There is no sound. The great threshing sheds are silent. No gardeners toil in the rose garden, the physick garden, the walled poison garden nor on the stepped terraces that lead down to the hot, sleepy River Adur below. Only the mournful, eldritch screeching of the white peacocks pierces the heavy, blue air above the crenellations and machicolations of the towers and parapets of Lord McKelvey’s vast Sussex mansion. The shutters are closed. The exquisite furniture is shrouded in dustsheets. The portraits of the ancestors are turned to the wall. The very air is thick with soundlessness.
Lord McKelvey is away at his northern estates and the land sleeps as if forgotten.
In the lower reaches of the under-servants’ undercroft a faint ringing has me scrambling to my feet, my rickety footstool squealing as it scrapes across the ancient, footworn flagstones. The telephone! Shambling as fast as my knackered bones will allow, I plunge into the gloom of the servant’s main under-thoroughfare and clap the instrument to my wizened ear.
“Spooner, you spavined weasel! I have sent you the latest JICMAIL DATA and require your response INSTANTER! I shall have your ‘thoughts’ on this urgent matter by sunset or all privileges, viz food and accommodation, shall be withdrawn forthwith! You may shear the new lambkins for my slipper-stuffing tomorrow. Jump to it!”
With his gruff, manly tones still ringing in the aforementioned, wizened ear, I pass through the servant’s scullery and down the tightly winding spiral staircase, down, down to the damp, moss-hung cell I share with an ancient toad beneath the larger moat, with trembling, nicotine-stained fingers I remove my ancient laptop from its oilskin snood and so begin…
Heaven knows I have been through all of this before, but the latest updates confirm my assertions. You can read the detail here>
Quite simply, as this very publication states: “Digital has yet to tackle issues around measurement, transparency and creativity.”
Despite much-vaunted claims of measurability and clarity, clients simply don’t know what is working for them in the digital space, they only know that their results are patchy and that, having drunk the digital Kool-Aid, they have not woken up in paradise.
Naturally, digital activity whether SEO, paid, native or whatever, is a crucial part of today’s thrusting CMO’s marketing mix – and the functionality of their website (transactional or not), intelligent UX, the provision of meaningful, sticky content and a joined-up approach to all aspects of online engagement is now absolutely mandatory.
But how is the CMO to fill the hopper with qualified leads? And how are they to activate prospects? In a tsunami of spam and junk email how can they gain trust and engender loyalty?
And, equally importantly, how can they justify their activities to the rest of their jaded, cynical, jittery C-suite?
Making a splashy TV commercial rarely nudges the sales graph upwards, however deftly it is sliced and diced into ever-slenderer executions for use in digital ads and social media posts.
Allocating ever bigger budgets to the snake-oil salespeople of digital media agencies is becoming the definition of throwing good money after bad.
What’s more, as depressingly consistent research suggests “people just don’t like advertising any more”.
Part of this, of course, is because advertising’s role as cheerful, clever, amusing or astonishing distraction from monolithic media channels is irrelevant in an omnichannel universe where distraction is the be-all and end-all.
But do not despair CMOs! There is a humble channel that, as Jicmail confirms, offers you an effective, measurable – and even profitable – way to engage with your prospects (cold and warm).
It’s worth citing the research in full here: “Top level benchmarks [reveal] that warm direct mail achieves an average response rate of 7.2% and an ROI of £9.00; cold direct mail generates a 0.9% response rate and ROI of £3.20; and door drops achieve a 0.5% response rate and ROI of £2.90.
“While reaching existing customers through warm direct mail might achieve a higher ROI, Jicmail points out that few businesses grow without expanding their customer base and both cold direct mail (up 24% year on year) and door drops (up 39%) have been increasingly effective at helping organisations do this over the past 12 months.”
I have been banging on about this repeatedly throughout my previous fifty-six (56!) columns in this very publication.
Direct mail and door-drops are tangible manifestations of your brand, not digital ephemera. Create an intelligent communication that embodies your brand values and put it, literally, into the hands of your prospects and customers and they will react positively – or, rather, enough of them will react positively to prove its value.
And you will have demonstrable proof of the effectiveness of your marketing spend.
As the young people say, “what’s not to like?”
Of course, as a (nearly) lone voice crying in the wilderness, I don’t expect you to listen to the ramblings of a “washed-up old has-been” – but hang on! What’s this? “‘Fiftysomething’ Xavier Rees: Agencies need us oldies”
It’s a sexy, new, FREE report from the IPA called “Time for some new Age Thinking”.
“By fostering an inclusive environment where age is seen as an asset, advertising agencies can tap into a wealth of experience that can unlock new opportunities for collaboration, growth, and innovation within the industry.”
What’s more, IPA Talent Group chair and AMV Group chief executive Xavier Rees, who is already in his 50s, [goes on to say]: “It’s clear that advertising can’t afford to overlook the value of experience. We know that diverse teams produce better work, and that includes age diversity.
“Agencies that adapt and invest in the skills of older, more experienced professionals will set themselves up for long-term success. We need to work together as an industry to find better ways of retaining older talent.”
If an august institution such as the IPA is encouraging agencies to make use of the experience of (ahem) older practitioners and an august publication such as Lord McKelvey’s incomparable Decision Marketing is prepared to give them a platform, is it possible that what I am saying has merit?
Jonathan Spooner is consulting creative director at Spoon Creative
