THE CAREER LADDER
LEARNING BY EXAMPLE
The Advertising Industry & The School Of Life — By Mike Yershon
Mike Yershon’s experience in the Media and Advertising industry is both legendary and significant.
His journey spans many disciplines, experiences and industries — that’s why the ‘Learning By Example’ platform is so powerful and relevant in the 21st Century educational context.
KNOWLEDGE IS DANGEROUS WITHOUT EXPERIENCE
KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE
Napoleon Hill once said —
“There is one quality that one must possess to win, help and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.”
The trouble is it can take a lifetime to figure this out and very hard work along the way.
This document explains a way of helping students to get their first step on the rung and move their way up.
AN INDUSTRY EXAMPLE
The Media & Advertising Industry can teach us a lot.
In some ways it’s a blueprint for every industry on Earth.
Like life it’s constantly changing and like life it’s full of lessons.
We are either subject to the changes or we help make them.
THE CAREER LADDER
One of the biggest challenges of life is getting onto that first rung of the ladder.
The world of advertising and media is one industry that everyone comes into contact with every day.
It’s creative, it’s fast moving, it creates debate and it causes attention.
It can be brutal and it can enable people to achieve greatness.
It oils the wheels of industry and it’s the front line in the machinery of commerce and trade.
It informs how we think, how we vote, what we buy, where we travel, how we eat and how we feel about ourselves.
As a school for what life can throw at us it’s a great teacher.
This initiative takes every learning from 5 decades of growing up and learning through that industry and delivers a set of steps — the rungs of the ladder. It truly is ‘Learning — By Example’
WHY THE LADDER?
Much of the education that’s given to students up and down the country during in our years in School is academic.
And whilst that’s important it can leave many of us ill equipped with the practical skills that we will need to survive real life.
The question is often asked — “How can we apply what we get taught at school to our actual lives in work. How can we get on the career path that suits us and then achieve the passion and purpose we strive…?”
But the better questions are —
“How do we figure out our passion and purpose in the first place and then be better equipped to put that into practice…?”
“How do we, when we are starting out begin to understand the importance of knowing ourselves, create a strong foundation to exploit the best of ourselves and then achieve that purpose?
Have we any chance of defining our passion when we haven’t experienced what’s even possible…?
GETTING ON THE LADDER
The ‘ladder’ shows the simple steps to how it can be done.
A simple set of ideas and learning from one industry and one life. Turning that into a path to progress and in a way that simplifies why.
Each ‘rung’ builds on the other.
Each step is explained as a series of meaningful parts.
They come from the real world experiences of what works not what typically gets taught.
They are really practical steps learned the hard way — through the world of work.
And from an industry everyone feels and touches every day.
Universal Truths
Rung ONE
The Street As Teacher
Older people often feel it is their right or responsibility to tell you what you should do with your life.
The challenge is that their experience comes from a world that often no longer exists.
People mean well but much of the advice is rooted in their insecurities or self-limiting beliefs.
You have to stay true to yourself and stay alive to what is really going on today.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
Rung TWO
Standing Up Your Ladder And Creating Your Tribe
Figuring out the really meaningful relationships instead of simply building contacts is far more valuable.
Contacts are often superficial whereas meaningful relationships are deep connections where the person becomes an advocate for you and actively supports you propelling towards your success.
All of the money in the world can’t buy you happiness or worth.
To create your future and gain any freedom, build a community of friends you can thrive within you have to work hard and earn it.
Getting the result you want can be much more about who you know rather than what you know.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
RUNG THREE
Thinking Before Anything — Ignorance Can Kill Observing And Listening — Don’t Be The Idiot In The Village.
Set some intentions, put energy into those intentions, and then allow the results to unfold without trying to control the process.
It’s important to get out there and meet people.
Learn as much as you can about everything
Work hard, learn everything and watch what’s going on around you.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
rung four
Trying And Testing — Smart Makes Smarter
You have to learn to trust that things will work out. Incredibly they almost always will and often better than you can imagine.
Staying open and positive to opportunities.
Serendipity favours those who say yes to meetings and hanging out.
Go for a coffee, go to events.
Go on trips even if there isn’t a clear reason for going.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
rung five
Understanding Creativity — It’s An Art
Creativity isn’t restricted to some. We are all born creative.
We often get told there’s no value in drawing or playing a musical instrument or learning to dance. That’s rubbish.
Read and watch as much as you can — your ability to acquire knowledge and learn from others will help you exponentially, so make reading and viewing a top priority.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
rung six
The Confidence To Speak — The Big Win Debate
Standing up and speaking are completely underestimated.
