Getting to the Point Podcast

The Getting to the Point Podcast - stories for curious marketing folk. In this series I talk to people with inspiring stories of brand, business and even personal reinventions.

How is AI impacting the creative industries?

Why did Cazoo go from zero to unicorn and almost back again?

What’s it like being President Obama’s Design Director?

What are the life-changing secrets of the Meikle Matrix?

How do you build a personal brand on LinkedIn?

How can you pay off your mortgage by designing a hit greetings card?

Listen here to find out, or subscribe to Getting to the Point on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Winter is Coming

“Winter is coming” - the doom-laden prophecy of Game of Thrones - warns of freezing temperatures, White Walkers and war.  Well, we don’t have to worry about the White Walkers, but it’s looking like a tough winter ahead for many businesses.

US inflation just hit a 40 year high.

UK finance prophet Martin Lewis already “feels sick” at October’s energy price cap predictions.

And CMO’s (and their agencies) are dreading an email from the Finance Director, asking for a chunk of the marketing budget back, to help the business claw its way back to budget.  That’s if the email hasn’t already arrived.

In times like these, for all of us working on brands, it can be difficult to know what to do.

How do we make a meaningful difference when being battered by so many factors out of our control?

I’ll skip the bit about continuing to invest in brands and spending your way out of a recession.  Lots of great work has been done on this, but while all the evidence suggests it’s the best long term strategy, it’s a tough one to execute if you’re struggling to meet short  term targets.  If you’re not a private or family business, and your FD is looking for money down the back of the sofa, “let’s invest more in marketing now for a greater payback in the future” is not going to cut it.

So there are likely to be many emergency marketing department meetings between now and Christmas. Every business will face its own unique challenges, but I’d like to suggest three things that can help to frame a response in those meetings:  focus, efficiency and positivity.

FOCUS.  Use the crisis as an opportunity to get the entire company, not just the marketing team, focused on delivering the point at the heart of the business.  Make sure everyone knows what that point is and what their role is in delivering against it.  Then strip out all the superfluous initiatives and nice-to-have projects that have crept in over time.  If you can go from fragmented to focused, you may even be able to do more with less.

EFFICIENCY.  “We don’t have the money, so we’ll have to think”.  Harness Ernest Rutherford’s mantra and look for innovative and more efficient ways to deliver the marketing plan.  Speak to new people.  Investigate new models.  Suck up new ideas from sectors outside your own.  Learn from the best businesses in your space in other markets.  Then come back inspired and reconstruct the marketing plan from a blank sheet of paper, saying no to all the non-essentials.

POSITIVITY.  We’ve all been in those emergency meetings where people compete to put on the gravest expression to show they get the seriousness of the corporate situation.  It doesn’t help.  These are the times when positivity – levity even – is needed more than ever.  It’s easy to be upbeat and positive in the good times, but it requires a deliberate effort from leadership when times get tough.  Hope is a much more motivating force than the threat of imminent calamity.  Be positive in attitude and back this up by going big in action.  Commit to a small number of big, bold statement actions that send a confident message to both internal and external audiences.  After all, as Game of Thrones taught us, fear cuts deeper than swords.

Race to the Stones 2021. Running 100km in a day.

Race to the Stones ended up being twenty months in the planning and one day in the running. This is what happened, along with some of the things I learnt, in case they can help others taking on an ultra for the first time.

Deciding to run an ultra

When I first took up mid-life crisis running back in 2015, I couldn’t see any appeal in running ultra distances. The challenge of running a 10k or a half-marathon just a little bit quicker than before seemed challenge enough. But bit by bit, my fascination with the world of ultra-running grew. It started with The Barkley Marathons documentary - a must-watch if you’re into running (or even if you’re not). This led me on to reading the Barkley finisher reports and following legends like John Kelly and Damian Hall as they do ridiculous things like setting FKT’s (fastest known times) on the Pennine Way and Coast to Coast path. Adharanand Finn’s excellent book, The Rise of the Ultra Runners, in which the author puts himself through the wringer time and again to report on a series of ever-crazier challenges, further piqued my interest.

At the same time, I was coming off the back of running under 3:30 at the Manchester Marathon, a personal target I’d missed a year before when running the hottest ever* London Marathon. My marathon PB of 3:28 is nothing to shout about (the good-for-age qualifying time is 3:10 for my age group) but the thing I love about running is that you can set your own challenges, regardless of your comparative level, and get a lot of satisfaction from achieving them. The idea of doing another long block of marathon training to attempt to shave a few minutes off 3:28 didn’t really appeal. Time for something new.

Choosing an ultra

As a first-timer, the Threshold Trail Series events stood out as a way to dip a toe in the ultra waters without falling off a French mountain or dying of thirst in the Sahara desert. Looking for the least-uncomfortable way to run an ultra might not fit with the mentality of the true ultra-nuts, seeking out their ‘pain caves’, but I have to admit that this was exactly my approach. The Race to the Stones worked well logistically for me, the scenery along the route looking stunning, and 100k just sounds more iconic than, say, 50 miles. So I entered the 2020 race, not knowing at the time that just like the Olympics, the Euros and pretty much everything else planned for that year, the race would be postponed. I filled the summer instead with The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee, running 1,000km in 71 days, at an average of 8.7 miles each day.

Training

When the official Race to the Stones training plans came out I was a little puzzled. The plan for those running straight through (you can also run 50km on the Saturday, camp overnight and then run the remaining 50km on Sunday) looked less demanding than some of the marathon plans I’d been following. I didn’t feel confident that this plan would prepare me for taking on 100km.

In the end, I found a plan that looked like it had the right balance of challenge and achievability. I chose the plan because it had five days of running and two rest days each week, which would make it manageable around work and other commitments. I also liked the idea of cut-back weeks, which prevent the body from being overloaded with excess mileage - a sure-fire way to get injured. And the peak training run of 50km would give me the confidence that I could at least make it half way without too many problems.

The plan I used is by Heather Hart, but with every runner being unique, it’s worth repeating Heather’s own disclaimer here: The following training plan is designed for educational purposes, and is not a prescribed training plan for any particular individual. While (Heather has) designed this training plan with safety in mind, you should understand that when participating in a 100K training program, there is the possibility of physical injury. If you engage in this training plan you agree that you do so at your own risk, are voluntarily participating in these activities, and assume all risk of injury to yourself. You should consult your physician or other health care professional before starting this or any other fitness program to determine if it is right for your needs. Heather Hart 100km Training Plan.

