Seduction adman's answer for industry

By Helen Vause

"We're inward looking, old fashioned, dull ... we're boring people to death."

Strong words from Australian adman Reg Bryson, opening speaker to the advertising industry's biggest conference in a while.

Mr Bryson delivered a colourful and critical kick in the pants yesterday to the industry that has come together this week at the Ellerslie Convention Centre, in Auckland, to consider the future for marketing communications.

He is the CEO of one of Australia's top agencies, The Campaign Palace, with a string of landmark campaigns to his credit and has been dubbed one of advertising's 20 living legends.

Mr Bryson says the advertising business is under fire because it has become mechanical and billings oriented through being too focused on agency/client relationships.

"In the two schools of thought as to how advertising works, we are following the weak theory that advertising's key role is one of reinforcement and reminder. The strong theory is that advertising is indeed persuasive.

"The notion of the agency as a partner with valued expertise has diminished. We have lost the way in recent years and seem reluctant to change our practices.

"Current criticism of the advertising industry is well founded. Creativity is not a high priority any more - far too many agencies have gravitated into a trap of sameness and current practices of branding are no longer working for brands."

Mr Bryson has been formulating his challenge on branding conventions for some time, gathering impetus from international studies that show brand loyalty has rapidly diminished.

"Traditional branding is becoming less effective due to the massive increase in product choice and because consumers are much more marketing literate."

American consumers, for example, now face three times the number of grocery products they had in 1980. The product count in the average US supermarket has risen to around 40,000 - there are, for example, 1000 brands of mustard.

A large study in the US concluded that ads that reflect a category style subsidise the market leader: for every $9 spent, $5 goes to the brand but $4 goes to the competitive category leader.

Mr Bryson says the product explosion in Australia and New Zealand is obviously not so dramatic, but the proliferation trend is established.

"The old-style brand was a brilliant device for encouraging mass consumption ... It's now counterproductive.

"People now know that they are not defined by what they have in their trolleys. Society has changed very fast, people are more confident and they also shop much faster. They don't ask the neighbour why her sheets are so white, they don't want to know how many beans we should have in our coffee. People don't give a toss about these things any more.

"In most markets today brand loyalty is a misnomer. In category after category, consumers are purchasing across a range of brands they perceive as more similar than dissimilar. People don't see any difference between competing products, they are likely to see all competing offerings as look-a-likes."

As an example, Mr Bryson cites a lineup of established tomato sauce brands that all reflect the same attributes: quality, value, familiarity, confidence, reassurance, integrity.

He says the experience in the UK of the giant Coke brand is a dramatic illustration that the branding era has hit the use-buy date.

The famous brand that 500 million people purportedly chose every day suddenly hit tough times. In 1995, Coke's brand share fell below 50 per cent for the first time in its history in the face of activities from retailer brands - Virgin Cola and Sainsburys Classic Cola.

To regain lost share, Coke increased its ad budget twelve-fold following the launch of the competing brands.

Part of the present failure to get branding working for brands, says Mr Bryson, is the "sameness" trap.

"Brands have reached the crisis point of commoditisation with no differentiation, no loyalty and no impact. Through following conventional wisdom, advertising agencies have been following the same path to end up in the same spot."

To illustrate the point, Mr Bryson and his agency carried out a simple survey of print ads for premium cars and for skincare brands. There was an astonishing similarity in style and execution in each category.

Mr Bryson's agency put these embarrassing examples together as a bold and glossy insert in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review. The headline read: "Thinking of Advertising? Don't waste your money." The canny old hand in advertising got great uptake of his message about dullness and branding, and naturally The Campaign Palace got lots of attention, too.

So what is the way forward into the next great era of advertising according to Reg Bryson? Creativity, a fresh approach and what he defines as conquest advertising that breaks convention, moves the market and reaches "front of mind."

"Advertising has to be an active weapon. It must do something. Conquest advertising actively sets out to win friends. Likeability must now be considered a critical component of brand marketing.

"Brand marketing is not a battle of products, it's a battle of perceptions and the management and development of brand perceptions is the management and development of consumer perceptions.

"Research shows that the brain's first response to a stimulus is an emotional one, which precedes any rational response. Without a suitable emotional response the message will not pass on to the conscious brain. If your brand reaches that brain in a fresh and memorable way then you stand a very good chance of being remembered fondly where it counts the most."

The new mood is, says Mr Bryson, that we are tired of rationality, reason and dullness, that we are yearning for more passion in our lives.

Stand by for the new wave of seduction from an industry seeking revitalisation.