2023 has been an exciting one for the marketing industry. It’s been a big year for the Inside Marketing podcast too, hitting its 100th episode in October, and, as ever, featuring a stellar line-up of industry luminaries including Rory Sutherland, vice-chair of Ogilvy UK; Dr Karen Nelson-Field, a globally acclaimed researcher in media science and Martin Sorrell.
We are living in interesting times, and it feels like and exciting time for marketing.
It’s not shiny-new-technology-gimmick exciting but genuinely exciting. I feel a return to the art of planning, the importance of context, and a shift to attention metrics as opposed to micro targeting and the throwaway currency of reach, impressions, clicks, likes and shares.
It’s hard to do justice to the contributors we had on the podcast this year as it’s a mix of fascinating topics, top of their game contributors and bona fide industry legends, but in looking back at the year we can see the emergence of some common trends and thoughts.
While it is an exciting time in advertising and marketing, there is a growing sense of disillusionment among the public.
Blowing the lid on social bubbles
Early in 2023 we discussed the great paradox of social media and how it serves to divide people rather than unite them as recommendation engines surf content at scale to feed our Confirmation bias and reinforce our social bubbles,” says Winterlich, of episode 89.
In episode 92 Claire Hyland from Thinkhouse spoke about the emergence of a new working class and the fact that young people in Ireland feel left behind. Vivien Chambers from Bricolage revealed some fascinating work about how young people, who feel that traditional news outlets don’t serve their needs, are changing their news consumption in episode 96 and Oli Cook, founder of fintech firm Ekko, episode 94, talked about greenwashing and sustainability,” he explains.
There is a deep irony that, at a time where technology has made us better connected, we’ve never been more divided or polarised.
At times of disillusionment, it’s natural to seek comfort, and there’s a great re-enchantment taking place as people seek joyfulness, whether that’s Barbie and Taylor Swift at the box office or even adults engaging in playful experiences as illustrated by Lego, which opened the world’s first Lego cafe for adults in Dublin in 2022.
It’s not surprising that in this context gaming has gone from strength to strength, a topic that was discussed in detail with gaming consultant Darragh Barker in episode 93.
While there is an undoubted undercurrent of social unrest there are signs of optimism, not least because we’ve been through worse.
We also spoke to former chairman of McConnell’s, John Fanning, in episode 99 about brand Ireland and how our nation has evolved though the ages. That conversation left me inspired by the fact that Ireland can compete on a global stage, that we have the self-confidence to win global clients and global awards
The seeds for this success were perhaps sewn by Rothco, the Dublin-based but globally ambitious agency that now trades as Droga5 Ireland. When Inside Marketing spoke to one of its founders, Paul Hughes, in episode 97, he shared his thoughts on creativity and his hugely successful career in both the advertising and art worlds.
Course corrections
Though the advertising industry is often accused of unhealthy obsession with awards and technological gimmicks, this year Winterlich felt like things were moving in the right direction.
Immediately after Rory Sutherland, author and chairman of Ogilvy and Mather, returned to mark episode 100, effectiveness expert Peter Field, who featured in episode 101, was a stimulating guest in a discussion that highlighted the importance of trust in advertising platforms. That bodes well for Irish publishers and broadcasters alike. Ten years after its publication his seminal work, The Long and Short of it, still holds true. The key finding, which has never changed, even with his subsequent inclusion of the latest campaigns annually from the IPA database, is that both long-term brand building and short-term promotional campaigns work best in tandem.
The evidence is irrefutable. The industry became obsessed with short-termism, which was understandable given the abundance of data, but it created an epidemic of short-sighted campaigns and as Peter himself called it, dull advertising.
Advertising icon and best-selling author Paul Feldwick refreshed the same ground in episode 102, characterising the industry as suffering a crisis of self-identity in its bid to pass advertising off as a science. He called out the uncomfortable truth that in our bid to professionalise our industry we made things unnecessarily complicated, over excavating and imbuing brands with post rationalised meaning that was never intended.
Feldwick spoke too about the industry’s fetishisation of awards and the unintended consequences of its idolatry of creative. Just how complicated that makes the industry was illustrated perfectly by creative director, copywriter, and author Dave Trott, in episode 90.
That the industry is moving towards the use of more meaningful metrics, with attention becoming the hot topic, was just one of the topics discussed with Lee Thompson of AudioOne during his account of the rise of digital audio in episode 104. We have worshipped at the altar of performance marketing for too long so I look forward to a return to context and a search for better quality advertising inventory.
As 2023 draws to a close Ciaran O’Kane of WireCorp and Dan Calladine, head of futures at Dentsu, will return to share their views on the year ahead while, as a spoiler, Jenni Romaniuk, research professor of marketing from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute will make a star appearance early in the new year.
The thing that strikes me most about all the wonderful contributors we have on Inside Marketing is how generous they are with their time.
They care about the industry and they commit themselves to sharing knowledge, insights and opinions to collectively raise the bar within it. Like any industry, there are differences of opinion, but – mostly – among the marketing commentarial, there is a mutual respect for the opinion of others.
To hear all of Inside Marketing’s episodes listed visit irishtimes.com