Brent Smart Would Cut Media Before Production: “Non-Working Dollars? Maybe Because You’re Making Shit Creative”

Telstra chief marketing officer, Brent Smart, and the incoming global CEO of Omnicom Advertising Group, Troy Ruhanen, have issued a rallying cry: Australia needs to lift the standard of creative work, which starts with marketers ceasing to call production budget “non-working dollars”.

“It's the hardest working dollars. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Non-working? Well maybe because you're making shit creative," Brent said, appearing alongside Troy at SXSW Sydney this week.

“It's the last thing I'd cut. I'll cut media before production. If I make something great, I need less media.”

Brent said his production budgets, care for craft, and the timelines he gives +61 - the bespoke Telstra agency comprised of Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, TBWA, and OMD - reflect that view.

The cost of craft for the new brand platform - handmade papercraft, 40 special builds, almost 300 artworks to capture specific shadows for specific OOH sites - is deliberately designed to convince consumers emotionally that Telstra is worth paying more for, Brent confirmed.

“There's a very good, rational reason why we cost more. We've got a better network, and we've invested billions and billions and billions of dollars into that network. So we can rationally keep telling people that, or we can also have work in a brand that emotionally lives up to that. It's a very deliberate strategy.”

Just as they have to invest in craft to produce category-breaking and shaping work, marketers must give their agencies partners enough time to do that kind of work, Brent argued.

“If you want to create something really, really special, it needs time. You need to spend like six months on it,” he said.

“One of the great gifts we have as marketers is we can create time for our agency partners. You get nothing great in two weeks. You can control it, just get organised. You know when Christmas is every year, so put the brief in in April.”

He expressed concern about consistency being prioritised above creativity, disagreeing with the likes of Mark Ritson. In developing ‘Wherever we go’, the CMO deliberately opted against “matching luggage” for the TVC and OOH, because he wants the brand to feel consistent, not look consistent.

“I really do worry right now the narrative in marketing, it's everywhere, from System One, from Ritson: be consistent. 'You're better off doing nothing, just run the same thing always.’ How boring is that? 

“If you want momentum as a brand, if you want to drive reappraisal as a brand, if you want the energy in your category, how can you run the one thing forever? That's the opposite. Sure it's really consistent and it will track really well. Boring.”

Troy has been the global CEO at TBWA for over 10 years, and in January will officially assume the role of global CEO at the newly-formed Omnicom Advertising Group. He lamented the algorithm’s flattening of culture: everything looks the same, from brands to TV shows and houses.

“Shitification, lazy, scared, wasteful. That's not what I get up to do every single day. I don't know about you. And I don't think it's actually what a lot of our marketers want to do either.

“It's going to cost you $109 billion to catch up to the non-dull activities. That's coming from WARC. 

“Do something much more distinct, and it will work four times harder for you than anything else … What we must do is break every single convention we can.”

Brent noted that Australia has fallen out of Cannes’ top 10 markets after ranking second around a decade ago, showing just how far the overall standard of creativity has fallen.

“Cannes is always a benchmark if you want to be world-class, and I want to be world-class. I don't want to do best in Australia, I want to do great work globally. 

“I can't think of the last time we had a Dumb Ways to Die, a Meet Graham, like a big, massive idea where the world was looking to Australia and going, 'Oh my god, we want to do that kind of work’ … those kind of ideas aren't coming out of this country like they were.

"I don't think it's a great time for creativity right now. If you look at culture more broadly, when's the last great Aussie TV show or last great Aussie movie?”

The Monkeys’ Grand Prix-winning ‘Play it Safe’ is an exception to the rule, he said. Troy, meanwhile, took aim at work designed to win awards instead of driving business results for big clients.

“I find some of the industry to be quite selfish with their agenda. They're basically defining a purpose and trying to find a client that will buy it, and trying to do some work for that so they can win an award. That doesn't sit well in my company, it won't happen in our company.”

He said TBWA stays back in Cannes every year on the Saturday, when most fly home, to go through every piece of work that won, everything they thought would win but didn’t, and analyse the trends.

“I just don't think we do enough homework for the amount of money that we spend. We don't actually understand what world class truly is.”

Troy demonstrated an AI model which analyses the distinctiveness of work in Gordon Ramsay’s tone of voice. The tool scored Vodafone work 28/100, describing it as “commercial Xanax” that “should have been incinerated in the first creative review.” In contrast, the Telstra review scored 81/100 and was commended for being “hyper-distinctive” and brave for the category.

“Our big brands all look the same, and all feel the same, and I didn't want to be one of those big brands,” Brent said. “What a lot of brands do in this country, they hold up a mirror.

“Brands don't live in PowerPoint. They don't live in these frameworks and consultants, right? Brands live in the real world ... Brands need to be experienced.”

Figuring out how a brand can crack out of its category requires making work. Brent found Telstra’s tone of voice and built confidence among internal stakeholders by making, which is why he likes to remain close to the work; “I don't understand these marketers who delegate that to someone else.”

“I never try and solve the brand in my first year, because I don't think you know enough,” he said. 

“You need to try things, you've got to try to stretch the tone, you've got to put things in the market and see how they respond, you're testing the company, the leadership, how far they’re willing to go. 

“If you spend your time trying to find that right answer, that right brand strategy, that right brand campaign, you could lose your first year in PowerPoint research. What you've got to do is make stuff, put yourself out there a little bit, make something, put a marker down, show where you're going to try and take the brand.”

In undergoing creative transformation, Brent focuses on three things: conviction - which is all you have when you don’t yet have data to back you up - alignment, and momentum.

“I want to have the most momentum in the category. If a leading brand can have the most momentum in the category, that is incredibly powerful. I don't want to let the challenger brands have the momentum. I want the momentum.”

At a recent internal Telstra conference, five top executives were asked to pick their favourite Telstra ad of all time. Four out of five picked campaigns made by Brent. Not enough marketers spend time making their staff and leadership proud of the work, he said.

“They're human beings. They respond to creativity like anyone else. Your CEO wants their kids to like the work.”