Tim - Stop The Creative Masturbation
Full disclosure, I worked at the BBC for 13 years under the brilliant leadership of Alan James and loved every second of it (including the Anger Management Course I had to attend for upsetting a member of the News Marketing Team when I questioned the start time of the One Show). It’s an institution that should be loved and protected but often it does itself no favours.
When I joined, the Marketing Department was busy throwing money at huge outdoor campaigns which talked to the same audiences we could reach for nothing on air. Huge sums were spent on creative copy when simplicity would have been more effective. Recently Charlie Mawer mentioned a Match of The Day shoot at Craven Cottage, great creative but it didn’t say anything new about the show. The last Word Cup campaign was mentioned on Twitter last week by BBC Creative:
“The BBC’s World Cup ad modernises an ancient artistic tradition with a never-before-seen animation style to bring to life the history of the tournament.
The film is an animation of a tapestry that illustrates iconic moments from previous World Cups and introduces the football stars competing in Russia this year. Every frame of the ad was individually embroidered, drawing influence from traditional Russian tapestries.
Along with the film, the campaign includes an actual seven-metre long tapestry that will expand with moments from this summer’s matches and be displayed in the UK.
The work was created by Xander Hart and Edward Usher at BBC Creative, the broadcaster’s in-house agency, and directed by Nicos Livesey through Blinkink.
Their goal was to create a real historical record of the World Cup that will live on after this competition: "Once we landed on that thought, we couldn’t shake it," Usher say
Anyone remember it? What did it cost? A commissioned tapestry? Just tell them what games you’ve got, when and what they’re on and there’s no ads
I was the humble Media Planner on a couple of World Cup campaigns the brief was always
Drive awareness – of a global event that everybody is aware of
Sign post matches- always lost in the creative clutter
Drive credit back to the BBC - never measured
The Media Plans were ignored because as one Marketer proudly told me they are “not a numbers person” And there’s the problem there have been and still are very few true Marketing professionals at the BBC. Talk to them about the 4 Marketing Ps and you might as well be talking Double Dutch. I was very lucky to work with some exceptional ones such as Andria Vidler and Emma Simon but many were in awe of strong creatives. (A title I hate. At the BBC it generally meant you could be late for meetings because you had overslept and had to queue for you skinny, mocha late)
The ultimate W1A moment came when an expensive Radio 1 campaign (Chris Moyles dressed as knight riding a horse at Pinewood etc) was pulled because it was deemed that it would anger licence fee holders as it looked like a waste of money. So and expensive campaign never went to air because it looked too expensive.
You can’t blame the creatives –many in it to win a Promax not drive audiences and Marketing let them get away with it.
It’s still happening – Tim please this is an easy win – make marketing accountable, reign in the creatives