby. I just wonder how many of the big brands in football really understand the values they have bought into? And whether they are still prepared to accept raw passion rather than turning the game into a bland day out, more acceptable to corporate guests.

Twitter is really really great.....for porn!

2009-05-04T11:15:00Z

In the brilliant musical Avenue Q, Kate and the Trekkie Monster sing about the internet."There's always some new site....for porn, I browse all day and night....for porn, I'm surfing at the speed of light...for porn." You get the idea.

Last week, my Twitter updates informed me I was being followed by Louise, Now, I know a Louise and when I checked her profile it didn't look like the Louise I know. Either that or she has grown her hair, dyed it very blonde and found herself to be struggling to make ends meets with more conventional work.

Louise was followed by Imogene (Thursday), Ava (Friday), Imelda and Jody (Sunday) before Jami (Monday). Unfortunately, tucked in the middle of them was Jessica (Saturday) who I assumed was another lady offering favours, but in fact works for a PR agency we're talking to. Sorry Jess.

Maybe I should feel flattered to have such attractive and generous women wishing to follow me everywhere. But it is getting a little tiresome and I fear they are not really interested in my bike ride to Wycombe.

A web guru I admire once told me that if you REALLY want to know how to use the web effectively, study what the porn operators do. They are the first to trial any technique and learn how to best manipulate it. They test, refine and roll out with a degree of professionalism that would shame most direct marketers. It's no surprise they are amongst the first to exploit Twitter commercially,

Unfortunately, they taint what they touch and devalue the medium. Already touted as the perfect tool for stalkers, the increasing number of bogus followers could destroy Twitter's, as yet undiscovered, potential as a marketing medium before it ever got going.