ISBA Conference: Database Marketing And Europe

Both Ford Ennals, Director of Marketing British Airways, and Tim Pile, Director of Marketing Services TSB, spoke about the importance of databases in building relationships with consumers. They are especially effective in terms of building confidence in a product and developing brand loyalty. Mr Ennals illustrated this by the success of BA’s ‘Air Miles’ scheme. Mr Pile said that this kind of marketing was very effective at tailoring marketing to individuals, signifying a move away from old-style mass marketing.

The next speaker, Bernhard Adriaensens, focused on the problems European directives can create for advertisers in a speech entitled ‘Ignore Brussels At Your Peril’. He said there was much advertising which was threatened by potential EU bans or restrictions: tobacco; sweets; snacks and soft drinks; toys; slimming foods; alcohol; financial services; and pharmaceuticals.

These threats are compounded by the complexity and enormity of the consultation and co-decision procedures at EU level, none of which is readily understandable. Indeed companies may not have the necessary resources or competence to sift through and analyse the myriad of EU texts.

Directives could also include packaging, labelling restrictions or consumer health and safety concerns over contents. A directive currently under consideration effectively means that advertisers would not be allowed slogans like ‘product X is better than leading brands’. Mr Adriaensens also believes that due to the emotive issue of children’s advertising and the past misdemeanours of advertisers, the industry has many enemies in the EU upper-echelons.

He concluded that advertisers have an enormous PR job to clear the name of advertising and put it firmly and squarely in an economic context, making it clear that the Single Market is meaningless if companies are denied the freedom to market and distribute their goods and services. He said that the way forward is for the industry to join the WFA and unite against a common enemy.