CAMPAIGN-I: Perspective - Stop the moaning and start enjoying

by STEVE MULHOLLAND, the creative director of digital@jwt Campaign 06-Jul-01, 12:00

The past six months or so have been like a depressing soap opera

for me. Each week I thumb through the industry press, hoping for an

exciting plot development and dose of inspiration.
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Invariably, my hopes are floored, as the grand scheme of this drama

seems as unchanging as Pauline Fowler’s frown. Inevitably there may be

different characters but the script is depressingly familiar. It’s the

same bleating tone about the bad state of our industry and the same

plethora of opinions on how it could and should be changed.

Every week all I read is: “My agency knows this, the clients don’t

understand this, media this, banner that, click this, blah, blah, blah.”

Oh come on people! Is perpetuating doom and gloom like this really the

way forward?

Subjecting anyone to 17 episodes of EastEnders at its worst is surely

not good for the soul.

I make an exception and doff my cap in the direction of Mark Girling

writing in the trade press last week. He’s a media man with a statistic

or two to cheer us up, starting with the fact that according to

PricewaterhouseCoopers, UK online advertising revenue has already

overtaken cinema and is closing in on radio. In addition, a recent MMXI

survey reveals that for the week ending 10 June, almost ten million UK

at-home internet users accessed the web, with an average surfing time of

two hours, 25 minutes. That’s more time than most people I know spend

watching telly! Impending doom? I think not.

These figures are undoubtedly inspiring but need to be coupled with a

simple reality check. We are here to service clients’ needs, needs that

will ultimately enhance the consumer’s experience of their brand in the

new-media age. In the majority of the articles I have read, very rarely

has the consumer even been mentioned. Are we really listening to what

the consumer wants? More importantly, do we even care? Are we simply

selling to our clients and carrying on our merry way, safe in the

knowledge that a happy client represents a job well done?

The public who choose to consume our media are not the naive surfers

they were a few years ago. They are there for specific reasons and we

should be giving them what they want instead of discussing the latest

0.5 per cent or whatever click result our campaign just landed. We all

need to start enjoying what we do, otherwise this infectious moaning

will spread to our clients and more importantly on to the customer. It

really ain’t that bad!