Kit

As training progressed and the weeks ticked by, I started to think about the head-spinning logistics of running an ultra. My approach to kit was to take the absolute minimum possible in order to cut back the amount of weight I was carrying. The Race to the Stones is a very well supported ultra with multiple pit stops, so it’s worth thinking carefully about what you actually need to be carrying. Each to their own, but some of the flat lays I saw looked like bags being packed for a six week hike through the Alps. Completing the race requires over 100,000 steps, so for every item you take with you, you’re asking your body to lift that thing 100,000 times - often while going uphill.

Having said that, it’s important not to get dehydrated, so I started looking into hydration vests. After some research, I bought the Salomon Agile 2 Unisex Hydration Vest 2L which comes with two soft, refillable pouches, each carrying 500ml of liquid. There’s a small section at the back into which you can slip a cap, spare contact lenses etc. and pockets on the front which I used for sunglasses and energy sachets.

From the moment the Salomon vest arrived, I made myself wear it on every training session, always leaving with both bottles full of liquid. One litre of water weighs one kilogram, so I needed to get used to running with this weight. It also took me a few sessions just to get used to the various straps and adjustment mechanisms. The Salomon Agile 2 worked great for me. It was comfortable and secure and carried everything I needed on the race day.

I ran in More Mile socks, which I find more comfortable than many more expensive brands and Nike Air Zoom Vomero shoes. I’m a massive fan of Nike Vomero shoes, having run over 4,000 miles in them, ranging from parkruns to marathons and now the Race to the Stones, without ever getting a single blister. Sure enough, they didn’t let me down on the Race the Stones. Even after the 100km battering, my feet were fine.

The main point here is that Nike Vomero are road shoes, not trail shoes. The Ridgeway is pretty hard underfoot for most of the race and I think running in trail shoes could be pretty uncomfortable. The run up to the 2021 race was actually quite wet, and there were a few muddy sections, but I had no trouble at all in my road shoes. As ever, only run in shoes you’ve trained in.

I listened to hours of podcasts and radio shows during my training using Betron wireless headphones. I love these headphones. They never get tangled, they put up with sweat, rain and being stuffed in the pocket of my shorts without breaking and the quality of the sound is incredible given the price. They’ve also proven way more reliable than other, more expensive brands I’ve tried.

Nutrition

This is the part of the race I got most wrong on the day. I started to introduce Tailwind sachets to my long training runs and it made a huge difference. I no longer had that ‘running on empty’ feeling that you get towards the end of a long run. The mistake I made was that I never really thought about exactly how much I was using to go particular distances, and I overloaded myself with Tailwind in the first half of the race which gave me intense stomach cramps. With hindsight I should have been more analytical about input of Tailwind versus output of mileage and then I could have replicated this through the first half of Race to the Stones. But if you haven’t used it before I would highly recommend ordering some Tailwind and seeing how you go with it in a few training sessions.

Sun & Insects

The 2021 race was very humid but there was (thankfully) a lot of cloud and it drizzled constantly through the first half of the race. There was very little sunshine all day, but I still made sure to plaster sun cream on at the start and replaced it at 57km. Despite the weather and the factor 50, I still had a bit of a sunburn glow at the end of the day. On a sunny day you’d need lots of suncream and to reapply it throughout the race or you’d fry. I’m pretty sure they had sun cream at the pit stops.

There was a lot of chat on the Facebook group about insects and the consensus seemed to be that Avon Skin So Soft is the thing to keep them away. In the event, I didn’t notice any insects all day and nothing bit me, so this wasn’t a problem. I suspect this might change from year to year, so if you’re prone to being eaten alive, insect repellant might be needed.

Crew

I was lucky to have my family turn out to crew for me. The Ranny Crew’s organisation and support made a huge difference to my race and also allowed me to be much more brutal with the items I started the race with. I’d arranged to meet the crew for the first time at 57km, which meant I had the double psychological boost of crossing halfway and then only having another 7km to cover before meeting my team. Three things in particular revived me: changing my socks, drinking tomato soup and cleaning my teeth with some minty chewing gum, which freshened up my mouth after all the sweet energy stuff I’d been consuming.

I prepared a checklist for them to use so they could take control and my tired brain wouldn’t have to think about what to do. In the event, it wasn’t quite the super-fast Formula 1 style stop I’d envisaged but the list was still really helpful.

Crew checklist: 1) Take off phone arm band and plug into portable phone charger. 2) Take off hydration vest. 3) Towel face. 4) Take off shoes and socks. 5) Towel feet. 6) Check feet and do any nail or feet repairs. 7) Put on new socks. 8) Put on shoes. 9) Apply suncream. 10) Apply Avon insect. 11) Apply vaseline. 12) Clean up hands with handwipes. 13) Drink tea/soup.  Eat sandwich etc. 14) Decide if need warmer layer/jacket and put on if so. 15) Put hydration vest back on. 16) Restock vest/pockets with Tailwind and chewing gum. 17) Take Head Torch if think won’t beat sunset. 18) Put phone armband back on, still plugged into charger. 19) GO!

Tech

I ran with my Garmin Forerunner 35 which logged 84 of my kilometres before the battery was done for the day. You can of course buy watches that will last the course, but they’re expensive and seem to be packed with a ton of features I’d never use.

I also ran with my iPhone, with the Nike Run Club app logging my miles. I plugged my iPhone into a small, portable charger when I met my crew at 57km and ran with this portable charger until 70km when I met them again and handed it back. By this time my phone was fully recharged. This meant I got a complete record of the race on Nike Run Club.

To let my crew know where I was, I gave them access to my location on the Find My app. This worked perfectly, and they were able to track me throughout the race.

The Race

Start to Pitstop 1 (8.7km)

Setting off in the drizzle.

After all the months of training it was exciting to park my car on the farm field and see runners from the earlier start waves setting off across the fields at five second intervals. Only 100km to go…

I was in the 7.10am start wave and went through the chip timing mat at 7.12am. The first leg of the race is so short, at just 8.7km that I chose to run it without carrying any liquid with me. This made for a comedy start as the Tailwind sachets that normally sit snugly against the full bottles of my hydration vest flew out onto the grass after about 50 metres.

I settled into an easy pace of around 6 mins/km and having tapered down to the race had that dangerously invincible feeling of being able to run forever. We were soon onto a trail with trees either side and fields beyond and I felt mildly euphoric at being out at the start of such a long journey through the countryside. I made sure not to push the pace and had no problems with this first stage, arriving at the pit stop in approx 55 minutes. I filled my water bottles and got straight back out onto the course.

