When advertising came full circle...

I was pretty amused when I overheard someone asking " if your media agency was to start offering strategic services, would you buy it from them? "

I thought probably this how life comes full circle…

I was reminded of the history of origin of the advertising agency, which I was taught by the legendary advertising professional K.Kurian. I was told that printing machines were by-products of the industrial revolution… the same industrial revolution that had converted rural societies into urban markets. Manufacturers were producing more than what they could sell in their traditional markets and the word of mouth wasn’t enough anymore. Journals too were looking for paid marketing messages (call it advertising ) to sustain their existence and to earn some profits. They hired people to sell space in their journals to manufacturers. Sellers realised that it was quite a tough task selling blank space… To make an effective sale, they started suggesting messages that manufacturers could say in the space they were selling. Some of the smart ones developed this art in a more professional manner and started setting up organisations which came to be nomenclature as advertising agencies. The fact has remained unchanged that advertising agencies are the agents of media and while they never charged a fee for selling creatively done space to their clients, they made their living out of the commission they got from the printers of the then journals, or the media houses as we refer to them now.

Over a period of time, agencies started hiring people with specialised skill sets and this eventually became the chief reason for clients to start hiring them.These specialised talents included:

The Account Planners- A rare breed, now extinct: this was the set of people who were well versed with research techniques and clearly understood that all advertising and mass media activities were to either solve a marketing problem or to seize a marketing opportunity for their client. After detailed analysis, this set of people used to arrive at a strategy which used to form the basis for both creative as well as media strategy… Sadly this specialised science and set of people died a slow and painful death, becoming extinct as I’m writing this piece today..

The Client Servicing  Team: This was the set that was the face of the agency to the client....they interact with clients on a day to day basis and in  our time, used to be the account planners’ eyes and ears.

The Creative set of Copywriters and Art directors: These were the talented breed who knew how to translate banal client message of "what to say" into  effective communications in terms of "how to say" the message so it can motivate to convert consumers in favour of client’s product and achieve marketing and sales objectives.

Media planners: Another extinct set, who were experts in achieving the last step of the advertising communications job of "where to say" the message so it could reach the maximum of the core target group. They analysed syndicated and other research data to ensure reach of right people in the right environment at the right price, in a manner that they could keep the client’s cash register ticking.

Then there was the media operations department, which today is confused for media planning...people employed here used to make sure that the media plan was implemented as planned.

Print and production experts: Their responsibility was to make sure that every printed communication- catalogues, folders, leaflets, calendars, brochures etc were reproduced exactly planned by their art directors. They themselves were printing experts who knew their job as well, if not better than the printers.

Film production executives: They used to be film professionals themselves knowledgeable to the extent that a lot of smaller films were directed and delivered by them… They however did this following the basic rules of advertising, and understood that their job too was to keep the cash register ticking.

Public Relations, used to earlier be the responsibility of the account planner and media planner who used to make yearly plans which the media operations team used to help action. Public Relations then did not mean a bunch of clippings alone ever. It was instead an integral part total marketing and advertising activities aimed at working in sync with the overall communications plan and deliver result accordingly.

But that was then, when there was talent and the thrill was to see a brand climb up to number one spot with sheer power of great big ideas…

The decay in the Indian advertising industry started at the same time as the Harshad Mehta's stock exchange scam. A lot of agencies mushroomed with so called  ‘financial advertising expertise’ and soon after the bubble burst they morphed into public relations agencies of today.

The real death blow to Indian advertising came with arrival of Mr. Martin Sorrel in late 80s and early 90s. This gentleman, an accountant by profession knew how to make most of Indian greed and bought almost all Indian agencies, iconic by the campaigns they made. With him came a time when the Indian Newspapers Society's (INS) rule of not sharing commission with anyone was broken and INS and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) arrived at a formula wherein a creative agency was to get 12.5% and buying agency 2.5% of the media commission. It is these buying agencies which today go by the name Media Agency… now you know why when the question is asked " if your media agency was to start offering strategic consulting services, would you buy it from them? ', why I am sadly amused, and confused, not knowing whether to laugh or cry for a profession that is so close to my heart and which we all built with contribution of our personal time...