POST GRUEN TRANSFER: THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY DISCUSSES THE PROS AND CONS
August 8 2008, 4:44 pm | | 47 Comments
CB caught this programme yesterday on Radio National’s Media Report. It’s about the renewed interest/controversy surrounding the advertising industry brought about by the Gruen Transfer. The programme includes views from AFA chairman Mark Champion, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne chief Peter Biggs and freelance copywriter, Jane Caro.
47 Comments
Before this board is filled with the usual vitriol I’d like to say I enjoy the program. It’s not trying to be a serious indepth look at advertising but it’s amusing, clever and it raises the profile of the industry.
Hopefully this means that not only will the industry attract a higher calibre of young people to it, but they will be more repesentative of our society instead of over representing the middle-class, private school sector who are often far removed (and not just geographically) from their target audience. And that can only mean better, more relevant advertising.
Well said 9.26. Let’s have some positive comment for a change and those who usually have nothing but drivel to post – take a break!
The Gruen Transfer is a light-hearted show about making ads that is aimed at making people (well, an ABC demographic) laugh. Taking it seriously and analysing it’s impact is a sure sign that the industry is either up shit creek or, just as bad, up itself.
Agree 9.26, however I’m still looking forward to a recession so we can take the broom thru and fire the bulk of Gen Y’s. They have a lot to answer for!! (joking – kinda).
Oh dear.
So we have to appear to be supportive and not be vitriolic?
Thanks 9.26.
I think constructive commentary shouldn’t be mistaken for vitriol. Even if its negative.
I have caught most of the Gruen Shows. And they are light easy going fare. I don have to say i think I have seen the same show on every occassion and wonder how it will stay fresh. But maybe that’s the subject matter at fault.
About the people on it to date, I have to say they are more performer than practitioner.
I don’t really know much of what they have done. There are no heavyweights in the panel. There are no true legends in the panel. So I wonder if it loses something.
Where are the industry superstars? Warren Brown? Jay Furby? Scott Whybin? Sean Cummins?
And Will Anderson? Is he really any good? Cute. But a better writer than frontman.
I want my industry represented well. I like the idea of the show.
But let’s face it, scratches the surface…and maybe that’s all it can do.
I am pleased that women are well represented, being one myself.
But maybe I can’t hope for much more than what has been done.
It’s a 6/10 show.
Given the huge success of Gruen, Clemenger MD Peter Biggs is back-pedaling so fast based on the radio transcript above. Good to see he has perfect 20/20 hindsight.
But he still drops a few Clemenger stereotype reinforcing clunkers like:
“Our most important audience is our clients…”
At our place the most important audience is the consumer – that’s what the clients hire us for.
So maybe Clems will let their staff on Gruen next season? Hope so. It’s just boss biggs they need to keep away from the media.
Everyone must be so glad that they can all get back to watching House again!
No heavyweights on the panel, 1:36? Are you serious?
What would you call a CEO , a chairman/ MD, a National CD/ VIce Chairman, and some award-winning industry seniors?
Yes there are probably people with more awards but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be any good on TV. As for the names you mentioned, I know for a fact that at least 2 of them auditioned and didn’t get on.
As a middle-class, privately educated agency employee, I’m offended.
Roger Hargreaves has never been an orange guy with really long arms by the name of Mr Tickle, but he could get into his head enough to be able to write about him.
Just because I’m not a half- Asian, half-Turkish orphan of refugee parents who struggled to put shoes on my feet before they died and left me to an abusive family friend who instilled in me an interest in medieval weaponry, cooking with tofu and finger-knitting, it doesn’t mean I can’t empathise with someone who is, should I be asked to at some time in the future.
Being on the cusp of gen y / gen x can I just say something relating to the recession comment before.
You sir, had it all. High salaries, even higher ones now, and got into the industry when stuff like ‘got milk’ was considered revolutionary.
