I will always remember George Holtane. When offered the chance to work at Foster & Kleiser, a Metromedia company back then, I jumped. As a recent political science major, graduation meant a momentary celebration before the hard reality of work and the requisite need for money set in. Twelve thousand dollars a year was a lot of money. “We are going to teach you everything you need to become successful in the billboard advertising business,” said George. After a three-month indoctrination in Maspeth, Queens, mostly making leasing and roof leak calls, I was promoted to the Lexington Avenue New York office. At 485 Lex, the sales and creative team held court.
I remember vividly some of the tenured billboard sales guys…Joe Chizzini, Ray Amato, Bob Moran… telling me, ”Listen kid, keep your mouth shut and we will teach you this business. Don’t ask too many questions.” George Holtane and the cigar-smoking Dick Itanaga were two of the best creative directors in the billboard business. Dick was the brasher of the two, having little tolerance for sales types.
George had the dry humor and demeanor of Bob Newhart. Dick, George and I became fast friends. I guess because I wasn’t the typical know-it-all sales guy. I was just a “kid.”
I would love to spend time in their offices. In the days before computers, these guys were true artists, and their offices had the light boards, easels and clip art books to prove it. They made magic happen on a daily basis. George would lament to me all the time, “Those guys doing print advertising have a larger landscape to work with in order to get the job done. I have seven seconds.” He’d continue, “You are traveling down the freeway at 65 miles per hour and I have to grab your attention and sell you in seven seconds. “
“We get paid to sell stuff,” said George one day. “All of this creative work doesn’t mean anything… unless it sells.”
It was as if a light bulb went on in my head. If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t work.
George never did win a heck of a lot of awards or accolades. He could have cared less. His creative work did sell A LOT of stuff for clients—and that was good enough for him. The many days following in my career placed me in midst of many creative agencies and directors. In all honesty… there have been times when I have found myself at odds with creative directors so obsessed with their craft that they miss the Holtane axiom. It’s not that I don’t appreciate theatre and humor in messaging. It’s just this peculiar problem that I have had all of these years. Seems like I am always questioning whether all of this creative design, copy writing, set design, etc., in the end actually rings the cash register.
I have also observed over the years that the mere thought of questioning most creative types in our industry was to be viewed as pedestrian. (“Surely you don’t understand the nuances of and the role of advertising.”) I have received more than a few “scarlet letters” as a result of having the audacity to question the performance of certain ad campaigns. Back in the advertising Stone Age, there was little measurement or analytics to measure effectiveness. Heck….in a thriving economy (remember those days?)…no one really cared a heck of a lot about performance metrics. Great campaigns were “worth the money.” Everything seemed to be selling—who cared whether or not it was because of a winning creative strategy.
There is no need to rehash the state of advertising and our economy in 2010. Suffice to say, this is age of efficiency, accountability and measurability in all aspects of advertising and marketing. To think that marketing and creative directors can perform their crafts ignoring performance metrics is foolhardy. And yet…I continue to get incoming from a band of creative directors who seem to be lost in a time warp.
Note to all you creative types out there: before you get all hot and bothered, please understand that I believe fervently that quality and relevance of messaging is central to selling more stuff for our clients. Back in the old days, creative directors were held in the loftiest of thrones within the advertising arena. Not only did they understand how to create engaging and entertaining campaigns regardless of medium, they seemed to be the only ones in the agency that knew anything about customer need. (I know that there are some of you folks who relish in the nostalgia of those days.)
In the world that we live in today, creating and designing campaigns with little or no desire to monitor effectiveness with the robust suite of analytic and performance tools available to you is criminal. We are here as professionals to provide our customers with superior service. We are charged with the responsibility of understanding our customer’s market sector, competitors and customers’ needs. Chief amongst all responsibilities is using client dollars in the most cost effective manner to “sell more stuff.”
Frankly…if it were me…I would have my analytics team sitting right next to the creative team. In the new world of advertising…your best partners would be this crew. A team that could provide historical insight on the effectiveness of various combinations of content, design, frequency and medium in moving the sales needle for your customer. Nothing wrong with being left-brain focused and high-minded about the creative process. This is in no way intended to limit the level of ingenuity and experimentation utilized in creating campaigns. It’s just that agencies need to be accountable in a new way for the bottom line inside our shops. The days of hiding behind industry plaques and awards given by other creative director associations are over. Awards are nice….but your customer wants results.
Perhaps the revolution needs to start in design and journalism schools. Courses that focus on leveraging customer profile and performance data as a foundation for creative development and execution. Reality demands a much tighter connection between analytics, design and performance. It’s pretty simple: leverage as much audience and historical data as a foundation for your messaging and design. Execute your campaign, and then be ravenous about analytic data about all aspects of the campaign’s interaction with your target customers and prospects. The tools are available today for real time performance updates.
Be in testing and tweaking mode continually, always monitoring performance and transforming campaigns to improve performance metrics. Imagine the day when you and your creative team make your next presentation to your client and demonstrate that you understand their success metrics in all areas of their marketing campaign. When you stand up and show the methodology and data that was leveraged to develop concepts as part of an ongoing learning and adjusting philosophy at your agency. The delight when you report that all of this hard work in learning and monitoring has resulted in a campaigns and executions that have sold the customer more stuff.
On that day….you will have known what George meant so many years ago.
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