Barraclough on marketing and creativity

Y&R Buenos Aires has “gone rogue”  and produced a piece of propaganda on behalf of the Argentine Government featuring a hockey player training on the Falkland Islands with the tag “To compete on English soil we train on Argentinian soil”.

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The news this week that Whitewater, the specialist charity agency, is going into liquidation is good news for no-one. The industry needs all its agencies to thrive.

It is VERY hard to run and manage and agency profitably these days. That applies to big and small. Whitewater fished in a single pool – charities – which made it vulnerable to a downturn in the sector. And if you are operating with a long lease and a number of senior staff on commensurate benefits, it can be very hard to reduce your cost base quickly enough once income falls (I’ve no idea if that was the case with Whitewater).

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Brand Republic reports “Tesco is to overhaul its Clubcard scheme with the launch of a ‘Love loyals’ programme designed to reward its best customers and the roll-out of a last-minute deals service.”

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George Smith was the man who single-handedly shook up a worthy but dull industry, then obsessed with science, analysis and technique, and proved that imaginative creativity plays just as critical a role as, say, data or print.

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Derek Holder did more than educate a generation of marketers in direct and digital marketing. He was a major part of a movement that professionalised our industry. He helped turn a rag-bag collection of entrepreneurs, chancers, writers, media owners and pointy-head data specialists into a professional group of marketers who were respected for the science and discipline they brought to bear to an often flaky industry.

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A couple of things have happened recently that have put brands on Twitter under the spotlight.

Firstly there was the Snickers campaign featuring ‘out of character’ tweets from Rio Ferdinand, Katie Price and Ian Botham which led to the denouement of  “You’re not you when you’re hungry” with a link to Snickers. The scorn heeped upon the celebs from the Twitterati was vicious along the lines of “Do you really need the money that badly?” and “I’m not on here to be advertised at”.

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The joy of Twitter or Facebook is that various campaigns seem to catch the mood. From getting Rage Against the Machine to the Xmas No.1 spot to helping Liverpool FC change their tack on the Luis Suarez affair.

Mumsnet is notoriously powerful in its pursuit of certain causes (such as the sexualisation of children) whilst other consumer issues have caused brands to rethink or even abandon certain initiatives. Read more »

For many years Tesco Clubcard has been the gold standard for database driven marketing. But in the wake of “disappointing Christmas sales” and a subsequent tumble in share price, where does it leave the award-winning programme?

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Congratulations to VCCP for picking up the £32m Saga account (Brand Republic 5th Jan).  The brief is to re-invigorate the brand through a campaign that will “celebrate the freedom and possibilities that come with entering retirement.” Well I’m not sure if being 50+ means that you are “entering retirement”. I’m not.

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Iggy Pop is being dropped from the Swiftcover TV ads. Why’s that then? Is it a classic case of the marketing team getting bored with an idea long before the public has? Has Iggy served his purpose of getting Swiftcover noticed after those clucking awful chicken ads?

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