I really can’t stand the whole generational divide that permeates this business. We work harder (always the oldies leaving the office at 5), get crapper briefs and even crapper salaries. And you’re saying we’re supposed to be the first to go when we’re the only ones who remotely get digital – which means more bang for your buck when it comes to saving money on media.
Yes the bulk of Gen Y creatives do need to go. But so do the bulk of the baby boomer / gen x crowd. When the hiring / firing comes around, it should be down to who’s prepared to put in the hours, who gets the results, and who isn’t afraid of adopting new technology.
To put it politely, I think the bulk of those people are Gen Y. But I’d be shooting my argument in the foot if I was to make an age-ist broad sweeping narrow minded statement like that.
We leave at 5 because we’ve finished for the, we’re not trying to bang the new account exec and we didn’t spend the last 5 hours trying to think of something award winning to post on a blog you lightweight.
In the few short years since doing AWARD, the killer students from my year that came from Cronulla / the bush / Western Suburbs have steadily dropped off in favour of these wealthier, ‘middle-class, private school sector’ students.
It’s reasonably easy to explain how: some of the students couldn’t afford to work for free, they had to pay rent and ended up working for crap agencies or going back to their day job. Others simply didn’t have the same contacts the upper middle class guy’s did, through people they went to school with. And some CDs, apparently, flatly refuse to hire anyone who didn’t go to a private school, probably for ‘cultural fit’ reasons.
And while it sucks, I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I won’t name them but all the guys I know doing really, really well went to GPS / private schools.
There was one team who convinced their parents to support them while they worked for free at one of the best agencies in Sydney. Now they’re working at the best agency in Sydney on a very comfortable wicket. A lot of people simply can’t afford to do that. I’m personally jealous as all fuck but good on them, hope they do well. Oh wait, they are.
I think, 9:26 that it’s not that the industry isn’t attracting diverse talent, it’s just not hiring or nurturing it. While the industry stands by (and why shouldn’t it) and allows juniors to get ‘work experience’ for 12 months or pay as little as $20,000 pa (including super), you need some rich parents or a fucking good credit rating to crack it.
I did have a good credit rating (not anymore). I’m not from a privileged background, but I researched enough Rugby and imported beers to fit in at work. It was really hard (financially) to go through it, but I love making good ads. And what it really, really boils down to is this: the ‘relevant’ ones who dropped off just weren’t keen enough, and it’s a shame, cause now they’d be earning triple what they’re on at the local RSL and making great ads.
Industry Superstars? One well known CD tried out for the show but didn’t actually make the cut. He might be good at writing ads but put him in front of a camera and well … he’s crap! It’s an entertainment show not the Award Awards.
As entertainment it’s perfectly fine. As to creating greater understanding of our industry it doesn’t rate a pass. Howcroft has tried his best to educate. Most of the others panelists, Anderson [and the Pitch segment] do nothing more than offer light entertainment. I’m sure lots of bright grads want to a career in advertising thinking it’s all fun, ads, plenty of swearing and no tie required. However, most of the program perpetuates perceptions of the ad industry as light and fluffy, not deserving a seat at the big table, rather than the serious, multi-faceted business that it really is.
http://www.advertisingadvantage.com.au/html/home.php
i love this
When are we some of us going to take our hands off it and stop trying to be something that we’re not. Excuse me while I point out the obvious, but advertising is a creative business, we invent stuff and over-dramatise reality in an attempt to try to change the way people think and behave. Yes, this is an important industry that’s worth a lot of money to the economy and I believe we do provide an important service to businesses, but we shouldn’t try to pretend that we’re serious business men and women. A few of us are, and they’re slowly disappearing as they sell their agencies for millions of dollars. But the rest of us, are here to understand our clients business, and bridge the gap to their consumers. We are essentially here to craft messages and build brands with good advertising. I’m sure that it’s a lot more fun than auditing a company, drafting legal documents for ASIC or trying to guess how adverse economic conditions might affect EBITDA or shareholder value.