Pit stop 1 to Pit stop 2 (12.6km)

The ‘field of dreams’

This stage began by taking us up into a small wood, through a farm and on to the Field of Dreams, a feature of many a RTTS photograph. Not long after we were crossing a golf course. It was a comfortable, flat stage and was the only point in the race where I briefly found myself without any runners in sight ahead of me. The only danger on this stage was breaking an ankle in one of the badger holes carved out of the trail through the woods, but these were all well marked with warning signs. By the time you reach Pit stop 2 you’ve run a half-marathon. Everything was going to plan and I crossed the chip check point in 2 hours 20 minutes. Position in race = 296. Time for stage approx 1:25.

Pit stop 2 to Pit stop 3 (14.2km)

Along the river - the muddiest part of the course.

This was the stage where I made my biggest mistake of the race. Worried about running out of energy in the latter stages of the race, I went overboard on re-fueling. On top of more Tailwind in my water bottles, I took a pack of peanuts and an energy bar from the second pit stop and consumed all of this on the way to Pit stop 3. This turned out to be way more than my body could handle and although this didn’t affect me on this stage, I was to pay for it badly soon after.

I enjoyed this stage as it took us along the edge of the River Thames with swans, and at one point a rowing quad, cruising along with us. I was glad I’d set off in one of the earlier start waves as this was the dampest stage of the course and the trail was already churned up and sludgy; it must have been incredibly slippery for those coming through later on. We moved away from the river and onto a road through the pretty village of South Stoke with its country church and Perch & Pike pub. Many of the villagers had come out to support which was a real boost.

The first big climb came at the end of this stage. The trail wound up into the hills and the hill just dragged on - and on and on. It was too steep for running to make sense here, as the pace gained would not be worth the energy expended, so I walked up, watching my watch marking down my average pace with every passing minute. Finally we crested the hill and dropped down into Pit stop 3. I was feeling a lot less fresh now, but on the positive side one third of the race was behind me. Time for stage approx 1:52.

Pit stop 3 to Pit stop 4 (Basecamp and Halfway Point) (14.3km)

Type two fun.

This stage and the one to follow were by far the toughest of the race for me. My body didn’t like what I was doing to it. It was used to the running but not to trying to process so much Tailwind powder and snacks and my stomach started cramping. At first this was infrequent, but by the end of this stage I was struggling and at one point I was doubled over in a fair bit of pain. I held on to the piece of advice I’d heard John Kelly give to first time ultra-runners on a YouTube clip: “it doesn’t always get worse!”

This was a stage of big skies and uninterrupted views. Where earlier the trail had been bordered by trees and hedgerows, here the track cut straight through open fields.

I pressed on and eventually, the white tents of Basecamp loomed up on the hill. A welcome sight. I was halfway through the race and crossed the timing mat in 5:59. The time was fine for keeping me on track to finish in daylight but with no sign of the stomach cramps ending I was feeling pretty sorry for myself amidst the party atmosphere of the Base Camp.

My chip time for halfway was 5 hours 59 minutes. Position in race = 316 (-20 places on pitstop 2).

Pit stop 4 to Pit stop 5 (9.9km)

The countryside along the route is beautiful throughout the race.

Ignoring the food tent I set off again focusing on two reasons to be cheerful - not only was this a short stage with less than 10km to the next pit stop, but I’d planned to meet my crew at the 7km mark. 7km? That’s not much more than a parkrun. Easy.

It’s not as easy as it sounds when you’ve already run 50km, but I plodded on all the same. Through cow parsley hedgerows along a rutted track, then back out into open fields with stunning views off to each side.

My crew did a brilliant job of reviving me. The tomato soup in particular really helped, as did the change of socks and the minty chewing gum after the sweetness of the snacks and Tailwind. I could tell my sister was a little worried about me, not least because I was doubled over in pain at one point, but I reassured her I was OK as I knew there was nothing seriously wrong with me, I just needed my stomach to stop cramping.

When I’d spoken to my sister on the phone, I think I’d had in mind that this would be a Formula 1 style operation. I’d pictured us completing all the stages on my checklist in under five minutes with me then surging powerfully back onto the course. The reality was rather different as I sat slumped in a deckhair for the best part of half an hour eating sandwiches, before creaking back out onto the track.

I set off on the final 3km of the stage, complete with the mini charger recharging my iPhone, and was soon at Pit stop 5. With my pace slowing sharply, and at least 20 minutes of rest at my crew stop, this was a very slow stage. I don’t have chip timing for this stage but it may have taken me as long as 100 minutes to cover less than 10km.

However, it was at Pit stop 5 that my race took a huge turn for the better. I headed for the medical tent where I was given some magic pills. John Kelly was right - it doesn’t always get worse!

Time to complete stage approx 1:31

Pit stop 5 to Pit stop 6 (13.1km)

Pit Stop 5 was off a long, narrow track with runners passing close by as they headed in and out of the pitstop. I headed back out onto the course with a cup of tea feeling much more human - and cheerful - as the pills had an almost immediate effect. Stomach settled, I decided this was the moment to call on my pre-prepared music playlist. Powered up by an eclectic mix starting with Thin Lizzy’s ‘Whisky in the Jar’, Abba’s ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ and the Lemon Twigs ‘Hell On Wheels’ I felt good and was able to start running again. After 60km of running I felt almost euphoric and adding the music gave me that sensational feeling of the runner’s high. Taking advantage of a downhill section, my 65th kilometre turned out to be the fastest I’d run since the 31st km of the race.

Ultra-running involves lots of mental games, or, put another way, lying to yourself. Throughout the first half of the race I’d been telling myself that 70km was the finish point, because if I could get to 70km there was no way I wouldn’t finish. “You can easily walk 30km, so basically you’ve done it when you get to 70km…” By the end of this stage I’d be past that magic 70km marker, with the finish psychologically within reach.

The stage took us along a straight track with trees, tall hedgerows and cow parsley on either side. The scenery didn’t change much and so at times the track seemed never-ending. By now, every km was feeling hard won. The temperature rose slightly and I drained my hydration vest with several kilometres still to go to the next pit stop, so I was grateful to be offered water by a woman in a supporter car. Small things like this become magnified the longer the race goes on and this little bottle of cold water really revived me as I completed the stage.

Time to complete stage approx: 1:50

Official chip time for reaching Pit Stop 6 = 9 hours 51 minutes. Position in race = 388 (-72 places on halfway).

