What Sir Martin Sorrell says is always worth listening to, even if he does have the habit of trotting out the same stuff, presumably as a process of reinforcement or because he does so many speaking engagements.
I caught him at the Advertising Association’s summer reception at the House of Lords last night. He reinforced his previously stated belief that 2008 would not be as bad a year as a lot of people think, although he conceded that developed advertising markets such as Western Europe and the US would have a much harder time than developing economies such as China, Russia, Brazil and India. He warned that the downturn would be as serious in developed markets as it was in the early 90s, with 2009 expected to be a tough year and green shoots of recovery emerging in 2010.
But he was quick to point out that his company, WPP, is no longer an "advertising" firm, and that the name "Advertising Association" was something of a misnomer in the world of modern communications. Only about half of Sorrell’s group revenues now come from what would traditionally be called advertising – including 15% attributed to media planning and buying, which, encouragingly for us in the media world, he called the engine room of future growth. The rest comes from things like market research and digital.
Ad Association chief executive Baroness Peta Buscombe admitted that they had been thinking about their branding and considering new names with communications in the title rather than advertising, so watch this space for a possible re-brand at the AA.
Sorrell advised the advertising industry to keep the wheels of the industry turning in the coming tough times by investigating communications strategies that will persuade consumers to change their behaviours or even to consume less, which led to mutterings from people in some parts of the room, who find that whole concept an anathema.
But I was most interested in the fact that he split digital out as a separate category in his analysis of WPP’s revenues. Surely the whole concept of the modern communications industry is that agencies should offer their clients integrated planning that isn’t platform-specific?
