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To the uninitiated, last week's Guest Speaker Megan Blake turned out to be a surprise: There is no question that there is a strong resemblance of her face to that of our President Elect Jo Gorman (see picture left). No wonder: Megan is Jo's daughter! She is a Creative Team member at Manning Gottlieb OMD, one of the world's largest advertising firms. Based in London, one of her tasks is to sell Renault, a French brand, to the British... "So, what's changed since Mad Men?" she asked: Well, in the 'olden days', we had principally two sections: Creative and Media. Today, we have the above, plus PR, Auditor, Experiential (no, not a typo: it means 'Events' etc), Digital, Data Agency, Customer Experience, Outdoor, direct mail, online, mobile, podcasts, Video on Demand, sponsorships, social ads, search ads, affiliates... Get the drift?
Megan took us through a comprehensive set of steps of planning and executing a marketing campaign. From 'Product Insight' (e.g. Saloon market is declining,
pricing is non-competitive, nobody wants Diesels anymore etc) to KPI's (Key Performance Indices) such as measuring Growing Awareness, Competitor Analysis. In her example of promoting the new Renault Megane Sports Tourer (picture right), her budget is some 3 Million (one assumes this means Pounds)! By he way: did you know that McLaren Formula 1 ditched Honda and is switching to Renault engines?) The result of the analysis: "Position all new Megane as the luxury vehicle for stylish career driven men". [OK, I qualify for 2 out of 4. But what about women?? Ed.]. Will Media Agencies prevail or is it all going to be swallowed up in 'The Internet of Things', the automatic connection between various devices embedded in every day objects, Voice Activation, Youtube, Catch-up TV? "Not at all!" is Megan's view. "The Digital Revolution will continue, but there will always be Media Agencies.