Some of us desperately want to be taken seriously in the boardroom. If that’s more important to you than influencing the thousands or millions of consumers that your clients have, then I’d suggest a career change. Get an MBA or a Masters in Business Strategy, put on a suit and tie and apply for a job with one of the top tier consulting firms. Good luck with impressing the corporate captains on a monthly basis, and I hope it helps make you feel better about yourself and stops you from loathing those of us who are quite happy with their career choice.
I personally think we need to maintain our distance from the boardroom. The way to get the smart boys and girls sitting on boards to notice our work, and value our input, is by making campaigns that deliver results. I’m afraid that if we get a seat at the boardroom table we might be compelled to produce the type of work that make shareholders feel good about their investment, not insightful and emotional work that actually changes the top line of the P&L.
Let’s leverage the increasing awareness of advertising and people’s understanding of it (thanks to TGT) and produce even better campaigns. Let’s treat our audience (our clients consumers) with the respect they deserve and create the most engaging work we can. Lets improve the ad industry one ad at a time and be proud of what we do and how we do it.
Amen
huh 2.49? Shameless plug or trying to arouse vitriol on an otherwise fairly civil discussion about Gruen Transfer?
Save the off-topic stuff for other forums.
3:52 needs a history lesson. Advertising was, is and always will be at its greatest [read : most creative] when agencies have a seat in our clients boardrooms. For too long we’ve listened to the 3:52’s of this world with disastrous results. The 3:52 school of thinking is the very reason brand management consultants [read : glorified graphic designers and failed process driven planners] have increasingly taken over client relationships. Clients are listening to agencies less and less on ways to ‘influence the thousands or millions of consumers that your clients have’ thanks to the thinking of people like 3:52’s. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand advertising.
First, that list of “stars” who “should” be on the show – well, let’s be frank, a few of them haven’t actually been stars for a long while. If you want older stars, get real ones, get Lionel Hunt or Ted Horton or Chris Dewey or people like that, not guys who had a couple of good years a decade or so ago.
No, the guests they’ve had have, generally, been pretty good and the regulars are top level ad people.
And, as someone else said, it gets down to how they perform on TV. Otherwise all the great novelists would be starring in the movie versions of their books. Hasn’t happened since Shakespeare did the odd appearance at the Globe.
For the next series, though, maybe they could bring in a few of the legends. (Real ones, like I listed, rather than plastic ones).
Also, perhaps a few interesting guests, like ad people who went on to succeed at other things – Peter Carey for instance.
And how about a few of the big directors – I’d love to hear Ray Lawrence talk about advertising. (He was an art director once, I think, and is still one of the best ad dialogue directors on the planet.)
I also wouldn’t mind a segment where old classic Aussie ads were discussed – which could be a good time to have the legends (ad people and directors) involved. Nice to compare to some of the current stuff.
In around the third series they could have a segment exposing blatant rip-offs, here and overseas. (You always need a little controversy when a TV series has been around a while.)
It was entertaining TV, as supported with ABC family viewing stats. Not sure it delivered the intellectual theory of advertising, as promised in Andrew Denton’s producer’s original publicity on this blog about psychological effects on shoppers, theorized by Victor Gruen. But making the game ‘seem’ open to the public, brilliant! However, the increased figures of younger people trying to break into advertising, I’m not sure Gawen Rudder or the AFA would be my world’s most reliable source for being plugged into youth Zeitgeist. I think you will find young people have been trying to break into advertising for decades. Although an astute local Ad Trade Journal Editor tried to have readers believe Wil Anderson was far from smart, I thought he rallied the expert panel and pitch agencies together perfectly. And the casting was perfect. Todd and Russel were chalk and cheese that would appeal to different TV and online segments and having met both these guys briefly, it was Russel that greatly surprised me. If any audience ever needed someone to completely rationalize anything, even perhaps outside advertising, he would be the man.
Like 5.55s idea of exposing rip offs as a future segment.
Remember the amazing “I’m Australian” Foster’s ad back at around the time of the Sydney Olympics that was a direct rip off the Molsens “I’m Canadian” ad.
