What a delight it would have been to retreat into the warm and
gentle world of the historic Shell posters adorning the walls at the
History of Advertising Trust's 25th birthday party this week. Their
proud proclamation that "You can be sure of Shell" and their vibrant
evocation of an England now gone for good are a reminder of how art and
commerce once perfectly blended in advertising as self-confident as it
was visually stunning.
How many of those mingling atop the Shell Centre on London's South Bank
must have wished today's battered and beleaguered ad industry could roll
back the years to a time when advertising was so sure of itself and its
future.
America's tragedy and traumas have turned the global ad market's
hairline fractures into gaping cracks. If it goes ahead, the deal that
is expected to result in WPP - whose chief executive, Sir Martin
Sorrell, was the HAT's guest of honour - buying Tempus to boost the
group's media buying firepower may be the last of its kind for some
time.
Bob Willott, the editor of the industry newsletter Marketing Services
Financial Intelligence, predicts that any further consolidation of the
industry may be on hold for two years as predator groups become
preoccupied with safeguarding their bottom lines.
At the HAT party, the bewilderment was palpable. How was it possible,
asked the senior executive of a major poster contractor, that his
company had been forced to follow its best-ever set of results with a
profits warning.
Others were ruing the day they chased the dotcoms' fool's gold. One
agency chief executive looking to move offices said the dotcom illusion
was brought home to him when he was shown around a lavishly appointed
former dotcom company HQ vacated so suddenly that half-filled coffee
cups were still on the tables. The result is a lot more chastened
agencies who may think twice about overlooking those boring but
supportive clients that stop the roof falling in. "People may stop
flying," a senior executive of an agency with a large FMCG client base
told me. "But they won't stop washing their clothes or wiping their
arses!"
What's clear is that the industry's problems were exacerbated but not
caused by the events of 11 September. The fact that Abbott Mead Vickers
BBDO has made staff redundant and M&C Saatchi is thinking of doing so is
because of a steady erosion in corporate confidence which only now
threatens to spread to consumers. The good news is that no agency is
reporting a collapse of client confidence in advertising. The bad news
is that, with airtime demand down, advertisers are prepared to wait in
the expectation of paying less for it.
As postponements turn into cancellations, it will take all the agencies'
persuasive power to convince clients to hold their nerve and keep their
budgets intact. Suddenly, the age of innocence has never looked more
alluring.
- Caroline Marshall is away.