Being confident and standing up can seem scary at first but you can very quickly get used to and also good at itTake care of yourself — you won’t work if you don’t work.
Learning to eat right, exercise are the key to health and success.
The modern day or entrepreneurial journey is hard on your body, mind, and spirit, so invest in all three, starting now. Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
RUNG SEVEN
The Art Of Calculating Options
Gather the information you need to make smarter choices.
Study the information as contexts change and be prepared to make changes and corrections to your course.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
RUNG EIGHT
Mentors
Get a mentor — a great mentor is a role model who will pour gasoline onto your fire.
Find someone whose life, career, and character exemplify the vision you have for your own life.
Lean on this person, learn from this person, and listen to his or her advice.
Example:
Test:
The Result You Can Expect:
Professional success is often measured by the number of meaningful relationships you have developed multiplied by how hard you work.
Personal success, by contrast, comes from our ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle while living the life that we want (and not the life that others want for you).
“The hardest period in life is one’s twenties. It’s a shame because you’re your most gorgeous, and you’re physically in peak condition. But it’s actually when you’re most insecure and full of self-doubt. When you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s frightening.” — Helen Mirren
Firing On All Cylinders
MIKE YERSHON
The World Is Flat Out
YERSHON MEDIA
The world is a chaotic and complex place.
Everything we knew for sure over the last century is likely to trip us up as we rush headlong through the next.
The digital revolution upended the world again. Of that, there is no doubt.
Digital has ‘flattened’ access. It has made ‘quality’ available to everyone. It’s given us access to quality at low cost through an array of media channels and devices.
There’s no shortage of those who’ll fall over themselves to sell you the latest new technology. They’ll have well-rehearsed arguments to convince you they’ve discovered the holy grail.
What’s rare though, are proven, problem solvers.
People who can wrestle the answers to questions that others aren’t asking. Those with the required expertise stand out. As with all rare things these skills are valuable. Actually solving the problem.
Solving the problem requires knowing the problem.
Taking The Right Brief
Knowing the problem is not the same as having a strong preference for a particular solution. Agencies will default to ads, consultants will default to year-long research, analysis and change programs, tech companies will have a technology that can fix it.
Knowing the problem relies on knowing the problem. The root cause, not the effect. Solving the genuine problem requires calculation and real decisions.
This requires the facts to be as available as they can.
FACTS ARE NOT A Matter Of Opinion
Getting to the facts ensures we go beyond opinion and wish lists. Opinion is the usual place we find clients when they first present their challenges.
I can’t remember a client or even a casual meeting where the following aren’t (to some degree) the topics of conversation.
Where do we think the world is going?
Why are we thinking that?
What’s our role in it?
How are we going to go after it?
What evidence do we have that makes us think we’re going to win?
I can’t remember a meeting where it wasn’t possible to drive the combined fleet of the Navy, Air Force and Army through each answer.
The questions are simple - the answers are telling.
It’s Time To Think
Our challenge is getting people to think.
Once they do we can open up a meaningful discussion. We will learn more about the product or service. We can identify how the market might be targeted. We may divine the ideal audience, we start to define the impact we want - we may start to develop the unique position we need to win.
Some Key Questions
Let’s assume they have a plan, many will say they do. It may even be a new one. So it’s worth testing.
Have you changed your investment choices according to your new hypothesis?
Are you prepared to?
By what measure and basis did you formulate your investment thesis?
Was any testing done to prove that?
Did you listen to people outside your own comfort zone - those not vested in your own calculations?
Once again the answer to these questions tells us a lot.
Avoid Solving The Wrong Problem Really Well
Business is a complete system. Clients cannot leave the important discussions (market, media, management, manufacturing etc.) to their silos to make. Do that and the specialisms dictate. And then you get the wrong answer.
The correct answer is unknowable in advance anyway. There has to be some evidence. The least risk approach to better answers is testing.
Let’s assume we can get the right product, the best targeting strategy, the correct story through the right channels - but the world moves.
Being ready for inevitable changes means planning an organisation that’s alive to changes. Competition is always there. The biggest competition often comes from our own complacency.
Leaders have to stop working divisionally when thinking strategically.
The success of the business can be measured by how distant market strategy development is from the product development strategy. They are two halves of the same. Any distance at all will spell game over.
Why do we allow the marketing strategy to ignore the product development strategy?
Simple and obvious though it sounds target metrics are everything. They are the one thing that allows the truth to emerge. Missing target metrics are the biggest signal we can have that thinking needs to occur.
Raising the next set of questions:
Have we got the right metrics?
What measures have we missed?
Have we got systems in place to measure?
Why are we beating our forecasts?
Why are we missing our targets?
What needs to change?
