Advertising must be creative in difficult times

Valerie | 29 Jun 2009, 09:00

Leading marketers have called for advertising briefs to focus on great ideas that consumers can interact with in the face of the deepening recession.

Speaking at the annual Cannes Lions Advertising Festival debate chaired by WPP Worldwide chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, marketers from across the globe painted a bleak future for traditional broadcast and print media but there was optimism in ad agencies to come up with creative ideas that will engage people and encourage them to continue spending during the economic downturn.

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive who was at the event explained that the global advertising economy has been permanently “reset” at a lower level, warning that media companies should not plan for revenues to bounce back to pre-recession levels. He argued that traditional broadcast and print media would have to plan business models around a smaller share of the advertising market, as revenues continue to move to digital outlets.

This comes as a recent report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers confirmed that the advertising market faces a prolonged slump following the collapse in marketing spending.

The Internet Advertising Bureau also confirmed that advertising revenues online have officially taken a dip for the first time this year, with ad revenue online falling 5 percent to $5.5 billion in the first three months of 2009. On the upside, the market is expected to pick up, with a projected growth of 8.6 percent in 2009, while the global ad market is expected to fall 6.9 percent, according to ZenithOptimedia, suggesting that the future growth of the industry may well lie in digital.

One firm that is putting digital at the heart of its growth strategy is the Publicis Group. At the event in Cannes, Microsoft announced a deal with Publicis Groupe’s combined media operation, Vivaki, which will see them working together to develop new content, improve marketing performance and better target digital advertising audiences by tapping into data from TV set-top boxes. The agreement is expected to help Publicis to achieve its target of generating 25 percent of its revenue from digital activities in 2010.

Digital, along with the promotion of green technologies have stood out as the rare bright spots amid the gloom at the annual advertising gathering this year. As Claire Beale of the Independent observes, “seeking out and celebrating this sort of transformational creativity has never been more vital”.

Marc Pritchard, global marketing director at Procter & Gamble added:
“The recession has allowed us to hit the reset button and rethink everything. We are striving to ensure that we touch and improve the life of consumers, looking at how to get more value and shift the media to where the customer is… Great ideas around what consumers are looking for are what it is all about.”