UK Advertising Still Doesn’t Understand Online

Online ad spending may be on the up, set to rise by 7% next year, but judging by various recent industry reactions, the UK advertising industry is still regarding online as some cute new toy rather than the potential revenue mountain it should be.

Last week at the IAB Engage conference we saw AOL’s Jeff Levick slagging the UK advertising market off as being obsessed with the X Factor ad slots, and neglecting the online space. Now, in an article in Ad Age, a whole host of industry heavyweights line up to pillory UK advertising. “There is a tendency to default to the safety of TV and posters”, says David Droga, formerly of Saatchi and Saatchi; “Creativity is at an all-time low in the U.K… The new interactive model requires a new mindset and a new skill set. Not everyone is able or willing to make the transition”, accuses Steve Henry, former exec creative at TBWA; “We are struggling to find a direction”, says Jeremy Craigen, exec creative at DDB.

Meanwhile, this blog over at Brand Republic notes research that shows how little advertising agencies are genuinely engaging with social networking, regarding blogs/Twitter/Facebook as things to be seen to be doing, rather than things that could actually get you traction.

So why this malaise? Part of it could be the reluctance of the creative end to engage with the fragmented online advertising space compared with the epic canvases of outdoor and the storytelling of TV. As one of the interviewees in the Ad Age piece suggests, there is a greater level of public discussion about advertising in the UK than in the US – we’re likely to talk about the latest Honda campaign as much as Jedward or Jordan over the watercooler. This has led to a climate of ad-creative-as-auteur, which dangerously pushes campaigns onto pedestals away from the public; there’s a latent sense of online, with its primacy to the consumer, is somehow debasing the creative’s “art”.

Charlie Brooker notes today how Christmas ad campaigns for M&S, B&Q and others are descending into embarrassing self-referentiality – there’s a depressing blend of fawning and misplaced self-regard from the creatives who made them. Fawning at the brands, flattering them that they’re part of the magic of Christmas; and self-regard at the very adverts themselves as being an integral element of the population’s Christmas cheer. Good luck guys – it took Coca-Cola decades and a world of invented iconography before they created even a whiff of the potent nostalgia and magical realism that denotes Christmas warmth, with their ongoing “Holidays Are Coming” campaign.

In the chicken-or-egg conundrum of online advertising, is it the creatives’ uninspiring campaigns that keep premiums low? The buyers’ selling of these campaigns short? The brands’ love for the grandeur of traditional advertising? This circular lack of faith reinforces itself with every turn. But why? Mass media is a terrible way of reaching your audience – a ton of money thrown at a wall with the hope that a fraction of it bounces back to you. Messages get lost in audience passivity, capricious demographics, vandalism, reluctance and even hostility to the messages. Online display advertising is still prey to those pitfalls – but online can potentially provide a level of subtlety, seduction and positive audience engagement that traditional channels can only dream of. And that should be commanding far more money than a bus shelter.

All absurdly old hat wisdom of course – yet apparently not to the UK market. UK creatives need to stop trying to come up with the next watercooler moment and start the devious, moneymaking business of truly getting inside people’s heads, something that the online space can do with new and terrifying levels of effectiveness.

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Creative Economy | November 16, 2009 1:28PM |