The new TiVo ad is the latest in that long line – not only is it a really sad rip-off the famous Tango ad, but it inexplicably even uses the same music – the intrinsically British “Land of hope and Glory”!
300 billion people watched the opening of the games, but that doesn’t mean it was good TV. Anyway, who is the guy in the middle farting?
I’d like to thank the Gruen transfer for explaining to my mum what I do. I used to just say I worked in a brothel, but now saying I work in advertising has slightly more merit than greasing up rich geezers on the wall.
In spite of Howcrafty’s little ‘oooh, oooh, it’s only advertising of course we can lie through our teeth’ comments, it really has raised the intellectual profile of the industry amongst the shmucks who don’t know what shiny gold pencils are (well, not the kind they think of) and why the majority of ads are so damn annoying.
Well done Mr Denton, Drunk Monkeys & Co. Keep it real for ’09, looking forward to it.
Of course more kids wnt to get into advertising after TGT. Big deal. If advertising was as much fun and as easy as TGT made it look I’d want to get a job in it as well.Can’t wait til they find out a pitch is less about doing an ad than boring the shit out of clients with the latest planner wank theory. TGT was no more than entertaining fluff from start to finish. Only chunky Russ talked sense. The rest were all just trying to make the most out of their 15 minutes.
If kids saw how human beings are treated in advertising i don’t think anyone would want to do it.
12.00AM, why the fark shouldn’t juniors get paid $20k? (And I’m a junior, so I can say it). Hello, we’re juniors FFS! Just like apprentices earn sweet FA for 3 or 4 years, so to should we whilst we try and learn our trade.
Especially when you consider that it’s about the only industry that doesn’t actually require any study. If you’re good you can walk in off the street, sit down, and in a few years start to earn some decent coin. That’s a pretty good thing!
Well said, 7:23PM. 9:26AM is obviously a Labor voter.
11:24, before you vent your spleen you should read what I wrote. I said I didn’t have a problem with that, but when other industries, let’s say design for example, offer graduates 35-45k p.a, it looks like a far more attractive career path.
20k is ok for a few months, but when you start making a few TV ads worth 100k each to the agencies pocket, or win a big pitch, or find out you’re being charged out at $220 an hour (more than you pocket a week) it seems a little disparate.
But at least you’re getting 20k. I was talking more about people who work for free for a year. But hell, I did it, I’m not whinging, I’m just stating one of the reasons ‘diverse talent’ don’t cut it in the industry sometimes – more circumstance and personality than actual talent.
Apologies if I came across the wrong way.
Hey buddy. Which Ad Agency has TV budgets that make 100K in the pocket as I want to work there?
Most production companies these days are lucky enough if they get a 100k budget.
Most Ad Agencies around town expect the production company to shoot the next TVC (scam ad) for FREE.
I think you are a little out of touch with the real Ad world.
Sorry 12/8.59, not necessarily having a go at you, but I keep hearing people whinging about how little (or none) juniors get paid.
Considering just how easy it is to land a job in advertising if you’ve got luck, talent and persistence on your side vs. studying for 4 years then having luck, talent and persistence on your side, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for agencies to pay peanuts to begin with, it’s a big risk they’re taking, and they’re offering you an incredible opportunity, so earning not much for a while shouldn’t be an issue. Plenty of people I know work two jobs to make ends meet whilst they’re trying to crack their careers, why should adland be any different?
Especially when it’s hard to ‘prove’ creativity. Sure you’ve got a good book, but you’ve got your own time to work on it, where as a a designer (to use your example) can show time and time again they’ve got a good eye and talent, where as a junior team get put in a small cubical and might only get feed a brief once a while, otherwise they’re a big, untested expensive on the agency’s balance sheet.
Anyway my point is that juniors in just about any industry earn bugger all, whether it’s a 15 year old supermarket trolley boy, a 21 year old Droga wanna-be or an 18 year old sparkie’s apprentice.
