1

Andrew Little

Group managing director, DDB Melbourne

One could argue this question either way with some authority, but I think the major developments this year were in the planning phase.

So, rather than looking back, let’s look forward…

The demise of the traditional advertising agency: global agency heads are scrambling to redefine their agency models to reduce their reliance on communication execution and increase their penetration in business strategy. To sit alongside consulting groups like McKinsey and Boston is a big step, but one that could yield huge rewards. Progressive agencies will try to sell business efficacy rather than business efficiency. The key difference here will be creativity – the traditional consultants’ failure to attract creative talent is an agency’s strongest weapon and the need for creative business strategy will increase as companies reach optimal overhead levels. Watch also for the big multinationals to consolidate the print and production facilities of their agencies. By creating massive art and print-buying groups they will seek to reduce overall overhead of their agencies and provide cheaper solutions for clients. This will in turn take large profit chunks from agencies and force them to focus on the consultancy model.

The demise of the traditional DM agency: unless direct marketing people learn the execution techniques of online then they will die a quick death. Similarly, unless online people learn to create meaningful DM strategy they too will fail. The strategic principles are the same – the execution is all that is different.

Cross media ownership: unless you own multiple media channels you will find it hard to compete. Mitchells has started the process in Australia and others will follow. The big buying groups will enforce channel neutral briefs on the media owners, but will they be ready to deliver? Can a media boss with 20 years of TV sales experience deliver meaningful channel neutral solutions? Watch this space.

2

Jane Emery

Managing director, Grey Worldwide

I can’t believe anyone would say anything but ‘a year of change’. There are fantastic opportunities open to those in the marketing and advertising industries. No way is it stagnant.

In terms of the three most significant developments I looked to the consumer findings within Grey’s annual ‘Eye on Australia’ study. And three of the big consumer– and therefore marketing – issues are:

First, the information that consumers have access to is influencing both brand and company reputations. No longer are you able to separate one from the other. The really smart marketers are aligning the values of the brand with the company’s values. Trust in the brand is closely entwined with trust in the company. Through ‘Eye on Australia’ we’ve been able to track trust across industries and it’s fascinating.

Second, we are moving from mass marketing to marketing to ‘me’. While fragmentation of the media has been a hot topic for some time, ensuring the message is relevant and engaging to an individual – and not just marketing babble – is the true challenge in 2007 and beyond.

While all the issues around obesity and the marketing of food products has obviously been another key issue for 2006, as has ‘user-generated media’ (think P&G’s mothers’ chat room, Telstra’s corporate blog), a company’s social and environmental responsibility is my number three development for 2006. This is gaining significant momentum for consumers. Again in our Eye study, at the top of the list of concerns with how big business behaves is the environment. My tip is this will continue in 2007 and it’ll move from nebulous to concrete, especially with ongoing issues such as water that will dominate our collective consciousness.

While the issues are challenging, it’s probably one of the most exciting times to be in marketing.

3

Malcolm Auld

Principal of Malcolm Auld Direct, The Marketing Campus and Buzzmail

Having just attended the world's largest marketing conference in the US with 12,000 of my closest friends, here's the latest:

This year saw another rush to internet advertising and a lot of wasted money in the process. This will change as marketers gain experience and learn when the snake-oil salespeople are having them on. A new SEM association has just been announced in the US to protect against shonky practices and there are calls to create a similar association here. Sadly the 'digital' world is populated more by opportunists than marketers and, given the talent shortage in the industry, it's easy for them to hide.

Three significant developments:

1. The market is moving more and more towards accountability for all marketing executions and it's being driven by direct marketing on the internet. This is reflected in the recent takeover of a major advertising agency (FCB) by a direct marketing agency (Draft). According to reports it's a direct outcome of the increased demands by clients for more measurable results.
2. ‘Integration is dead’ according to US marketers. It hasn't worked and won't work and is not a term used anymore in the US. Integration implies the fitting together of disparate skill sets, but in most cases the big elephant in the room (bottom line accountability and bonuses) still exists. Marketers are fed up with the turf wars. Integration is something marketers do, not something an agency is.
3. The customer is now in control of the relationship and marketers who understand this will reap vast rewards. The internet is commoditising brands by stripping away some of the brand value artificially created by advertising. People use the internet to search for the cheapest and fastest way to buy products and their brand experience consists of how fast a web page loads. Customers want engagement with brands on their terms, not the marketers' and they'll believe information they gather from colleagues, online social networks, blogs, forums and the like, before and if they believe advertising. The more transparent a marketer is and the more they engage with individual customers, the more successful they'll be.

4

Roger James

National President, Australian Marketing Institute

How do you feel about marketing this year? It depends where you sit. If you work for a top website with strong visitation you would be feeling pretty good, as internet advertising really starts to take off. If you publish a newspaper whose cash cow is classifieds you may not be quite so relaxed. If you are a marketing director for a mid-ranked Melbourne AFL team you may well be furrowing your brow as both internal competition – Australian Rules – and external competition – the game that used to be called soccer – increases. Then again, if you’re a real estate marketer in Western Australia, you would probably have booked a big overseas holiday if only you could find the time.

Three big changes in marketing this year? Online advertising comes of age, the real emergence of supermarket own brands and, through a range of technologies, the growth of permission marketing. And, related to the last, the implementation of new technologies for marketing is probably the biggest, as it is changing the way we talk to our prospects and our customers.

New media, new technology and a new way of thinking about customers mean that we can speak more directly and more personally to them. We can understand our customers better because we can build up a detailed record of their buying behaviour, with their permission. We can then tailor messages to suit them, and we can even let them choose to see our ads by clicking a link on the net.

Best of all, if we make really strong and engaging messages (think Sony Bravia, Flashbeer) we can let them do some of the work for us, by sending our message on to millions of other people.

Yes, it certainly has been a big year, and it will probably continue in 07.

5

John Ford

Founder and CEO of The One Centre

2006 has been a year of confirmation – and acceleration – of change for the entire marketing world. In my opinion, the three most significant developments are:

1. The rise of the internet
   The Australian online advertising market grew a whopping 59.4 percent in 05/06, reaching $778 million. In other words, it is well on its way to reaching the $1 billion mark.
   
   Since Carlton Draught's Big Ad dropped into the inbox a mere 18 months ago, Foster’s has shifted its entire advertising spend in the US away from TV onto the internet. American brewer Anheuser-Busch is also launching its own internet-based entertainment network called Bud.TV, which will have several channels and offer multimedia producers a platform to showcase new creative material.
   
   The pull of the web is so great for creatives that two of the world's leading agency groups, Leo Burnett and Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), have also announced that they will be launching virtual creative departments within Second Life.
2. The rise of design
   Major brands are beginning to drive engagement through design. Indeed, the concept of media is expanding to include all brand assets, not just campaign consumables. Internationally a new discipline is emerging to describe this – ‘experience design’. Wikipedia describes this as “the practice of designing products, processes, services, events and environments – each of which is a human experience – based on the holistic consideration of an individual's or group's needs, desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences and perceptions”. Among the brands that are practising experience design are Nokia and Sensorial Experiences.
3. The rise of experiential marketing
   In many ways, the dirty end of business – events, product samplings, etc. – is becoming the sharp end: an opportunity to engage consumers with events that inspire, and sales promotions launched on highly conceptual platforms. Among the best examples of this is ‘pop-up’ retail, which sees everyone from Starbucks creating mobile art galleries that encourage sampling (see www.starbuckssalon.com) to Evian launching pop-up spas in New York. “All business is now show business,” say the authors of The Experience Economy, B Joseph Pine II and James H Gilmour – two of brand theatre’s strongest advocates.