Pit stop 6 to Pit stop 7 (15.5km)

Greeting my parents - surprise additions to the support team.

This was the stop where I discovered the miraculous healing powers of flat Coke and cheese and onion crisps. The hit I got from the first gulp of Coke was so intense that I filled one of my hydration pouches with it. My stomach was no longer cramping, but I decided to play it safe and take a couple more pills, so I lost more time at the medical tent.

I walked out of the pit stop eating the crisps. They tasted incredible, as if they contained every vitamin, source of energy and type of body salt that I might have lost throughout the day. About 100m from the pit stop I considered turning back to grab another bag, but after 73km, the idea of doing a completely unnecessary extra 200 metres was unthinkable.

I headed back out onto the course. The stage began with us heading along the verge of a road, but very soon we were cutting back up onto the Ridgeway - up a long, steep hill. Halfway up this hill, I saw my support team, but this time I also spotted my parents, which was strange as they were not supposed to be there. I’ve read reports from more extreme ultra-runs, in which runners have hallucinated all sorts of things, from monsters to their children’s toys strewn all over the mountainside, but this was not a hallucination, it was a surprise addition to the support team. I hadn’t seen Mum and Dad in person for months because of the pandemic, so it was a great moment. They’d all been tracking me on the Find My app, and had been worrying about why I’d spent so long at the pit stop, so it was good to be able to tell them I was feeling in decent shape to complete the course.

This was the longest stage of the race and I was running in bursts now with a fair amount of walking in between. Where the course was open hillside there were markers to keep us on track. Run two markers, walk one marker, run two markers…

By this point I had run two marathons. As had everyone else on the course, which meant that lots of race stories were emerging. I got talking to a guy who had done the exact opposite to me - he’d taken on too few calories and had almost fainted at 50km. It’s hard to get the balance right. One of the things serious ultra-runners often stress is that a key part of performing well is dealing with the things that don’t go to plan.

Time to complete stage approx 2:26.

Pit stop 7 to FINISH (11.9km)

Timing my arrival at the Stones for a sunset photo opportunity.

Almost there. My crew gathered at Barbury Castle to give me another shout on to the finish. “Only two park runs to go,” my Dad shouted after me.

I did more walking than running on this stage. The terrain itself didn’t exactly encourage running - two deep rutted grooves between narrow grassy strips. The ground was curved and bumpy. There was very little properly flat ground to run on. Running was hard. Every bit of me was starting to ache.

Nonetheless, I was closing in on the finish and I knew I’d be done before dark. Even at walking pace, I knew that with every ten minutes that went by I was another km closer to the finish.

We left the rutted track and moved onto the road out to the Avebury stones. It was a relief to have flat ground underfoot and having walked much of the stage I was able to start jogging again.

I reached the stones at sunset and made the tour around them. It was hard to find the mental energy to take them in properly, but they do provide an epic backdrop to the finish. Except of course that they’re not quite the finish. To finish, you must leave the stones, head back down the road and turn into a field. The race finishes with a walk uphill through this field and then a 90 degree turn onto a long, straight run to the finish line. Obviously you want to finish a race like this running not walking, so I walked through the farmer’s field, conserving what little energy remained, and then when I hit the turn, I ran for home.

Time to complete stage approx 1:42

Official chip time at finish = 14 hours 17 minutes 16 seconds. 14:17:16

Finishing position = 392 (-4 places on pit stop 6).

Finishing position for age group = 116

100km. Done.

*always good to have an excuse

Want a great ad campaign? Follow Mr Benn.

Like most British kids born in the seventies, I loved Mr Benn, so I was sad to read that his creator, David McKee, has died at the age of 87.

According to one obituary, David attributed the popularity of Mr Benn to children’s liking for the same story repeated: “It’s security, they know what’s coming next”.

With Mr Benn we always knew exactly what was coming next. The walk down Festive Road in his suit, tie and bowler hat. The visit to the fancy-dress shop. The appearance “as if by magic” of the shopkeeper.

On it went through the episode, the familiar structure wrapping a completely new adventure. Every episode the same but different. The same but different. The key to a great campaign.

Because it’s not only children who like to know what’s coming next.

It’s why the first episode of a new sitcom is never as enjoyable as the twenty-first.

It’s why we started every Warburtons ad with “Mr Warburton, there’s a Mr Stallone /Mr The Frog / Mr Kay / Mr De Niro here to see you…”

It’s why Stella Artois’s Reassuringly Expensive campaign, with the Jean de Florette setting and theme music is still the most effective beer campaign of all time (see IPA Effectiveness case study bank).

It’s why millions more people will be able to tell you the Specsavers strapline than whatever strapline Vodafone has chosen this week.

And it’s why every third film on TikTok is following a pre-established meme, from the set dance routines to the people playing pots and pans strapped to their bodies to the patient ping-pong-ball-chuckers.

Originality is the lifeblood of our industry, so it’s no surprise there’s always a rush to throw things away and start from scratch.

But if you want to create something famous, memorable, enduring, David McKee’s example is a good one to follow: make something the same but different.

Public's interest in Christmas advertising plummets 35% in a year.

So which is your favourite? The young magician? Kevin the Carrot? Or maybe, like the Great British Public, this year you really couldn’t give a flying fir-tree about the annual avalanche of Christmas commercials, because In 2020, people are much less interested than they were twelve months ago. 35% less interested according to the Google Trends data. This chart shows the huge drop in Google searches for “X Christmas advert” where X is any one of John Lewis, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Argos, Lidl, Boots or Very.

The total searches may be down, but we can still look at the battle of the brands to see who’s coming out on top. John Lewis has taken a different approach this year, but it keeps its place as the most-searched for Christmas commercial, way out in front of all other brands.

Sainsbury’s is in second, although depressingly this is largely owing to a huge spike in searches following media reports of racists attacking the brand’s campaign for using a Black family.

Beyond John Lewis and Sainsbury’s, the battle to be ‘best of the rest’ has been won by McDonald’s, reminding us to stay Forever Young and keep the spirit of Christmas alive with a bag of reindeer treats.

Yet there’s no escaping the fact that in overall terms, the public’s interest in these Christmas blockbusters appears to be on the slide. John Lewis hit its peak in 2016 with Buster the Boxer and this year’s drop in interest is particularly severe.

This seems to be a general trend rather than a brand-specific one - searches for “Kevin the Carrot” this year are just 25% of what they were in 2018.

