re: Marketing Agencies - Scientists or Artists? By Scott Knox, Managing Director of the MCCA (part 1)

Neil Charles — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:34:21 GMT

Isn't 'sex sells' the ultimate advertising cliché?

Can't help wondering if putting some gorgeous women in the Gillette ads was one of the great ideas?

Producing great ideas through uninhibited creativity « Limelight PR's Sonar

Producing great ideas through uninhibited creativity « Limelight PR's Sonar — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:19:49 GMT

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The MCCA Blog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:36:15 GMT

Scott Knox, Managing Director, The MCCA I absolutely agree with Spencer’s points raised in the previous

re: “This Will Be A Marketing-Led Recovery” Marketing debate in the House of Commons

IanC — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:57:28 GMT

Marketing might just (possibly) play a part in 'saving us' (by defering the underlying problems) but if it does it will be a demonstration of just how stupid we have all become!

Firstly, if anyone thinks the problem with the UK economy can be solved by more consumption then they miss the point of why we are in this mess. It is not the credit crunch that is the problem (that just highlighted the problem), it is that our economy is skewed too far to consumption, retail and volatile, easily migrated services - and there is a vast over-supply compared to what we can afford (or need). The average consumer thought they would get rich off the back of ever increasing house prices, while those not owning a house gave up and just consumed for the moment.

Brown is either the most incompetent chancellor in history or an outright lier. His rediculous assumption that he could banish centuries old logic-based 'economic rules' (e.g. no more philips curve, no more relationship between consumption and inflation, etc) was so obviously flawed I've been pulling my hair out and kicking over TVs for nearly a decade.

Labour had a massive chip about being the party that buggered up the economy, so they had to keep up the farce of maintaining growth for the middle classes (house prices) and still being able to tax the hell out of peoples incomes and investments. Effectively they stoked house price inflation to 'put money in middle class pockets' which allowed them to buy votes, at the same time they could introduce 100's of taxes to fritter away on pointless public jobs (to buy more lifelong votes) and on social welfare payments (to buy more lifelong votes).

Unfortuantely, everyone is now so far removed from the levels of consumption they (and we as a country) can actually afford they are probably still over-consuming now, despite thinking they have rained consumption back. The reality is our economy and consumption patterns need a massive readjustment!!

If we want to avoid the majority of people living in horrendous poverty in their old age then we all have to save more in pensions (by at least 10% of our income on average - a huge huge number!). Oh yes, Brown destroyed the pensions industry as well.

Next problem, our education system is now so dumbed-down that we won't be able to produce the skills in the quantities we need in order to be competitive in the future (i.e. science). In fact we will need more and more taxes to pay for the increasing proportion of unemployable or low grade school leavers.

Therefore, the idea that marketing can save us seems obsurd. For marketing to save us (if spending more could save us?) it will have to stimulate the total consumption by the UK consumer, and primarily on UK based products and services. Therefore the example provided of Comparethemarket.com is a very poor example indeed. How exactly will moving your insurance from one insurer to another going to stimulate an increase in demand for insurance services? It simply substitutes insurance with one insurer presumably for cheaper insurance elsewhere. Thus all it will actually do is take revenue out of the insurance market while the new insurer pays the comparison site a fee. We're not going to buy 2 lots of insurance for each car just because we find meerkats cute!

The marketing disciplines are important for the health of the economy though, because if marketing budgets can be optimised better then companies can improve margins and/or reduce costs. But this only helps the wider economy and not just the company if it a) tends to be UK based companies optimising their marketing investments better or b) the consumer can be persuaded to buy things they otherwise wouldn't have bought and can not afford. If every company markets more effectively it will prbably just reduce aggregate marketing spends, otherwise there will not be anough consumption to meet the improved marketing.

Option 'a' is unlikely as foreign based business advertising in the UK will have the same choice of agencies. Option 'b' would simply underline how stupid we have become. Don't get me wrong, advertising works but on the whole if it is to be beneficial to the economy in the long run, it should work so as to determine which product or service is purchased by the consumer and not to generate demand that means consumers spend more than they can afford in the long run. They might substitute a holiday for a kitchen but if they can only afford either they shouldn't buy both, unless they are over-stretching themselves financially (contributing to a bubble).

So, while I agree that optimising marketing investment for each company is incredibly important and crucial for that company, it will only improve the economy as a whole if it is the UK based businesses who improve their marketing, or if stupid consumers can be persuaded to spend more than they can afford.

And if they spend more, we simply defer the underlying problems.

The customer asks extended payment terms due to recession : The LEADSExplorer Blog: Lead generation - Website visitors - CRM - B2B

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:33:26 GMT

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The MCCA Blog - All Comments

re: Marketing Agencies - Scientists or Artists? By Scott Knox, Managing Director of the MCCA (part 1)

Producing great ideas through uninhibited creativity « Limelight PR's Sonar

Aiming for digital excellence not just digital basics

re: “This Will Be A Marketing-Led Recovery” Marketing debate in the House of Commons

The customer asks extended payment terms due to recession : The LEADSExplorer Blog: Lead generation - Website visitors - CRM - B2B