Standards sound dull but they are key to our creativity and value. Today, advertising is in danger of detaching itself from the very standards, principals and measures that have previously made it such a powerful driver of brands, companies, economies and indeed culture.
We work in the building industry. Brand building is what we do and never has there been more need – as the recent Kraft Heinz write-down brutally illustrated. Elizabeth Fagan, non-Executive Chair of Boots UK as well as ISBA President and Phil Smith ISBA’s CEO laid out a clear agenda for systemic change around re-building trust and real accountability in marketing and brand building at last month’s ISBA annual conference. Measurement standards sat at the heart of this agenda.
"Collectively, we have allowed some of the founding pillars of our discipline to be undermined or ignored."
Agreeing on the problem is of course always easier than solving it. We need to turn sentiment into action, and every player has a role; it is an ecosystem challenge.
Collectively, we have allowed some of the founding pillars of our discipline to be undermined or ignored. Over the last few years new languages and ‘currencies’ have emerged that often have a limited relationship to the true efficacy of what we do and a close relationship to self-interest.
At what point did we decide that advertising context had nothing to do with what a person would think about the brand? At what point did media become about ever more niche optimisation rather than effective scale and impact? When did agencies start blaming clients for diminishing revenues?
"Common base measures and standards underpin every industry that has ambitions towards scale, trust and credibility. It is that simple."
Measurement, accountability, transparency, brand safety and trust are all variants of the same greater challenge. The erosion of the perceived efficacy of advertising has been created by the whole industry itself playing fast and loose with these potent ingredients.
Common base measures and standards underpin every industry that has ambitions towards scale, trust and credibility. It is that simple. They are an industry’s version of a country’s currency.
Undermine a country’s currency and we all know what happens. Similarly, when industry players undermine or ignore the base standards in their industry, at best a dysfunctional system results, at worst it is an open invitation for legislators to intervene. Accountancy, finance, pharmaceuticals, automobiles – many an industry has trodden this path and had their test.
"Too often, base standards and measures have been replaced by less proven metrics and new spurious standards"
Advertising, media and technology faces such a test today. The digital transformation of advertising has bought with it an amazing opportunity for our industry to better serve clients and their consumers. However, there has also been a close correlation between the development of digital and the erosion of consumer and corporate trust.
This is because too often base standards and measures have been replaced by less proven metrics and new spurious standards.
By way of example, when the proven correlation between advertising reach, brand growth and scale are ignored in the new advertising ‘optimisation economy’ we have a major problem. When our industry relies on selling a short-term advantage in an often-illusory reduction to the cost of ‘conversion’, can we be surprised that clients start to view advertising as a discretionary expenditure to be managed rather than an investment in brand and corporate growth?
This is not to dismiss smart ways of refining media and advertising to gain competitive advantage. It is simply to say that this is not a reason to abandon industry wide currencies and standards which provide a bedrock of security for clients. Clients’ responsibility is to insist on seeing such industry ratified data before spending a single pound.
"Too many media measurement currencies are siloed, with not enough energy being placed into joining up and simplifying this core area."
However smart the data-driven thinking, asking what media context your advertisement is appearing in and how many people does a trusted third-party source tell me saw it and how did you cap frequency, still seem like pretty smart questions to me!
Frankly we sometimes make this harder than it needs to be. Too many media measurement currencies are siloed, with not enough energy being placed into joining up and simplifying this core area.
In fact, the UK is in danger of falling behind other markets, which are making more progress in this area. One of the biggest transformational forces in business has been the shift from channel focus to customer focus but too many of our measures in the UK are still siloed in a channel world. Thankfully ISBA, supported also by IPA, ASA, AOP, IAB have been raising this up the agenda and seeking to address this area.
Of course, when it comes to addressing such challenges and converting sentiment to action, only money talks. Every pound spent without third party audited data on audience, viewability and so forth, is a pound going towards supporting the very forces undermining advertising’s trust and credibility.
"Clients should not be spending a single penny on self-marked homework."
The ability to change this also sits in the hands of the agencies and consultants who should be zealots in insisting on the industry recognised measurement stamp of approval on media plans. Clients should not be spending a single penny on self-marked homework.
We must not leave it to legislators or indeed siloed self-interest to determine standards in our industry; it must be me, you and the rest of our profession that has belief that advertising and media creativity have the power to transform brands, businesses and economies who lead such change.
This article originally appeared on the Campaign website, 5 April 2019
