FEATURES: Just when you thought you knew it all, along comes this - " ... To say what has to be said like it's never been said before" - David Abbott

Here's a smack in the teeth for anyone working in the advertising or marketing industries: advertising doesn't build brands, and thinking that it does only cultivates arrogance. According to Mr John Bevins, executive chairman of Sydney-based agency John Bevins Communications, what advertising actually does is to build brand awareness - but as he noted, "Brand awareness is not (the same thing as) brand-building". "Advertising lays the foundations for building relationships between consumers and brands, which in turn builds the brands," he said. "All relationships are built on trust, and trust is built on truth. Part of the job is understanding the importance to this relationship of two crucial truths: the brand truth and the consumer truth ... and the magic which is essential to connecting them." But it is precisely that "magic" which proves so elusive, either to creatives or to their clients, and more often than not, both. There are, of course, exceptional exceptions - take the Guinness 'surfer' commercial produced by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO out of London, which won two Gold Pencils at this year's D&AD awards, the first time in the awards' 38-year history that a single spot had won two golds. The creative premise was "All good things come to those who wait" and this was inspired by the fact that, after being poured, a glass of Guinness should be left to stand for 20 minutes before being drunk. The 'storyboard' which the agency presented to the client read like this: "Men stand on beach. Men wait for waves. Men go in and fight waves. Men stop fighting waves. (There may be horses.)" So when FCB-Banks Hoggins O'Shea executive creative director Chris O'Shea emphasised the importance of trust between an agency and its client, he was perhaps understating the case. Certainly, Guinness had to take a blind leap of faith when presented with the above storyboard ... never mind that the production budget came to a rumoured US$1.5 million. "The client must have both respect for and trust in the agency team," Mr O'Shea said. "But that trust and respect have to be earned." And how does one go about earning that respect and trust? Easy: "If you behave like a child, you will be treated like a child," Mr O'Shea said. To whit: - Don't turn up late for meetings. - Don't throw artistic tantrums. - Be honest. - Say what you think ("Clients value an honest opinion. They may not agree with you, but they'll appreciate you for speaking your mind.") - Never over-promise, because you may well under-deliver. So what's the real starting point, now that we've established that in fact, none of us actually know what we're doing? Unfortunately, even the experts can't agree. According to Mr O'Shea, most products and brands have nothing new to say; therefore, it is up to the creative team to "say what has to be said like it has never been said before" (as famously said by creative guru David Abbott). "It's not about making something out of nothing, but about making something out of very very little," he said. Mr Bevin, on the other hand, believes that when it comes to advertising and marketing, ideas are not the task at hand. "Ideas are the tool; brand-building is the task," he said. So it took creative advertising consultant Barbara Nokes to cut through the confusion, with a simple declaration that, tragically, failed to reassure anyone: "There is no magic formula to ensure that the golden goose always lays golden eggs," she pointed out. In short, no one knows for sure, but everyone has a pet theory - such as whether advertising is a science or an art. Ms Nokes is a firm believer in the latter. "Despite the millions of dollars spent worldwide on research, advertising is still an art. Science is rational, it can be proved. Art is irrational, scary, risky, and requires a leap of faith," she declared. "Research destroys the spontaneity that leads to great art. It is useful, it serves a purpose, but it should be used only as an indicator. "Clients and agencies should be guided more by the gut feeling of the creative group, than on a consumer focus group." This is why, she believes, the client should appoint one person who has final say over what goes; three people at the most. Mr Bevin was equally scathing about the role of research in determining creativity in advertising. "Too often, research is little more than people sitting around thinking up concepts for brand testing, rather than searching for brand truths," he said. Does this mean that in the end, great advertising is just a matter of opinion? Mr O'Shea thinks so - but he also thinks that your opinion is no more valid than that of the person sitting next to you. "Although I've been doing this for more than 25 years, I still haven't the faintest clue where a good creative idea comes from," he admitted. And here's another poke in the eye for those who sneer at "safe", "conventional" advertising: it works. All advertising works - but only in direct proportion to the amount of money put into the media budget, according to Mr O'Shea. To stand out, advertising needs to be "different, and maybe a little bit crazy", he added. Ms Nokes took this a step further when she said that for advertising to work, to really work, it had to take the risk of ostracising and perhaps even offending anyone who fell outside the target consumer group. Take for example, the highly controversial, award-winning television campaign for Outpost.com, which showed gerbils being fired out of a cannon at an Outlook.com logo, toddlers at kindergarten having the logo tattooed on their foreheads, and a pack of ferocious wolves being let loose among a high school marching band. "I was, frankly, horrified when I first saw these commercials," said Ms Nokes. "But my 16-year-old son was on his knees, doubled over with laughter. "And that's the important point. I am not the target consumer for Outlook.com, but my son is. "The target market is a club to which only certain consumers belong. Therefore, those who are excluded are likely to be offended." And this, in the end, is the result which all advertising must strive to achieve: to engage the target audience, it must challenge, it must amuse, it must offend, it must arrest the attention. If it fails to do that it risks becoming little more than white noise. As the great Frank Lowe said, the job of the account director is to take the client to the top of the mountain and show him the view. The job of the client is to realise that sometimes, it's a long, hard struggle getting there. And the job of the creative team is to make the view worthwhile. - John Bevin, Barbara Nokes and Chris O'Shea were speaking at the first-ever 2000 Outside the Box conference on creativity and branding in Kuala Lumpur, organised by the Malaysian 4As.

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