Creatives need to take stock, says marketer

Garden, who spoke to the creative dominated audience with a smattering of marketers in the afternoon, following on some of the industry's most heavyweight creative minds, said he heard an industry that still thought it had a divine right to exist without taking into account the rest of the world.

"You're still in your own cocoons... as a top 10 marketing spender in SA, from our side of the fence, advertising is increasingly a marginalised industry. It is nowhere near the driver of marketing it used to be."

From a marketers perspective, Garden's advice to the advertising industry is this: "Take a time out, take a couple of years away from the Cannes, Cleos, etc... they are stuffing you up. Recalibrate, be the best in the world, but get away from the mindset that says we need to be competitive on that league table. Based on what we saw at Loeries this year, we're not there yet guys..."

'I want advertising that gets back to the basics'

He continued: "This is the new South Africa with all its transformations, I simply want advertising that gets back to basics."

Garden, who admitted to a chip on both shoulders from a decade with ad agencies followed by a decade on the client side, said it was worrying that the focus of most advertising was on entertaining the consumer.

"What serious marketers, brand builders and serious players in this industry should be looking for is creativity... the big idea. Media has moved on. Communications strategy can be got anywhere, consumer insights and even production can be outsourced from anywhere else. The full service agency is dead... long live the ideas shop, the imagination company, the concept corporation..."

The power of the idea

In showing his favoured local multi-award winning commercials from the past, Garden hammered home the power of the idea.

He remarked that technology had changed the media landscape, the entertainment industry, and so on, and although advertising was still a hugely popular culture, in mainstream media it is considerably down on the radar.

"The most important overriding factor of all, this is SA, not the US, not the UK, not Japan. They are either mature, homogenous markets, or unique third world markets. We are light years away from the challenges that face those markets. This is South Africa. This is Africa... I do not believe that creativity is a given in this industry.

"My view is this: advertising is the commercial art of business science. It is an essential part of the business of business. Without it, business won't grow and thrive. Advertising has to grow and evolve with it."

He explained what he means by "back to basics":