….and this debate, worthy as it is, is relevant to the Gruen Transfer because…
10:19 – Yes, but they get paid for training. Plus it’s more than the minimum wage (when you add up the hours, working in advertising is like having two jobs and getting paid for one.). That’s a legal issue. Plus a lot of people have had formal training – 4 years at university to become the ‘office junior’ or ‘mail boy’ and get everyone’s coffee, and be thrown a brief once in a while.
And, good book or not, it’s pretty damn difficult to get a foot in the door unless you rock up and say ‘pay me nothing’.
Anyway, I’ve got briefs to crack.
Same as it ever was.
Of course, every child of mother born is ‘creative’ these days, so the competition for people wanting to get into that side of the industry is fairly hot. And agencies don’t make money like the used to, so the dollars aren’t there to splash around.
Think of it like this. Just imagine you’re the member of a garage band. For the first year or two, you play most of your gigs for beer money or less because, basically, you’re crap. Then, after lots of hard work and – let’s admit it – a fair bit of fun, you’re not quite so crap anymore and you might actually get a decent paying gig or two.
But remember, in the end, only a very few go on to be rock stars. And as we know from the Top 40, a lot of the rock stars are still crap – and most of them burn out pretty quick anyway.
So have fun going up and down. We’re not curing cancer.
Only difference, 10:49, is bands say shit people want to hear 🙂
Good analogy.
Most musicians make more money playing covers and being treated like a jukebox.
You’re all so very wise.
Outside of your immediate families and work colleagues I guarantee that no-one gives a rats arse about this grubby ugly wanky indulgent bullshit industry. You’ll be happier when you accept that you are spending YOUR LIFE doing something that means nothing to no-one.
9:39 I agree with you, certainly in Australia.
But in places like the US or the UK – no. It transforms culture over there. Simpsons, Family Guy, Sitcoms all reference ads. Jingles become catch phrases and part of the common language.
People actually get involved in them, talk about them at the pub. They like them. Unless they’re cynical ‘arty types’ (read: emo’s) from Rhode Island.
Same goes for NZ, Brazil, India….
Why is this? We’ve done ads just as good (the big ad). Oh wait. People did get into that. Maybe it’s because as creatives, we feel we have to please impossible wankers like yourself who insist on anonymously cutting people down instead of doing great, positive, friendly work.
Oh and thanks for pointing out such an insight we wouldn’t have found out about ourselves… in that big bad world out there we’re all so far and self indulgently removed from.
Um actually 9:39 Gruen was the top rated show in most of its slots.
Could you restate your argument please?
Before we get too down on ourselves, it should be remembered that advertising is a key part of the free market economy. In fact, it couldn’t function without it.
Put simply, the free market allows people to have ideas, create products and sell all kinds of stuff to each other – across countries and across borders. But without advertising, no one would know the stuff existed, so no one would buy it.
Without mass communication – that is, mass advertising – there could be no mass production. And without mass production, products would be much, much more expensive.
Advertising is an important part of making all those wheels go round.
Now, considering the fact that the Australian economy has been going along much better than any of the economies in Europe (including England), it must be true that our advertising – however bad we may think it is – is doing it’s job.
It’s working. That’s what it’s all about.
And, getting back to the Greun Transfer, I’m pretty sure that’s what Russel Howcroft would say as well.
“Most musicians make more money playing covers and being treated like a jukebox.”
And so do most ad people.
HAHAHA 12:58… V. NICE!
11:13
The GruenTransfer is good entertainment. That’s it. End of story.
Sorry 12:34 i refuse to let you have the last word.
The Gruen Transfer makes most of the comments on this blog sound like quantum physics.
Oh, stop your whining, wankers. It takes the fun out of this ridiculous scam we all have going. Instead, check the screenshot!
Todd: “My nuts are, like, this big.”
Matt: “I’ve seen them. They’re not.”
Wil, to camera: “Get off my turf. Nut Jokes are all I’ve got.”
T: “I stretched it, like this wide”
M: “Ouch”
W: “Err…”