When Channel 4, Five and ITV cut back their marketing spend it seemed more than a little bit hypocritical that at the same time they were pressing their advertiser clients to increase their own.
Understandably these organisations are facing tough economic pressures but surely, even if it's just for a face-saving reasons, they are the companies that should at least be holding their marketing nerve and maintaining or increasing spend rather than following the panicking crowd.
Trade bodies soak up a lot of distress or spare ad space or airtime - lust listen to how many RadioCentre ads are on air with annoying frequency at the moment or look at the NMA ads in the papers - but television, sadly, has not been able to do so. One of the reasons for this is that TV has to sell its airtime rather than give it away.
Good to see then that in a sign of collective nerve, Thinkbox is running its first TV campaign demonstrating its own confidence in its medium. Given that Thinkbox is (not yet) a consumer brand, I look forward to seeing awareness levels demonstrably rise in the post-campaign analysis as well as confidence return among advertisers on the power of TV advertising.
