Just a Friday point-of-view this but my recent visit to London made me realise something: that British marketers seem to be refusing to get on board with the digital evolution in marketing. I’m not talking email or websites here – I’m talking blogs, social networks, Flickr.
There are a few folk in the UK who are very switched on, I grant you, but a lot of agency people I met in my short visit were rather bemused by PSFK and IF. Although blogs are championed by the Guardian newspaper – an important media read – the British marketing community seems to be dismissive of the new tools to develop dialog between brands and consumers.
The contrast with New York, where I am based, is vast. Agencies in New York get it – they may not be making the best attempts but they’re trying hard. It’s best to crash and burn than not not try at all, no? The buzz around new media tools is exemplified by the social networking going on here. Meanwhile in London, there seems to be an air of "well, we make the most creative advertising in the world, why should we listen to what’s going on anywhere else." Everyone in Soho seems to be still in the pub talking about the next commercials director.
When I attended the great Seth Godin talk held by Hugh MacLeod before I returned, there was discussion about how there were a high proportion of attendees at his talks from ‘emerging ‘ marketing countries. The Brists don’t really care.
I can also quantify this too: If we take the PSFK newsletter list (in its thousands) and look at the location of subscribers we see a disproportionately low number of Brits on the list (and I am British so I would think that may have a positive influence). What we actually see is a disproportionately high number of subscribers from Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Netherlands, Latvia) and Australasia. We’re getting similar results with those folk subscribing to IF. When I spoke to Niku Banaie of Naked the other day he said he had similar representations on his email list too.
Someone name a really good British marketing-related blog that can stand beside European blogs like AdLand, Textually or WMMNA? Is there one?
So, why Scandinavia? Why Australia? It seems like folks in these countries are hungry: they’re watching, soaking it all up, learning. They’re connecting the dots. The Brits aren’t. In a world where we can create dialog anywhere, anytime, guess what happens next?
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I agree, I think British agencies are very reluctant to try things they don’t understand and clients even more so. Unless an agency really champions a new medium the client isn’t interested and unless someone else is doing it the client won’t do it either. Yes we might make great creative executions but until we become a bit more daring with the media we’re prepared to use we will decline relativly to those nations who embrace the online revolution.
July 22nd, 2005 at 12:07 pm
You think London is bad? (I lived and worked in London 13 years). Try Toronto. The vast majority of people have no idea of what’s happening all around them.
July 25th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Hey Piers. I think there’s a actually quite a lot of issues raised in your article. It’s a really tricky one, there’s definitely a fear of the unnkown which I believe is genereally routed in a fear of failure. What we often find is that once we’ve has proved that something works and it becomes ’safe’ people are up for doing it. But getting someone to stick their neck out and be brave is incredibly hard…
Really interesting post/discussion about lack of startups/innovation in UK over at Plasticbag.org (I think links seem to be turned off so you’ll have to copy and paste this: http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/07/where_are_all_the_uk_startups.shtml)
July 29th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
so embarassing when you can’t even figure out how to make links work ;-)
http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/07/where_are_all_the_uk_startups.shtml
July 29th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
The marketing industries in the UK seem to be slower to move forward that other countries. Perhaps because of the comparative success of the above the line industries ‘thru the line’ suffers. Back before the bubble popped the ad agencies were still the last to fully get new media. None of their internal web agencies lasted and still within UK agencies there is a great reliance on outsourcing any new media work. This said it Pier’s article hardly surprised me. What did surprise me was that I did not think to write it first!
August 1st, 2005 at 10:58 am
There’s no doubt the UK lags the US but as BT FINALLY realises that broadband is an opportunity to make money and rolls it out, there is greater interest in Web2. In the last few months I am seeing a lot of interest from UK world of marketing.
August 1st, 2005 at 11:21 am
One of the great things about new ideas is that ‘getting it’ is rather more than thinking they are necessarily the latest thing since sliced bread. (Piers F on the British and blogs -July 22nd – yes, I’ve been on holiday…)
With the sheer volume of unadulterated rubbish on the web today (in amongst which you find lots of gems, admittedly), blogs mostly rank in about the tenth decile of relevance, imagination and creativity. Which automatically restricts their potential role – and this will inevitably continue to be the case: Gresham’s Law still works.
OK, I don’t really get it…but I’m only indirectly involved, and not having to try to turn a pimple on the back of an elephant into the latest greatest solution to every advertiser’s communication problems.
Yes, some blogs are good. Yes, some blogs get read, regularly, by specific target groups to whom they are relevant. But they aren’t the universal marketing panacea, and never will be. Ok, so this is a laid-back (or half-asleep, to taste)and distinctly past sell-by-date Brit. But a bit of perspective never did anyone any harm.
August 9th, 2005 at 9:33 am
I think that the UK is a little slow off the mark here – but a lot of that is down to the fact that pvrs are a more recent threat than in the US
The only thing that will makes agencies change is fear – and that fear has yet to really happen here in London. But when you talk to clients they get it and they will make their agencies change or they will change their agencies; its a great opportunity for those of us who do get it!
August 14th, 2005 at 6:41 am
I’ve just heard about the Uk’s first podcasting conference http://britcaster.com/wiki/index.php/Podcastcon_UK and not a single advertising, media or online agency has signed up yet!
August 16th, 2005 at 4:22 am
We have for sale all Brands & Models Of Nextel / GSM Cell Phones, Computers / Laptops, Ipod Nanos,Digital Cameras/camcorders & General Electronics at very Subsidized & Unbeatable Prices.
August 20th, 2006 at 7:38 pm