Not a great year for Christmas advertising then, but the other way to look at this is that the brands themselves have been reluctant to go ‘all out’ in a year when so many lives have been devastated by COVID. Some of the work feels small and apologetic in its ambition, and when it comes to production, restrictions on shooting through lockdown can hardly have helped. Let’s hope that in 2021, a newly-vaccinated nation will be readying itself for the Christmas celebration to end all celebrations, and that a confident, celebratory set of commercials re-engages public interest in our festive advertising.

Guns, Butter and the new Avon campaign.

One of the first things you learn in economics is the guns and butter model, in which a national economy is simplified down to producing just two things: guns and butter. The point of the model is to demonstrate that economic choices have consequences. You can choose to produce different combinations of guns and butter, but once you’re on the production possibility frontier (the curve in the diagram below) then however much you might wish for it, you can’t have both more guns AND more butter.

The same is true of communications - you simply can’t have more of everything. Every additional fact, line of voiceover, logo, corporate end-device or super dilutes the power of the messages already present. But here’s the thing: while the finite capacities of factories prevent us from thinking we can have more of both guns and butter, in the world of advertising no such restrictions apply. We can kid ourselves that we can have more of everything, ignoring the fact that the chaotic barrage we’ve thrown out into the world is too much for the human brain to decode, to absorb, to remember.

The new Avon campaign is an interesting case in point. It wants to encourage reappraisal of the Avon brand and to attract a younger audience. It’s an extraordinary brand - well over a century old - and it has some striking facts with which to set about the reappraisal task:

• Avon has been granted over 1,000 patents

• Avon has won 300 awards in the last three years

• Avon helps tackle gender violence in over 40 countries

• Avon has donated over $1bn to causes

• Avon has a global network of over 5m women

• Avon has been supporting women since 1886

• Avon are pioneers in skincare

• Avon has the world’s best selling fragrance brand

• Avon was the first global beauty brand to end animal testing.

Some of these facts are the kind of nuggets that strategic planners dream of. The hard facts on which famous, emotional campaigns and IPA Effectiveness Papers are founded. But - just as with guns and butter - a choice is necessary. For a new campaign to be about something, it really can’t be about everything.

So which of these facts has Avon chosen to include in its new brand film? Every single one. They appear as large titles on top of a film that seems to be about something else entirely. The voiceover and images celebrate inspirational women - and match up nicely - but the titles seem like a late, incongruous addition. For example, the question ‘who has donated over $1bn to causes?’ is written across an image of two women enjoying a fairground ride as the voiceover says “I am the fifty year old who doesn’t feel a day over thirty”. The result is almost like watching two films in one go. See what you think by watching the film here:

Think you know Avon? Think Again. 135th Avon's had a makeover, and Launched a new brand Campaign - 'WATCH ME NOW' - To better reflect the innovative, bold an...

New brand campaigns often start this way. Most reappraisal projects begin with a deep dive into the brand, rooting out lots of key facts and hidden strengths. And once you have that nice long list, it’s only natural to want the world to know about all of them. I suspect the best work in this campaign will emerge when the dust has settled on the big brand relaunch. Avon has found an active, contemporary-sounding new campaign line in ‘Watch Me Now’ and if the company backs this up with some big, bold, real-world actions, there’s no reason to think a new generation of Avon customers can’t be persuaded. But only if, when the next campaign materials are reviewed, the request is not to add both more guns and more butter.

The Extraordinary Numbers behind Lockdown TV Viewing

It’s been fashionable in recent years for media commentators to argue TV is dead as an advertising medium, while at the other extreme, people state categorically that spending on social media is a waste of money.  Extreme positions make for attractive headlines, but of course there’s a time and a place for TV, social media and everything in between, so long as you look at the facts and understand how each channel works.

This webinar from the Royal Television Society is a good source for up to date data on TV viewing - including some fascinating insights into lockdown viewer behaviour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzuyIU0vc5I&t=2481s

It’s an hour long, but if you can’t fit another hour of screen time in between Normal People and Gogglebox, here’s a summary…

People still watch a huge amount of TV every day.

The average daily time spent in front of the TV set during lockdown (all viewers aged 4+) was 307 minutes - over five hours every day.  (Source: BARB)

It’s also useful to look at the comparative figure for the same period from 2019, when we weren’t locked down.  It’s still a whopping 231 minutes.  More than 3.5 hours every day during ‘normal’ times. Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that when digital platform Adzooma asked 2,000 adults which type of marketing makes them most likely to buy something, 56% said TV.

A lot of people working in marketing and advertising don’t spend anything like this amount of time watching TV, and it’s this variance between personal experience and average UK behaviour that leaves so many people susceptible to the argument that ‘TV advertising is dead’.

The rise in unidentified viewing continues

It’s important to understand that quite a lot of viewing is going to ‘unidentified viewing’ and that this is increasing year on year.  Unidentified viewing is when BARB know that the television set is on, but it’s not showing a BARB reported channel.  Examples of unidentified viewing include YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, using games consoles and around half of all BBC iPlayer usage.

Of the 307 minutes of average daily viewing during lockdown, 93 minutes is unidentified viewing.  That’s quite a lot, and it’s rising fast - but it still leaves over three and a half hours of what we might call traditional telly watching.

16-34s seem to value public service broadcasters just as much as older generations

There’s been a narrative emerging that young people, hooked on a diet of Netflix and Instagram, don’t value public service broadcasting.

In fact, Digital UK’s research into public attitudes to broadcasting suggest there’s little difference between the views of 16-34s and the rest of the population.

The Corona crisis even may have helped switch younger audiences back on to public service broadcasters – Channel 4 doubled its 16-34 audience for Channel 4 news during the crisis and the BBC saw record numbers across all audiences.

Having said that, Netflix is also seen as a really important source of information for younger groups and is neck and neck with the BBC amongst 16-34s in terms of perceived importance.

Lockdown has been a bumper time for TV viewing figures across the board

The BBC has served one billion (BILLION!) iPlayer requests during lockdown.  To begin with, this was driven by news, but as lockdown went on, people switched to drama, particularly Killing Eve and Normal People.

Channel 4 has seen the best numbers ever for hits such as Gogglebox and Celebrity Bake-Off and record breaking numbers for a new comedy series with the latest run of Friday Night Dinner.

Understanding Human Risk

The Human Risk podcast has a lot of fascinating and very useful content for marketers and those in creative agencies (particularly strategic planners). Christian Hunt, who I’ve known for many years, has secured an eclectic mix of guests ranging from Dom Joly to Rory Sutherland, Professor Charles Spence to viral cartoonist Eggsy.