We have to stop describing everything under the tag ‘digital’. Everything in our world is being automated, improved or accessible more quickly and effectively than ever. The questions have to focus on the correct things.
What media will engage our customers?
What story will resonate most with our customers?
What mix/blend of activities and experiences will turn prospects into long-term advocates?
Digital solutions are already here - mobile devices, screens everywhere. The challenge, like all techniques and tools, is how confident and expert we are at exploiting them.
For example:
How quickly can we migrate or transform our solutions to mobile media?
How adept are we at creating powerful user experiences in the mobile environment?
Can we take our business from the current browser-based world to Apps and platforms?
Are we learning and leveraging voice, AI/ML/DL, VR and other embedded capabilities.
Can we exploit the value and impact gained through lessons in e-sports/gaming, podcasting, e-commerce and messaging platforms?
Are we thinking sophisticatedly enough about strategies for storytelling, content and internal communication?
Are we competent when it comes to data protection, permissions and privacy as our consumers get closer to our operation through modern more global platforms?
Calculating these decisions is at the core. There’s zero chance that what worked over the past 10-20 years will work over the next one or even two years. Investment in marketing has to follow consumer attention and focus which can happen more quickly than it did in the past.
“It’s the digital age. Everything is media. That’s why business strategy is indivisible from media strategy.”
How It All Happened
Mike Yershon had seen an American 1940s film on the BBC featuring a guy who needed to come up with an advertising campaign for the Farnhight Featherlite, a new car to be launched.
This guy had his blank paper on a draughtsman’s board but the ideas would not come. Then, in the early hours of the morning before the crucial day when he had to deliver, it all came pouring out.
At the age of 16, in the summer of 1959, having left school with no job and no prospects, this story completely appealed to me. So when kind people asked what I wanted to do, I told them “advertising”.
There’s a lot of talk about the Future Of Work.
Robots, Digitalisation and new business models.
Platforms and technology changed the game.
Business leaders/decision makers (who wish to survive) have to steer the right course. Their job is to take advantage. There’s two questions - will they and how will they execute? In the media business that means being as effective in ‘digital’ as in traditional.
Being prepared is only strategy for business in this century. That’s true for two reasons.
It’s impossible to know what’s happening from one week to the next.
Preparation enables the business to take advantage of whatever happens.
Being prepared for business life after 2020 has to start now. A lot of businesses designed for today will fail by then.
The Shape* Of The Successful Business
After decades of proving it we know it’s extremely easy to solve the wrong problem really well.
Experience taught us that a great Ad campaign can leave a badly prepared operation in dire straits.
The smartest and most relevant technology on Earth can gather dust through disuse.
Expensive consulting firms and strategy documents often don’t move the needle.
Certain capabilities are needed to survive. Ingenuity, curiosity, creativity and hands on experience in how media works.
“The answers to today’s questions are not the answers for tomorrow’s. We don’t know tomorrow’s questions. We can only be the best prepared.”
At the last count there was at least 120 channels. That’s 120+ ways to interact with the consumer. That's not a challenge that’s the opportunity.
The Work Of Mike Yershon By Dave Trott
The following articles are taken from Campaign Magazine
Dave Trott - March 17, 2016
Grounds were miserable, old-fashioned, dilapidated, mainly all standing.
Fewer and fewer people were going to matches.
And games had to be played at 3 o’clock on Saturday afternoons.
That was unquestionable, for every club in the country.
But they desperately needed a way to get some money into the dwindling game.
Mike Yershon was the most influential media guy in town.
Mike was a game changer.
So The Football League asked him to a meeting to find a way they could raise more money from the TV companies.
Mike’s recommendation was simple and powerful.
But also complete heresy.
Mike said put live football on TV.
He said if they allowed some games to be played on Friday nights and some on Sunday afternoons they could sell the rights.
They could get ITV and BBC to bid against each other to drive the price up.
The Football League would make a fortune.
So how did they react to Mike’s idea?
The President threw Mike out of the meeting.
Moving matches away from 3pm Saturday was unthinkable, impossible.
And broadcasting live matches was suicide.
Why would anyone go to a cold, wet, miserable stadium when they could sit at home and watch the match on telly?
The stadiums would be empty.
He said Mike was crazy and his advice would kill football.
They couldn’t get him out of the building fast enough.
But then a strange thing happened.
When Mike got back to his office, the phone was ringing.
They asked him to come back to the meeting.
It seemed they had decided to over-rule the President.
Football was slowly dying and it had to raise money or else.
Mike’s advice might be the only way.
So Mike went back to the meeting and explained his plan.
The bidding process went ahead: BBC won Friday night matches and ITV won Sunday afternoon matches.
