I once went to an MTV party in Warsaw. Typical media party with lots of self-important people. I met my friend Tom King there who being Irish was very down to earth. This was appropriate as his day job was General Manger of British Airways. I gave him one of my business cards as I was proud of my beautiful Y&R cards with Media Director written on them.
I then continued mingling (like a moose: see link here)
After a while I met an attractive lady and introduced myself as Brown: Gareth Brown. She was surprised as she had already met Gareth Brown & pointed over to Mr.King.
I went over to Tom & asked him what he was doing. "I get bored of going to parties & talking about planes" he replied in his lovely Irish accent. "I decided to be a Media Director for the night".
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Shark's Tale
Y&R used to have a little client called Andersen Consulting. Not a lot of money but brilliant creative work.
I worked on the business in London for a while. The problem in London was that the target audience was unknown. Who made the decision to hire expensive IT consultants? Was it the managing director? Or was it the lowly head of IT? Perhaps it was the Finance Director or even the media director (no need to capitalise that one) Being a reasonably clever but essentially lazy chap I could not be bothered coding all eleven targets into the computer. So I devised an elegant solution. We would target Economist readers.
At this time I did not read the Economist but I understood from their poster campaign that they targeted "decision makers". This meant that I only had to use one code on the computer. It also meant that I was guaranteed a fabulous lunch with the Economist at a restaurant of my choosing.
A couple of years later I was working in Warsaw & who should appear with a small budget but Andersen again. The client, William Anal Englishman as I recall, told me that the target was Economist readers. It took supreme will power not to shout "I know, it was my idea". His budget was about £10,000 including production. Not a lot.
The question was which one of the many brilliant images to use from our New York office. Again being an efficient chap I conducted some quick research amongst finance professionals to understand their opinion. I went to our CFO George Szyman (or Jerzy Simon depending on his mood) & asked him which one he liked best. The shark he replied. New York did not feel that my survey was statistically robust. They insisted that we waste £2000 conducting a proper survey. So we spent 20% of the media budget finding out that several decision makers preferred "shark". See the TV ad here.
My small budget was now tiny. But being a sunny sort of fellow I saw necessity as the mother of invention. Big beautiful airport posters were £100,000 for a year but cheap crappy posters on the road to the airport were only around £300 a month. I asked the wonderful Malgosia Wegierek of penguins/Zywiec fame to book as many sites as possible on Zwirki i Wigury. After production costs we could afford about 17. Several people thought that we had bought badly as there were so many sites in close proximity. I would ask them how many posters we had nationally? Probably 2000 they would say. "Just 17... & you noticed the campaign" I would happily reply.
I worked on the business in London for a while. The problem in London was that the target audience was unknown. Who made the decision to hire expensive IT consultants? Was it the managing director? Or was it the lowly head of IT? Perhaps it was the Finance Director or even the media director (no need to capitalise that one) Being a reasonably clever but essentially lazy chap I could not be bothered coding all eleven targets into the computer. So I devised an elegant solution. We would target Economist readers.
At this time I did not read the Economist but I understood from their poster campaign that they targeted "decision makers". This meant that I only had to use one code on the computer. It also meant that I was guaranteed a fabulous lunch with the Economist at a restaurant of my choosing.
A couple of years later I was working in Warsaw & who should appear with a small budget but Andersen again. The client, William Anal Englishman as I recall, told me that the target was Economist readers. It took supreme will power not to shout "I know, it was my idea". His budget was about £10,000 including production. Not a lot.
The question was which one of the many brilliant images to use from our New York office. Again being an efficient chap I conducted some quick research amongst finance professionals to understand their opinion. I went to our CFO George Szyman (or Jerzy Simon depending on his mood) & asked him which one he liked best. The shark he replied. New York did not feel that my survey was statistically robust. They insisted that we waste £2000 conducting a proper survey. So we spent 20% of the media budget finding out that several decision makers preferred "shark". See the TV ad here.
My small budget was now tiny. But being a sunny sort of fellow I saw necessity as the mother of invention. Big beautiful airport posters were £100,000 for a year but cheap crappy posters on the road to the airport were only around £300 a month. I asked the wonderful Malgosia Wegierek of penguins/Zywiec fame to book as many sites as possible on Zwirki i Wigury. After production costs we could afford about 17. Several people thought that we had bought badly as there were so many sites in close proximity. I would ask them how many posters we had nationally? Probably 2000 they would say. "Just 17... & you noticed the campaign" I would happily reply.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Print isn’t dying in Russia… it’s already dead.
Some trade mag asked me to write an article on the print market in Russia. The text is below.
Print isn’t dying in Russia… it’s already dead. Well newspapers anyway.
