For all of those who missed it last night’s debate at the Circle Club, part of the Circuit Series, became quite a lively affair in parts as the panel (including myself) fielded questions about marketing and the economic slowdown.
Chaired by the very relaxed (and occasionally mischievous) Dale Hicks from MFN, us agency folk (Andrew Brown-Allan from And Partners, Photolink founder Dave Walter and Helen Thomas, MD of Meredith Thomas) were asked if we were partly to blame for creating an unsustainable economic boom through creative and marketing hype and didn’t we (and our clients) now deserve to be suffering.
Thanks Dale.
Other issues included what the post-recession marketing and advertising landscape will look like (unsurprisingly most agreed it would be leaner, more targeted, accountable and, above all, increasingly digital), who is likely to suffer the most (agencies and media owners who rely on mass market broadcast advertising or classifieds), and how best to spend budgets in these difficult times.
Everyone on the panel agreed that it was not very representative of the industry with no actual client-side marketeer present - but we also didn’t simply take the opportunity to puff-up our own services with the mantra ‘you must spend, you must spend’ to any potential clients in the room.
The evening rounded off with a plea from some Salford design students (the University was a co-sponsor for the evening) for advice and support on how to raise money for a swanky portfolio of their work to use to engage with potential employers.
After a few pearls of wisdom were thrown out by the panel to the assembled throng of budding creatives, one student in particular announced that it was really tough to get sponsors and that it all didn’t seem very fair. In trying to help give her a steer Dave from Photolink asked what exactly she had tried so far. The response was (to paraphrase) “helped organise this event, put up loads of posters around the venue, sent loads of emails to people” concluding “y’know it’s been really hard work”. A sharp intake of breath from the panellists followed and it looked like Dave might actually explode. He didn’t - but it was close.
Aparrently later today an audio recording of the debate will be uploaded - and when it does I’ll post the link. Finally a big thanks to Rachel Ainsworth for inviting me to take part and look foward to doing another one sometime.
Tags: Advertising, Creative, Economy, Marketing, PR