So, in the event, who was proved right: Mike or the President?
Did live matches on TV mean empty stadiums and the end for football?
Hardly.
In fact the live matches acted as advertisements for football.
People began returning to the stadiums.
And the money from the TV deals went into the game.
In 1983 the rights to live football sold for £5 million.
By 1988 they were up to £44 million.
In 1992 Sky paid £304 million.
And in 2015 Sky and BT paid £5 BILLION for the rights to live football.
That’s £10 million for each game.
In 1997 Manchester United opened their own TV channel, now most clubs have their own TV channel.
Football grounds are now so packed that season tickets are usually the only way to get in.
And there’s a waiting list years long for those season tickets.
Football is far and away the biggest, richest game in the country.
Largely because Mike Yershon did what he was told he wasn’t allowed to do.
He changed things that he was told couldn’t be changed.
You see it’s an uncomfortable truth for all of us, particularly clients.
You can’t change things without changing them.
Dave Trott is the author of Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three
Dave Trott - June 09, 2016
One evening many years ago, I was in the BMP creative department.
A very stressed head of media came round.
He said: "Dave, I can’t find anyone else to ask, do we want to buy a million pounds of 48-sheet posters?"
I said I dunno, it depends, what client are they for?
He said: "I don’t know yet, but I just got a phone call: Mike Yershon is buying up all the 48-sheet posters. If we don’t buy now we’ll miss out. I need an answer quick."
He didn’t need to say who Mike Yershon was.
Everyone knew he was the best media director in town at the best agency in town, CDP.
Mike did things other people hadn’t thought of yet, and the rest of us just had to try to catch up later.
Now Mike was buying every 48-sheet poster he could get his hands on.
And our head of media thought we should buy them too, just because Mike was doing it.
For people who don’t remember, before Mike Yershon there weren’t any 48-sheet posters.
Except for a few special sites, all posters were 16-sheets: smaller, upright posters.
That all changed when Mike Yershon went to CDP.
They were launching the Ford Capri II and wanted to make it a really special event.
So instead of running a 30-second TV commercial (as most agencies would), they chose to run a two-and-a-half-minute commercial.
No-one had ever done anything like that before.
And instead of single-page ads (like most agencies would), they chose to run double-page spreads.
Mike saw the DPS and immediately said: "That shape suits the car better, let’s do the posters the same shape."
Mike knew the poster owners had begun experimenting with putting three 16-sheet posters together to form a single 48-sheet poster.
So he ordered 4,000 of the new 48-sheet posters.
Which meant they had to find many thousands of 16-sheet posters to put together.
It was a logistical nightmare.
But when it was done, it was a massive success.
In fact, Mike got two of his clients, Gallaher and Whitbread, to agree to CDP starting a company specialising in 48-sheet posters.
But Gallaher also had JWT as an agency, so they asked CDP and JWT to start the new poster company together.
They called the company Portland.
They had a staff of 16 going around the country checking out poster sites.
None in bad condition, none badly lit, none down back alleys, none with trees in front, none facing the wrong way.
Only the best poster sites were good enough for Portland.
Which helped make CDP’s work more attractive than anyone else’s.
Which helped make CDP more attractive to new business.
Which helped make CDP the best agency in the world.
Which is why years later, when Sir Martin Sorrell bought JWT, he also bought CDP’s share of Portland.
He renamed it Kinetic, and today it’s the biggest outdoor media company in the world.
All because Mike Yershon understood media better than anyone else.
Media isn’t about the number of impressions you make.
Media is about the power of the impression you make.
Dave Trott is the author of Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three.
Dave Trott - November 09, 2017
When I started in advertising, commercials were either 30 or 15 seconds long. Everyone liked writing 30s, but nobody liked doing 15s. You couldn't fit much in - 15s were a pain.
Then, in 1976, the rules changed.
Suddenly 15s changed to 20s, which was a much better length for us.
I never knew why it changed until recently.
To start with, you have to understand how the old system worked.
The UK was divided up into different commercial TV regions.
Programmes ran nationally, so these regions all had to have the same-length ad breaks.
Even though they often had different ads.
For instance, if the ad break was five minutes long, each station would have to fill the break with exactly five minutes of ads.
Obviously, their job was easier if the ads were all 30s because they fitted together more easily.
Putting a break together was like fitting all the pieces together in Tetris.
Awkward lengths like 15 seconds were a pain, so companies preferred to sell longer lengths.
Mike Yershon was head of media at Collett Dickenson Pearce.
Mike was a really creative person.
Among its clients, CDP had a single Reckitt & Colman brand, Supersoft.
It was worth about £200,000 (around £2.5m today).
