Talkback: Time to put the ad agencies' butts on the line

After five years as a client of advertising agencies the world looks oh so different to me now than during my days in advertising.

The difference: The "my butt's on the line, not your's" difference - quite a big one really. The difference is in who fronts up to shareholders, has the potential to lose the sales director his bonus, to lose face, to lose her job.

In the cold light of day as marketing director, you are ultimately responsible with a capital "R" for helping to achieve sales.

Your business raison d'etre is to devise strategies that will lead to company success - short and long term - and to deliver ultimate financial return to your shareholders, who have put their butts on the line by investing in your company in the first place. But I wonder if agencies always get how it works.

The noose is tightening as the pressure for quick returns steps up. In the cycle of business fashion, the beanies are "out" and "sales" firmly back in - witness the bundling of "sales and marketing" manager jobs and the sheer volume of sales promotions - everywhere.

Win a fridge down aisle one, a car down two and a holiday by the fruit and veg department. With the need to deliver return on investment ever lurking, it is a brave marketing director who eschews the need to build sales these days in favour of "building the brand".

No wonder there are so many promotions, they seem safer. But are they really?

Increasingly promotions cease to work as consumers shut their eyes as they walk around the supermarket and flick channels on the box and radio. So where does advertising and the agency come into this?

On frustrating occasions, a sort of version of the words of Henry Higgins have flitted through my mind (sad but true): "Why can't she think like a man?"

My version? "Why can't the agency think like the client?"

Well, actually, I'm quite happy not to think like a man. And I certainly don't advocate that agencies should think entirely like clients. But the point is that there still appears to be something of a disconnect going on.

My own experience and discussions with several other marketing directors brought me to the conclusion that, generally, there is still not enough focus from the agency on taking responsibility for achieving return on investment within advertising campaigns - ever more critical as the sales pressure goes on marketing.

Clients need agencies to do what agencies do best, come up with a brilliant idea that touches on a human truth, engages and entertains the consumer and captures them in a special media moment.

But these days creative has to be effective. It has to move stuff from shelves, get the phone ringing. Remember it's the marketing director's butt that's on the line, not the agency's (well not until they get a new marketing director).

So, in my view, the ad industry needs to move further to truly embrace the concept of effectiveness.

The kind of effectiveness that can only be achieved through genuinely working in partnership with good market research to understand the target market, by gaining real insight into the business issue and objective at hand and then applying a highly creative approach.

In fact, given rampant information overload, mass commercialisation and media fragmentation, outstanding creative and effectiveness should be symbiotic.

So get responsible with a capital "R", apply creative brilliance and, yeah, for the Effies - they're on the right track.

* Jenny Stiles is head of planning for Lowe New Zealand.