The Last Campaign

 

I’ve been reading Campaign for more years than the 30 on this anniversary issue from 1998. My  introduction to the British ad industry’s rag was in my first job, working in the market research department of Spillers Foods. 

The trade magazines were divvied up amongst the market research department to scour for articles of interest. The most senior and glamorous of us got Campaign, the middle-ranking execs got Marketing and Marketing Week, and yours truly, the trainee, got The Grocer. 

I loved Campaign - it presented a fabulous world of creativity, eccentricity, wit and wisdom that I couldn’t get enough of.

Once I started working at Saatchi, the magazine was still read avidly and woe-betide anyone that snatched the Group Account Director’s copy before they’d had a chance to look at it.

I’ve had a subscription to Campaign for the 20 years I’ve been freelancing. While it’s been useful to keep in touch with the UK ad scene, I have to say that my interest has waned. Concurrently, the price of the thing has rocketed, even though it has gone 100% digital, which should save costs, by my logic.

From 2021 to last year, the price of my subscription rocketed +172%, and a further price hike of over 50% came this year. 

Campaign still has a few good articles and thought pieces - and I tend to then look up the authors and stalk, sorry, follow them on LinkedIn. But I’m afraid much of it falls into the Reinventing the past category for me.

With those ludicrous price hikes, I’ve come to the conclusion that Campaign has lost its value in terms of being informative, useful or entertaining. Money that can be better spent.

And there seem to be one or two alternatives that won’t break the bank.

So, cheerio, Campaign. Nice knowing you.

Immersed, wrapped or trapped?

The latest theme or buzzword from Interbrand to characterise their Best Global Brands is "Iconic Moves." It's nothing to do with John Travolta, though, rather that brands today are operating in a world where "people are moving faster than businesses". I agree with some of Interbrand's issues with Brand Positioning as an idea. It does imply a couple of things that don't work so well in today's world of brands - the concept of well-defined categories as well as the notion of static rigidity. However, I wouldn't go as far as to say that "positioning is dead" - rather that brands should take the metaphor of the mobile searchlight these days instead of the lighthouse.

The king of Iconic Moves, for Interbrand is Amazon. Over the years, these include the 2005 launch of Amazon Prime, the 2007 launch of Kindle, the 2014 launch of Echo (Alexa) and the 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods.

But: I wonder - why is Interbrand celebrating this stuff? Presumably because Amazon is No. 3 brand on their list, with a gob-smacking growth of +24%,  and they feel duty-bound to. But outside the impressive statistics and Iconic Moves, there are other stories.

People feeling they've been tricked or trapped into signing up for Amazon Prime.
Amazon taking a 60%+ cut, putting many small players out of business.
What used to be a super opportunity to review books turning into a annoying ratings system.
And that's before you've gone behind the scenes.

And on a personal note, I complained to amazon when a number of tacky-looking soft-porn books appeared under one of my children's books as "sponsored products related to this item." I asked for an explanation in what way these tawdry titles could be "related to" a book targeted at 9 - 12s. I have heard nothing in reply.

Why is Amazon continually held up as a paragon of branding? What Amazon is about is immersing customers in a complete shopping/lifestyle/search/payment ecosystem. There are now over 100m Amazon Prime subscribers in the US alone.

Amazon want to "be the world's most customer-centric company: to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they want to buy online."

"Customer-centric" sounds all well and good, but there's a huge difference between that and "people-centric". It's not just semantics. Amazon couldn't give two hoots about its business customers, or its staff. In Amazon's case, "customer-centric" is looking more and more like the customer trapped in the middle of the ecosystem, with no choice, helpless and unable to get out, while the vultures (or eagles) feed.

Amazon can go on making Iconic Moves because the customer sure as heck can't.

To all the clothes I've loved before

I've made a real effort this year to cut down on buying clothes. It hasn't been easy, and I have caved in on a couple of occasions (notably to replace shoes that have worn through - why don't shoes last these days?). And it seems I'm not the only one - the world is has been waking up to recommerce for some time - see my posts here, here, here and here - and even the everyday retailer Asda is having a go with its Re-Loved section in the Milton Keynes store, where donated clothes of all brands, not just Asda's own, will be sold.

Second-hand clothes have always been part of my wardrobe, from hand-me-downs as a child, and later jumble sales and the Army Surplus Store (still going as "H.M. Government Supplies) to Kensington Market. And what a joy to hear that Flip is still going, albeit up in Newcastle as the Covent Garden branch with its Hawaiian shirts and naval jackets - like a giant cast outfitter for South Pacific - has long gone the way of the rest of the 80s.

As well as the re-use/re-sale angle, there's the re-purpose thread of sustainable fashion, too. And maybe an even bigger opportunity is fashion rental. Changing the mindset away from weddings and ballgowns and fancy-dress costumes to the everyday. The clothes rental market is heading to become a multi-billion dollar business  and subscription models are springing up everywhere from children's shoes to plus-size clothes.

But whether the subscription models are really sustainable remains to be seen. The danger is that people will continue to hunger for the latest fashions, but once the responsibility for the cleaning, repair, passing on and responsible disposal is in someone else's hands, they'll turn a blind eye to the cost to the environment.

Goodbye yellow (and red) plastic sea

Even sixteen or seventeen years later, the inspiration for Toy Box Club founders Jess Green and Sheela Berry rings true for me: "... drowning under a sea of unloved, predominantly plastic toys." Which parent doesn't remember the take-over of their living space by this deluge of plastic, wondering why the smallest people in the house had the biggest (and most) belongings.

At least in my son's toddler days, it was mostly in primary colours, before the onslaught of pink and lilac lamas and unicorns for girls and poison-green pirate ships for boys. With more and more categories moving to a subscription model, what a brilliant idea to set up a brand offering toys and books for pre-school children on a "new toy box every month" basis.

All the boxes on the toy box are ticked (sorry!) - the box is recyclable, the toys are thoroughly cleaned with Ecover before being passed on to the next family, it's all gender-neutral, so no pink ponies with sultry eyelashes, and all is thoroughly safety-tested.

But, but, but - toddlers don't understand about sustainability and subscription business models and all that, and when it comes to it, they are possessive little blighters.

And here, the Toy Box Club has the answer, too. If your child should get attached to a particular toy, of course you can buy it from them, too.