Christian and I caught up to discuss creative risk and how this affects the decisions individuals take when managing brands and businesses. The link to this episode is below, along with a number of other episodes that Christian has recommended for the marketing community.

Episode Links

Matt Edwards on Creative Risk & Marketing - good for anyone involved with selecting or approving creative ideas: https://kite.link/Matt

Professor Charles Spence on sensory perception - exploring how the way food and drink is presented to us impacts the way it tastes: https://kite.link/wine

Dr Jill McDevitt - a sexologist explains what the campaigns to get people to wear masks can learn from the campaigns to get people to wear condoms: https://kite.link/sex

Rory Sutherland on compliance and other topics - https://kite.link/rory

Mark Heywood on the impact COVID will have on the creative industries: https://kite.link/creative

Eggsy - on going viral during a pandemic: https://kite.link/viral

Twenty Useful Numbers for 2020 - Updated Post-Coronavirus

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future” - Niels Bohr

At the start of the year I shared twenty useful numbers for 2020, to provide some context for brand plans and business ambitions. Well, we now know that those numbers were arguably the least useful forecasts in economic history. So, with businesses across the world ripping up their marketing plans and reshaping themselves for a new world, here are those same twenty useful numbers, updated post coronavirus, together with the original predictions from January (shown as the figures in brackets).

Global Economic Growth

Predicted growth in the global economy:  -4.9% (+3.2%)

Predicted growth in the US:  -8% (+1.8%)

Predicted growth in India:  -4.5% (+6.3%)

Predicted growth in China:  +1% (+6%)

Predicted growth in Japan:  -5.8% (0%)

Predicted growth in Russia:  -6.6% (+1.7%)

Sources:  Latest figures from IMF World Economic Outlook Update, June 2020. Original predictions from Morgan Stanley Real GDP growth forecasts.

UK Key Economic Indicators

Predicted economic growth in the UK:  -10.2% (+1.4%)

Predicted increase in UK wages:  +0.5%. (+2.5%)

Predicted increase in UK house prices:  -7.5% (+1%)

Predicted level of UK inflation:  +1.2% (2.1%)

Predicted level of UK unemployment:  8.6%. (4.1%)

Sources: See foot of article.

Adspend

Predicted increase in global adspend:  -9.9% (+4.3%)

Predicted increase in total UK adspend:  -13% (+4.9%)

Predicted increase in digital UK adspend:  -8% (+11%)

Predicted increase in TV UK adspend:  -15% (0%)

Predicted increase in Outdoor UK adspend:  -35% (+5%)

Predicted increase in Cinema UK adspend:  -50% (+4.5%)

Predicted increase in Radio UK adspend:  -16% (+2%)

Predicted decrease in Print UK adspend:  -24% (-6%)

Estimate of % UK adspend to be spent online in 2020:  66%

Source:  GroupM

Sources for UK Key Economic Indicators

UK Economic Growth: Latest source: IMF World Economic Outlook Update. Original prediction from Morgan Stanley Real GDP growth forecasts.

Predicted increase in UK wages: Latest source HM Treasury. Forecast for the UK Economy. Comparison of Independent Forecasts. Original prediction from Korn Ferry Salary Forecast.

Predicted increase in UK house prices: Savills

Predicted level of UK inflation: Latest source: HM Treasury. Forecast for the UK Economy. Comparison of Independent Forecasts. Original source:  Consensus Forecasts, G7 & Western Europe.

Predicted level of UK unemployment:  Source: KPMG. UK Economic Outlook. June 2020. (Original source:  Focus Economics Panel)

How do you become a Non Exec Director (when you've never been a Non Exec Director)?

The best way to get a Non Executive Directorship is to have a strong track record of previous NEDS.  But how do you get the first one?  And what if you’re not yet sure life as a NED is for you, but would like to learn more?  If you’ve ever asked those questions, this piece is for you…

A year ago I received a message on LinkedIn from Heather White.  I didn’t know Heather at the time, but it was clear from her profile that she was phenomenally well connected and knew a lot about the world of Non Executive Directorships (NEDs).  It was a world I was keen to learn more about so we fixed to meet.

Heather explained the concept behind her Boardroom Ready programme.  Simply put, it connects individuals wanting to explore the world of NEDs (but who have not to date been active in that world) with companies who would welcome external input to their board meetings (but who are not ready to take on the legal formalities and remuneration requirements of appointing an official NED).

This sounded like a great development opportunity, so I took away four briefing documents to get an idea of the types of businesses Heather was working with.  One in particular stood out.  M2A Media, a client-facing business with some similarities to the creative agency world I knew well, but with a very different and highly technical product: live streaming events using public cloud technology.  I took a look at the M2A website and read the latest blog post:  Hybrid SSAI/DAI & Localisation in OTT Live Event Streaming.  There was no doubt I would learn a lot from getting to know M2A’s business, even if only what SSAI meant…

A week later I had an interview with the Chairman and so began my year on the M2A board.  It’s been a fascinating experience and I’ve learnt a huge amount from the founders, the Chairman, the other board members and from my coaching sessions with Heather.  I’ve made connections I’d never have met from within my own industry, through the networking opportunities the programme opened up, and when I set up my consulting business one of the first roles I took on was to join the board of another company, this time in a paid capacity.

There’s nothing more rewarding than applying your experience to help an organisation operating in a different sector to the one you know best.  M2A seem happy too – they’re looking to continue the programme and take on a new member of the board for the coming year. 

Alongside the live boardroom experience, the programme offers a host of other ways to learn about life as a NED, including partnerships and workshops with the NED Association.

There are so many people within my network that I know would thrive on this programme that I thought I’d share my experience of the last 12 months.  If you’d like to know more, feel free to ask any questions (my contact details are at the bottom of this page) and if this might be for you I will happily give you an introduction to Heather.

Burger King's Mouldy Burger is the wrong kind of brave

In the world of marketing communications, the descriptor “brave” is often used by creative teams to describe something they’ve created that the client will almost certainly not want to run.  As in “this is brilliant, but the client won’t be brave enough to buy it”.

As a result, “brave” has become something of a catch-all term, used in relation to many different approaches.  But look more closely, and there are really only two types of brave campaigns.  Good Brave and Bad Brave.

Good Brave is doing something of outstanding originality.  Something category busting.  Unconventional.  Unexpected. Something which makes the organisation behind the campaign feel nervous, simply because they’ve never done anything like this before – and none of their competitors have either.  Good Brave only gets made with a strong client to steer the ship.  Good Brave comes under intense internal scrutiny and often has to survive multiple rounds of research.