Under communism, Russian print (or the Soviet Union to be precise) enjoyed huge circulations. It’s amazing what you can achieve with a large docile population and the use of violence. Despite commendably high literacy Russians are not great readers of daily or weekly titles. According to Wikipedia the highest selling daily only sells 735,000 copies. About the same as the Guardian & Times combined. There are many reasons for this but chief amongst them is that after years of being lied to with Kremlin propaganda Russians lost faith in a lively free press.
I use the metro to avoid the notorious Moscow traffic jams. In the dark underbelly of Moscow you will witness that everyone has an electronic device of some sort. I doubt that they are reading Pravda on them.
The situation with magazines is the opposite. Russians endured 70+ years of living in a socialist paradise “where poverty & injustice were equally distributed.”* Given this fact they have a surprising appetite for bread & circuses. And magazines fill that desire with their glossy pictures of the noveau riche & unattainable wealth. Also profit is not the only motive in the Russian press market, many publications are vanity projects of minor oligarchs.
And finally as Russian is spoken in many neighbouring countries it is easier to make money with niche titles. I would not be surprised to find “Gay Trucker” on the shelves of my local supermarket.
*The Economist
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Roulette of Russian Reading
Russians don't read newspapers much. Which is a pity.
Not because reading newspapers is good for you. Quite the opposite. In most countries the biggest selling papers are the downmarket tabloids; The Sun in Britian, Bild in Germany & Fakt in Poland. And Russians do read. I am always amazed by how many people have electronic readers on the metro. So they are reading books instead.
It is a pity because buying daily newspapers is the most fun you can have as a media buyer. Especially on a Friday afternoon. Because on Friday the papers are "closing" three editions; Saturday, Sunday & Monday. So Friday afternoon is when they start dropping the rates for pages. Any client with a short-term budget can pick up bargains.
As a print buyer you first prepare yourself by going for a long liquid lunch. This is to steel your nerves before the buying frenzy of the afternoon ahead. Then if you want to look impressive you get two phones on your desk to make you feel like a commodoties trader.
Not because reading newspapers is good for you. Quite the opposite. In most countries the biggest selling papers are the downmarket tabloids; The Sun in Britian, Bild in Germany & Fakt in Poland. And Russians do read. I am always amazed by how many people have electronic readers on the metro. So they are reading books instead.
It is a pity because buying daily newspapers is the most fun you can have as a media buyer. Especially on a Friday afternoon. Because on Friday the papers are "closing" three editions; Saturday, Sunday & Monday. So Friday afternoon is when they start dropping the rates for pages. Any client with a short-term budget can pick up bargains.
As a print buyer you first prepare yourself by going for a long liquid lunch. This is to steel your nerves before the buying frenzy of the afternoon ahead. Then if you want to look impressive you get two phones on your desk to make you feel like a commodoties trader.
Then you let the fun begin. As the minutes tick by until 6pm the prices start to drop. I once got a page in the Times for $10,000 when the normal rate was around $25,000. Even the Zenith print department was a fun place to work on at this time, and the fact that it was Friday helped as well.
But the most fun I ever had was when I was booking colour page spreads for AT&T. I had a budget of $750,000 and it came down to the Telegraph vs. The Sunday Times. It was winner takes all. And the best thing was that the rep from the Times was married to the rep from the Telegraph.
I gave it to the Times. They had a lower Cost per Thousand. Plus they promised me tickets to the Fleadh, the annual Irish music festival in London where Van Morrison was playing.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Appliance of Science
Brilliant cinema commercial for fags in the headline link.
One of the people responsible was Mike Cozens who was later the creative director at Y&R London. What I loved about Mike was that the media planning was done by the creative department.
Account planning might recommend magazines, the suits would suggest TV & media research would highlight the role of radio. But the creatives would come up with a big cinema ad supported by posters.
So the media was decided by whichever creative idea was the strongest. Brilliant. This meant that we did posters & cinema for all sorts of products that wouldn't normally consider these media. Sugar Puffs cereal, Pirelli tyres & Colgate toothpaste to name a few.
The problem with using stupid computers & dodgy research to decide media is that it doesn't take account of the role of creative. The most important part of the process.
One of the people responsible was Mike Cozens who was later the creative director at Y&R London. What I loved about Mike was that the media planning was done by the creative department.
Account planning might recommend magazines, the suits would suggest TV & media research would highlight the role of radio. But the creatives would come up with a big cinema ad supported by posters.
So the media was decided by whichever creative idea was the strongest. Brilliant. This meant that we did posters & cinema for all sorts of products that wouldn't normally consider these media. Sugar Puffs cereal, Pirelli tyres & Colgate toothpaste to name a few.
The problem with using stupid computers & dodgy research to decide media is that it doesn't take account of the role of creative. The most important part of the process.
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