The barriers between the people who make the ads and the people who buy them are coming down. Brand-owners took to the stage for the first time ever at last month's AdFest in Pattaya, with the clear message that they wanted to put old differences aside in order to produce great ads together.
"Come and challenge us," urges Rohini Miglani, associate director of advertising development from Procter & Gamble. "Come and change us."
P&G wants to get closer to creatives as a way of getting closer to consumers. People weren't engaging with P&G ads, she said, and unless the company could inject elements of warmth and surprise, with a touch of spectacle, into its communications, it was in danger of losing customers to rival brands better at forging emotional ties.
"Every time we have moved into a direction which is more surprising, bigger or more heartwarming, our sales have gone up," says Miglani. "This is something we weren't really convinced of 10 years ago, but in the past five years, and definitely in the past two to three years, we have come to the firm understanding that the more creative, the more emotional the work, the far more more likely you are to involve your consumers and make them want to buy you."
Miglani appeared on stage alongside Giorgio Minardi, chief marketing officer for McDonald's in Greater China, and Peter Bakker, then regional head of marketing and circulation for The Financial Times.
Bakker feels creatives aren't often daring enough, thinking too much about what might go down well with the client rather than pushing the creative limits to produce exceptional work. This situation is often made worse by account executives playing it safe. "Advertising is a creative business," Bakker says. "Ensure that the contract stipulates creative involvement every step of the way."
Minardi recounts that new working methods McDonald's introduced 18 months ago, which gave him ongoing contact with creative teams for the first time as they thrashed out ideas together, are starting to bear fruit.
"It's like a band that gets together," he adds. "It takes a while to get that chemistry going but now, after 18 months, we're starting to jam nicely. That's when you get the creative juices flowing." Agencies are noticing the difference in attitude, but question whether, for some, this is anything more than words. "Clients are getting bolder now, some of them are realising they have to stand out from the clutter," comments Antonio Sarmiento III, creative director of Grey Global Group's global business unit in Kuala Lumpur.
However, many creatives have been conditioned to censor themselves after experiencing constant rejection of their most free-wheeling ideas, Sarmiento says, and clients seeking to expand the creative boundaries need to take the initiative to prove that attitudes have genuinely changed.
Creatives are used to clients who say they want fresh ideas but revert to tried and tested formulas when it comes to the crunch, comments Pongpan Runghirankrak, a copywriter from Thai Hakuhodo in Bangkok. "Big companies say they want it, but they cannot forget their history," he says. "They worry about the future, but for that you have to think about the future. You must about forget history."
However, a long-established company like P&G will only go so far. P&G may be offering creatives more flexibility, but as a big company with a long history, it will never completely forgo tested formats. It will also continue to pre-test most big budget campaigns with market research and require multiple sign-offs before giving a new idea the green light. "There's not one boss, one decision-maker," Miglani remarks. "That's a reality, but it is improving."