But all Reckitt & Colman’s other brands were at a lot of other, bigger agencies.
And together they added up to £4.8m (more than £60m today).
Mike wanted to get the media buying for the entire lot.
And he found two numbers that proved the key to him doing just that.
The cost of a 15-second commercial was 70% the cost of a 30.
But in London, at Thames TV, the cost of a 60-second spot was 150% the cost of a 30.
That meant if Mike bought a 60-second spot and ran three 20-second ads in it, he’d get three 20-second spots for less than the cost of three 15-second ads.
Which meant he could give Reckitt & Colman 25% more media, at no extra cost.
Which would be like saving more than £1m (around £13m today).
And they’d be running 20-second ads instead of 15-second ones.
Of course, 20 seconds wasn’t the industry standard, but Thames TV didn’t care.
Because its job was easier if you bought longer-length ads.
What you put in it was up to you.
So Mike could run a 40 and a 20, or three 20s in that spot – whatever he wanted.
Mike was the only person in advertising to see this.
And Thames TV agreed to let him do it for Reckitt & Colman, so Mike and CDP won all its media-buying business.
Meanwhile, the rest of advertising was still stuck doing 15-second ads.
None of us knew why CDP could run 20-second spots while the rest of us had to run 15s.
The truth was, no-one else had the imagination Mike had.
Eventually, he presented the case to all the TV companies and everything changed.
Twenty-second spots became an industry standard.
At the time, I didn’t know all that – I just remember being glad to get rid of 15-second ads.
We could finally write a decent spot in 20 seconds, and advertising got better.
Creativity isn’t just about the creative department.
Real creativity can come from anywhere.
And that’s how a media guy improved advertising by thinking creatively. •
Dave Trott is the author of Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three.
Dave Trott -November 30, 2017
In 1973, Mike Yershon was offered the job of media director at CDP.
Mike had a reputation as the best media guy in town, so he wanted a lot of money.
He was amazed when CDP agreed to pay it.
On his first day at his new job, he asked to see the agency reel.
After he’d seen it, he knew why CDP agreed to pay the money.
He loved the reel – it was the funniest, wittiest, classiest reel of work he ever saw.
But he’d never seen any of those ads before.
It was obvious why CDP needed him.
They were doing great work, but the work wasn’t getting seen.
Although, as Mike investigated the media, he found the work was getting seen.
It was just getting seen by the wrong people.
The typical, unquestioning, buy-it-by-the-numbers industry convention was to buy eyeballs.
CDP had been spending money getting the biggest number of people to see the ads.
But there’s a difference in the quality of eyeballs.
The fastest way to get the numbers up was to spend the money where most people watched: soap operas and daytime TV.
But it didn’t occur to anyone to ask what sort of eyeballs watched those programmes.
Which meant CDP’s ads were being seen by older people, retired people, unemployed people: couch potatoes, in fact.
Mike knew straight away it was a waste of money.
You didn’t want couch potatoes, you wanted the opposite.
You wanted the people who were too busy to regularly watch daytime TV or soap operas.
What you actually wanted was light viewers.
Light viewers were working during the day so they didn’t watch soap operas – in fact, they often didn’t get home until late.
They were fussy what they watched – they didn’t watch a lot of TV, just the best stuff.
By buying light viewers, Mike got fewer eyeballs.
But the eyeballs he did get were much more influential, they were opinion-formers.
Suddenly these opinion-formers began seeing CDP’s work and it became famous.
Lots of the people running large client companies were light viewers too, so they’d never seen CDP’s ads before.
Suddenly they saw them and decided they wanted advertising like that for their brands.
Mike’s "light viewer" strategy had a massive influence on CDP’s new-business results.
It turned out that lots of people in the media – journalists, broadcasters, editors – were light viewers, too.
When they began to see CDP’s work, they loved it and helped make it go viral.
Which also had another effect.
Ordinary viewers began to see CDP’s brands advertising in all the best programmes.
This changed the context, which changed the image of the brands.
Mike had discovered the difference between signalling and targeting.
Although he didn’t call it that.
Currently, in digital, targeting is considered everything.
Targeting relies on identifying the consumer and hitting them as often as possible.
But this ignores the context the ads run in.
And consequently it smacks of cheapness, and of desperation.
It certainly doesn’t send out the best signal about the brand, the way having it seen in the best context would.
And worse, with the advent of programmatic it’s not even humans buying the eyeballs, it’s algorithms.
You’d think we would have learned the lesson from Mike all those years ago.
The difference between signalling versus targeting.
Dave Trott is the author of Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking and One Plus One Equals Three.
The Fearless Breakfast
The Fearless Breakfast - