The Oracle of Sorrell; doggone me; and ‘lean away’ please
Curiously, Sir Martin Sorrell’s predictions for 2017 make no mention of something that must be giving him sleepless nights, writes Dominic Mills. Plus: A secret message in the latest Thinkbox TV ad, and a new phrase for adland to hump to death.
Where would us adlanders (and columnists) be without the Oracle of Sorrell to help guide us through these tricky times? In last week’s Times, along with other business chiefs, the great man gave us his thoughts on the year ahead – Brexit, Trump, tech and Google and Facebook.
The man who once dubbed Google as the industry’s ‘frenemy’ has, I think, changed his tune and now thinks of it less as a friend and more of an enemy – and the same for Facebook. This is not just in the sense of their increasing domination of the advertising eco-system, but rather in a wider context as parasitical modern-day media owners with great power but no responsibility and no way of being held to account. Thus is democracy undermined, one brick chiselled away at a time.
“Unlike [traditional media groups],” he writes, “they seek to disassociate themselves from the content on which they rely, claiming to be mere digital plumbers with little or no responsibility for what flows through their pipes. They will find this line increasingly difficult to hold.”
He is certainly right about the way they have shrugged off arguments about content responsibility, but meanwhile he and his peers continue to pump billions into their coffers – which seems a little contrary, to say the least.
But I fear he is wrong about their being held to account. These billions will in turn fund expensive and well-connected political lobbyists who will fight off, or at best tie up in labyrinthine legal battles, efforts to scrutinise and regulate their activities.
Is it really possible to imagine either the US government or the EU taking them on and winning? I doubt it. Even if the political will is there, I can’t see this happening. The EU is a sclerotic, currently dysfunctional institution with, it will say, more important things to figure out (and besides, we’ll be out of it soonish), and as for Trump – just look at this picture of him cosying up the titans of Silicon Valley. Besides, does the public give a damn?
Curiously, the great man’s predictions for 2017 make no mention of something that must be giving him sleepless nights: the ongoing US Department of Justice investigation into the ad production activities of the big holding companies, into whose net WPP has also been drawn.
How serious is this? Wall Street analyst Brian Wieser believes the downside is limited. But then his focus is entirely on the financial risks and therefore the share prices of the holding companies. It seems to me that the non-financial risks are much greater: reputation, further loss of trust from clients (including possible legal action) and, for any individuals, the possibility of jail. Just ask some of those involved in a similar scandal at Grey in the early 2000s.
However much Wieser downplays the risks to holding company share prices, he also identifies a potential sting in the DoJ’s tail. This is that the investigation will widen to take in media agency and trading desk transparency (or lack of, to be precise), as highlighted by the ANA and K2 last summer.
That would indeed be nasty and leave the holding companies fighting on two fronts.
By the way, if there is anyone out there who can explain how this production quote bid rigging works, I’d be very grateful. As I understand the DoJ case, agency-owned production companies are accused of asking independents to make fake bids for work with quotes that they can easily undercut. OK, but what’s in it for the independents? Where and when do they get their payback? Does that mean they’re guilty too? God, it’s so tawdry.
Doggone me
I can’t be the only one sad to see Harvey the award-winning Thinkbox dog pensioned off to Battersea Dogs Home. I loved him. Worse, he’s been replaced by aliens, and generally I hate all things alien.
Welcome then to the latest Thinkbox TV ad. In and of itself it’s entertaining – an ad that pastiches science-fiction films, and features a bunch of aliens (think Butt-ugly Martians) whose extra-terrestrial broadcast hijacks the nation’s TV watching to announce their impending arrival. Cue panic and excitement as people rush to the landing site.
The leader descends from his craft chanting his catchphrase “Oola Oola Zod” – and turns out to be six inches tall.
It’s all good fun, and I suppose the overt message is to remind advertisers that, unlike anything else, TV unites the nation. I haven’t noticed it yet, but I assume the hope is that “Oola Oola Zod” will gain currency as a playground meme, moving up to adults. One day soon all CMOs will be chanting “Oola Oola Zod, we must use TV”.
But is there a hidden message? To suspicious, sceptical hacks like me there is: we should be wary of worshipping alien gods with feet of clay whose mission is to hijack TV advertising by appearing to be bigger than they are. Hmm, I wonder who that might be (see story above for clues).
FFS, just ‘lean away’ please
My thanks go to Times columnist Clare Foges for highlighting the abuse/misuse/overuse of the term ‘lean in’, flavour of the past 18 months among certain ad people.
Writing about a wider issue, Foges picked up on a quote from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos about the secret of his success. Apparently it’s all about ‘leaning in’. Woohoo, who guessed?
He said: “You always have to be leaning in to the future. If you’re leaning away from the future the future is going to win every time. Never, ever lean away…”
Hmm, I’ve noticed that ‘leaning in’ has become compulsory these days, almost as compulsory as the use of the word ‘smart’ to describe anything and everything, even the most mundane and obvious of people/tech/thoughts/activities. Someone told me recently that a cover-wrap on Metro was a “really smart piece of thinking”. Considering every issue of Metro has a cover-wrap and it’s just a question of money, ‘smart’ is definitely not the right word.
I assumed the term ‘lean in’ originated with Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and her Lean In book from 2013, which was about the time adland started dry-humping the phrase to death. And so it continues.
Not that long ago I had a couple of meetings during which, among other things, we ‘leaned in’ to the conversation/coffee/a concept/an idea/a strategy/a plan/agency culture. It didn’t thankfully, but I expected the meeting to end with us ‘leaning in’ to some ‘diary co-ordination’. Somehow I don’t think any of this is what Sandberg had in mind when she introduced the phrase.
I got home feeling like Poland in 1939: my personal space had been invaded, my territorial sense of self shredded.
Etymologists might enjoy this piece from the New York Times about the ubiquitisation (a made-up word, ok) of ‘lean in’.
And here’s my pledge: anytime anyone catches me (or I catch myself) using ‘lean in’ or ‘smart’, other than in the context of a phone, I promise to donate £1 to NABS.