MRG Conference: David Crawley on Being a Client

Clients were given a chance to voice their opinions on the final morning of the MRG Conference and David Crawley, director of media at Scottish Courage, was first at the podium.

He began by dividing advertisers into two categories: the haves and have nots. Some operate within a genuine research culture and play an active role in the direction of their advertising strategy, whilst others have limited resources and rely on their agency for direction.

Crawley pointed out that only 0.2% of annual ad spend is invested in media research development – £25 million out of £11 billion spent. He wants to see this figure increase in order to better serve advertisers. Currently Crawley must commission and pay for any research himself but, he points out, as the more net savvy amongst us respond to online advertisements and promotions, he would relish being in a position to sell data about his customers back to the agency. Another grievance was non issue specific circulation figures – Crawley described current methods of selling based on average sales as “corporate fraud”.

He concluded by stating that research was viewed as a business planning process, enabling companies to deliver a competitive advantage, broaden their thinking and drive changes in line with consumer demands.

Report by Lucy Condon in Munich

Subscribers can access more reports from the 2000 MRG Conference in Munich by selecting ‘MRG Conference 2000’ at the top of this page.