Laura's Word 18 July 2013

Being a rather more civilised sort of industry, advertising knows how to do summer properly. We kick things off with a ‘school trip’ to Cannes and spend July and August taking inordinately long holidays and having ‘meetings’ in pub beer gardens. Well that’s how things usually go – particularly over the last three or four years when tightening client purse strings strangled the output of new work. This year though, it looks like the so-called ‘silly season’ has turned serious.

 

From a journalist’s point of view the stream of news stories always tends to dry up in high summer, but this year the frequency of new work and hiring stories doesn’t seem to be letting up. This week’s IPA Bellwether report revealed that 22 % of UK companies had increased their marketing budgets, with an overall net balance of 7.3% and so it seems that finally clients are starting to spend, and work is happening. And this unseasonal business is not limited to the UK – our editor Gabby (high five, Ms Lott) has been hearing from several agencies that have been pleasantly surprised by a consistent demand for new work.

The last time I was in Cannes was in 2009 when the festival was almost decimated by the global financial crisis. In this week’s ‘Five Minutes With…’ interview Neil Dawson recalls that in 2011, Friday afternoons in central London felt more like Sunday - that's how empty the place was. In comparison, it now feels like there’s a tentative optimism in the air. 

So far, so good.  But if this really does represent a bona fide return to form rather than a transient blip, I wonder if or how it will trickle down to all levels of the industry. 

Recently Coy! director and LBB favourite Mark Denton took to Campaign to express his frustration with the relentless squeeze on production and increasingly risk-averse clients and fearful agencies. Among his targets were tiny budgets, convoluted pitching processes, unreasonable requests, an over-reliance on Google Image searches and inadequate biscuits. A similar theme emerged at the Saatchi & Saatchi Young Directors Showcase panel in London, when producers and directors described clients’ growing reluctance to work with new talent. This in turn, wondered some on the panel, seemed to indicate that when it comes to working with and educating clients about creativity, many fearful agency account handlers have lost both their balls and their spines.

 

The correlation of recession and caution is an understandable one – when it comes to individual survival, people will do what they can to hold onto their jobs. But at a macro level, these personal decisions add up to a situation when it becomes harder to produce creative work and the industry’s future leaders are stifled rather than nurtured.  The economic climate of the past few years has seen the emergence of a new generation of lean, exciting, ingenious start-ups which thrive on the challenges of having to do more for less. On the flip side, I also suspect that in some areas of the industry it has fostered a damaging culture of fear.  In the spirit of making hay while the sun shines, it would seem that this good news might provide a good opportunity to clear out some of these bad habits and be a bit braver.

 

In other words, if this upsurge in spending and activity is more than just a summer heat wave who will be left in the shade?