Good Brave is a gorilla playing the drums.  Good Brave is a highway full of clown cars.  Good Brave is hiding a Big Mac in every Burger King ad shot in 2019.

So what’s Bad Brave?  Well, Bad Brave is the lazy way to getting noticed: deliberately smearing the brand with negative associations.  Bad Brave is a broken down car in an automotive campaign, a wheezing, dying patient in a healthcare ad, or a shop full of gum chewing, rude assistants in a retail commercial.  Buried somewhere underneath all this, there’s a positive underlying message for the consumer to decode.  But our brains are just too lazy (and too busy) to store this message in place of the negative brand smears.

This applies to all categories, but it’s particularly important for food and drink advertising, because our brains are hard wired to avoid anything which might poison us.  Which brings us back to Burger King’s latest stunt.  In a month’s time, how many people outside the advertising industry will remember this as a campaign about the beauty of no artificial preservatives?  And how many will say it was about a mouldy burger?

Who will win Euro 2020? The battle of the bookmakers.

While Gareth Southgate plots to end 54 years of hurt, the marketing teams of the major bookmakers will be busily drawing up their own plans for this summer’s Euro 2020. Major football tournaments are defining moments for betting firms and the performance of their marketers will have a significant impact on the year’s financial performance.

The annual reports of the big players are unusually revealing for any marketers curious enough to learn from past tournaments. In many sectors it can be difficult to access hard data relating to a specific campaign, yet in the gambling sector there are facts and figures aplenty.

The beauty of live sport is its unpredictability, but the sporting calendar itself is episodic and repetitive with World Cup followed by Euros followed by World Cup on a biennial basis. This means bookmaker annual reports provide a free, immediately accessible, treasure trove of information for anyone working towards a Euro 2020 campaign. It’s possible to look back at which bookmakers were most successful at previous tournaments - and then consider what drove that success.

As an example, I worked with Betfair to develop their 2014 World Cup campaign. A quick check back to the annual report of the time gives the results - a massive 50% increase in Betfair’s active customer base and an uplift in sportsbook revenue from £24m prior year to £36m in 2014. (Source: Betfair Annual Report 2014.) There were three reasons why the campaign was so effective, all of which could be applied to a Euro 2020 marketing plan.

First, product innovation is critical. The sector is awash with generous sign-up offers and the average online gambler has already set up accounts with four bookmakers. (Source: Gambling Commission Annual Report 2018). So Betfair had to give the portfolio punter a tangible reason to log into their Betfair account, when it was just as easy to log into any one of numerous competitor accounts. Betfair’s Cash Out and Price Rush products were therefore central to the campaign, offering two products that, at the time, were both well ahead of the market. The sector has attempted a number of innovations since, but nothing has come close to matching the impact of Cash Out. Any bookmaker with ‘the next Cash Out’ up their sleeve will have a great shot at winning Euro 2020.

An awesome, table-tennis playing Octopus helped Betfair to success in the World Cup

Second, it’s essential to own a striking piece of well branded, unique visual equity. There will be numerous Euro 2020 campaigns, not just for betting companies but for soft drinks, cars, banks and supermarkets. Within the betting sector, Euro 2020 campaigns will be multi-media and multi-message. There are 51 different matches across 31 days and there will be hundreds of different offers and prices to communicate. So a visual wrapper is essential if a ragged, fragmented campaign is to be avoided. We solved this by giving Betfair an awesome, table-tennis playing Octopus. He went everywhere, from TV to digital to a life-size 3D structure that stopped traffic at Oxford Circus. In fact, the culmination of his journey was the Betfair annual report, where he was heavily featured. The more unusual and original the visual equity, the more effective it will be, because more people will notice it*. NB: Four geezers larking about, looking at their mobile phones and punching the air with delight is not a piece of striking visual equity.

Third, it’s important to recognise that different pieces of communication have different roles to play. We need to get people to notice our campaign and take an interest in it. And we need to give people the right offers at the right time. But not everything we produce has to do both jobs. For the World Cup campaign, we launched and made an impact with the Octopus first, establishing him on TV in the opening week with a stunning TV commercial, then quickly deployed him to serve tactical messages via Betfair’s phenomenal performance marketing team. This model could be easily replicated at Euro 2020 with the right strategic planning up front.

So much for the marketing battle, but who do the bookmakers think will win Euro 2020 on the pitch? Remarkably, given their performance at previous tournaments, most have England as the current favourites!

*We repeated the use of striking visual equity a few months later, by putting horses inside rally cars for Betfair’s Tap Tap Boom Cheltenham campaign.

Twenty Useful Numbers for 2020

As we launch ourselves into another year of writing brand plans and creating marketing campaigns, here are twenty economic predictions for 2020, which provide some useful context for our individual brand and business ambitions.

Global Economic Growth

Predicted growth in the global economy:  +3.2%

Predicted growth in the US:  +1.8%

Predicted growth in India:  +6.3%

Predicted growth in China:  +6%

Predicted growth in Japan:  0%

Predicted growth in Russia:  +1.7%

Source:  Morgan Stanley Real GDP growth forecasts

UK Key Economic Indicators

Predicted economic growth in the UK:  +1.4% (Source:  Morgan Stanley Real GDP growth forecasts)

Predicted increase in UK wages:  +2.5% (Source:  Korn Ferry Salary Forecast)

Predicted increase in UK house prices:  +1% (Source:  Savills)

Predicted level of UK inflation:  2.1% (Source:  Consensus Forecasts, G7 & Western Europe)

Predicted level of UK unemployment:  4.1% (Source:  Focus Economics Panel)

Adspend

Predicted increase in global adspend:  +4.3%

Predicted increase in total UK adspend:  +4.9%

Source:  Zenith Advertising Expenditure Forecasts

Predicted increase in digital UK adspend:  +11%

Predicted increase in TV UK adspend:  0% (flat)

Predicted increase in Outdoor UK adspend:  +5%

Predicted increase in Cinema UK adspend:  +4.5%

Predicted increase in Radio UK adspend:  +2%

Predicted decrease in Print UK adspend:  -6%

Estimate of % UK adspend to be spent online in 2020:  66%

Source:  GroupM

Who's really winning the Christmas advertising battle?

Every year, a range of research companies pop up with some spurious new research technique for deciding which retailer’s TV blockbuster has ‘won Christmas’. A more definitive way to settle the argument is to use Google Trends analysis.

