for the right idea

Lesley Parrott

Vice-president director of creative and broadcast services, MacLaren Lintas

I don’t think the industry feels endangered. I think it’s challenged, and that we’re evolving. In the long run we’ll keep the best of the old because that’s what will endure. A well thought-out strategy brilliantly executed in ways that move and touch people, won’t ever be obsolete in this business. There will continue to be mass-marketing vehicles and broadcast advertising will continue to be there. There will be huge opportunities.

But I do know that the media is changing and evolving and that we’re going to have to be more flexible to reach people. There’s the Internet and infomercials – so many different ways to get the message out, and the challenge is to be able to conceive the right vehicle and produce them the right way for those changing media.

The key to doing this right is using your insane curiosity to stay current. As an agency producer, I don’t have the technical expertise to go and work at Command Post, but I know that I have to go to Command Post and know what’s there.

One of the major functions of a producer is the ability to source, and that’s getting more challenging. It used to be a somewhat simple process you’d go through for 30-second spots like the Pontiac campaign, but new types of media mean new paths to take.

I don’t believe that an agency producer has to be a technowiz. That expertise lies in different areas. But what we have to be able to do is source them, and be incredibly open to an emerging supplier, changing media. You’ve got to be reading the trade journals, the technical magazines, and go through your `In’ basket for all the mail that keeps coming, and you have to keep networking.

It is challenging because you’re not doing it for one type of advertising. Even within television, it’s breaking down. Low budget just keeps getting lower and lower. We’re looking at infomercials and multimedia, and we’ll still have to be able to produce the brilliantly executed commercials that will compete with the latest fad and be in touch with people.

Ultimately, what we do is reach and talk to consumers. We have to be responsive to them, and their world is changing. You do your banking by phone now, for example, and we live in a mail-order environment.

The next stage in the industry’s development is staying true to the basics while being right on top of the changing media world that has the consumer’s attention. We’ve got to be right at the forefront and understand where they’re going.

Update the database

It’s challenging to identify what’s new that’s viable now and what’s going to work in the future. You keep a good filing system on the outside and keep that data base in your mind going.

Within the agency, we don’t have a department specific to multimedia or infomercials. You have people with general areas of specialty, and it’s interesting that you have people with more experience with direct mail coming together with the creative people combining with the producers, so you get an interdisciplinary approach.

How to source it

But my expertise has to be how to source it. Curiosity is one of the biggest strengths to have. My sense is clients are really beginning to jump on the new media bandwagon, and some are willing to do some experimenting without looking for instant results, just to get in on the ground floor.

There’s a feeling that if you don’t try it, it might leave you behind. There’s some hesitation too. There’s a little bit of everything right now, and it’s probably an environment much closer to how television started than we’ve seen in the past decade.

But I also sense that the major advertisers are staying very much close to the roots of doing good, strategic advertising, and not turning their backs on what has worked for them. It’s more adding to the mix. They are trying to do more for the same or less money, so we have to continue to find ways to execute really brilliantly.