I’ve looked at the volume of UK searches for each retailer’s “christmas advert” from bonfire night onwards, to compare the average level of interest in each creative extravaganza. We’ll come to John Lewis in a moment, but here are the top five performers excluding Edgar the Dragon:

Sainsbury’s tale of the exiled chimney sweep hits the highest peak, but Aldi enjoys the highest average level of interest across the period.  In fact, Aldi seems to have pulled off a unique trick with some clever campaign planning, to extend interest in its campaign beyond a single spike.

It’s also a good performance from the crazed jumper-wearers of M&S, the time-travelling Tesco delivery man and Asda’s heart-string-tugging mish-mash of Northern Lights, sibling affection and a dead grandad.

So why exclude John Lewis from the initial analysis?  Well, because John Lewis smashes everything else out of sight.  It doesn’t just win the Christmas ad-battle, it destroys the competition to the point where they’re ground into the dust at the foot of the chart:

So in summary, it’s Edgar the dragon miles out in front, with Kevin the Carrot winning the race to be best of the rest.  If you want to see how your brand performed, here’s the full list of results:

Average level of UK interest in retailer Christmas advertising.

Source: Google Trends.  UK search volumes for “retailer-name Christmas advert” Nov 5-21. Indexed against the peak search volume achieved by Sainsbury’s (100).

John Lewis 374

Aldi                 45

Sainsbury’s      22

M&S                13

Tesco               10

Asda                10

Argos               7

Lidl                  5

Boots               4

Very                 4

How to use Google Trends for Marketing Insight - Part Two

In my first post about Google Trends, I explained how useful it can be to marketers as an instant, free source of insight.  In this post, let’s explore three more ways it can help with marketing strategy.

First, Trends can help us with understanding market seasonality.  To bring this to life, imagine we’re a luxury Christmas pudding manufacturer, selling our products online.  We want to know precisely when the great British public thinks about buying their puddings, so we can build a digital marketing campaign around this timing.  Rather than conduct an expensive and time-consuming research study on the buying habits of Christmas pudding eaters, let’s first see what Google Trends can tell us:

Each year, there’s a spike of interest around the end of November.  Presumably, this is when the organised folks start to make their Christmas food preparations.  However, the peak point of interest falls much later, with a final-week scramble as Christmas Day approaches.  The pattern repeats, almost exactly, year after year.

 Google Trends can also put things in a national perspective.  For example, if you work in any kind of agency or marketing team right now, you’re sure to hear a lot about Tik Tok.  It was the most downloaded app on the Apple app store in the first quarter of 2019, and is valued at over $75m.  Tik Tok is certainly enjoying explosive growth, but before we stick the entire annual marketing budget behind it, let’s remember that it’s not yet overtaken Poundland on UK search volumes:

As a third example, Google Trends can reveal changes in consumer behaviour.  There’s been a lot of press coverage recently about vegan diets.  Is this just a media fad or something people out in the real world are actively investigating and adopting?  Again, Google Trends has the answer, with searches for “vegan diet” showing a steady upward trend to a peak in November 2019:

Compare this to searches for Bitcoin, which flared brightest in December 2017 before the price collapsed and interest fell back:

In my final post about Google Trends, I’ll look at how it can be an indicator of campaign impact, looking at which of the 2019 contenders is winning the Christmas advertising battle.

How to use Google Trends for marketing insight - Part One

Google Trends is an extraordinarily powerful insight-engine for marketers.  It’s simple to understand and free to use, so it’s surprising that the insights it generates so rarely appear in marketing presentations.

 The tool shows the volume of Google searches for any word, name or phrase you care to type into it.  However, it’s when you start to pit search terms against one another that it becomes most useful.

 A good starting point is to compare your brand to a close competitor, to see the nation’s relative interest and how this has changed over time.  Heineken v Kronenbourg.  Travelodge v Premier Inn.  Lidl v Aldi.  Every chart tells a story.

As an example, let’s look at two of the nation’s most famous brands: X Factor and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.  Which is the hotter property?

The chart shows that public interest in X Factor has decreased with every new series since Ben Haenow’s triumph in 2014.  In contrast, the nation has become increasingly smitten with the bugs and camp-fires of I’m a Celebrity.  The trend has continued to the point where I’m a Celebrity overtook X Factor on search volumes for the first time in 2018.

The charts produced by Google Trends are indexed against the highest search volume during the period selected.  The high point is given a score of 100 and all other search volumes are ranked from 0-99 in relation to this.  I’m A Celebrity’s recent peak scored 79, so it still has some way to go to match the historical highs of X Factor.

In my next blog post I’ll give some examples of how brands and marketing teams can use Google Trends for specific insights.  Finally, in Part Three I’ll use Google Trends to look at which brand has won the 2019 Christmas advertising battle.

Production costs: why 12.5% is the magic number

I recently met with the chief executives of two very different businesses.  Different cultures, different markets, different business models. Yet they do have one thing in common – both spend a huge amount of money on media but only a tiny proportion of that on production.

In both meetings, I shared a couple of examples of famous and effective campaigns I’d developed.  These were "big" campaigns featuring celebrities and high production values and while both CEOs were impressed with the results, both also remarked: "I bet that was expensive to make."

I pointed out that they too could easily be making advertising as big, famous, and talked about as this, if they only looked at their media and production spend as a single pot, rather than media being regarded as a must-have necessity and production being a cost to be minimised at, well, all costs.

To illustrate this, consider the hypothetical example of a brand spending £50m on TV but just £2m on production. Doubling the production budget to £4m is a very difficult argument to make in isolation, but what happens if you consider the entire pot as £52m for media AND production and then consider the optimum allocations?

Think about the problem this way and you soon realise that just a 4% reduction in the number of TV spots would deliver a transformative doubling of the production budget. Might it be better to show our advertising 4% fewer times if Tom Cruise is now starring in it?

Bigger production budgets aren’t only about celebrities, of course, they can mean better directors, voiceovers, set-builds, locations or licensing a hit song that will delight the target audience the minute they hear it.

Maybe they were just being polite, but both CEOs said they hadn’t looked at the problem this way before.  I’m certainly not arguing that every brand out there should double their production budget, but I am proposing that thinking of media and production spend as one pot, and running some different budget-split scenarios, can be helpful when it next comes to budget setting.

What’s the optimum ratio?  It differs, but based on experience, the magic number is somewhere in the region of 12.5%.  If nothing else, it’s critical to at least know what the number is for your business, and to have chosen it deliberately in full knowledge of the impact it’ll have on both the media plan and the production possibilities.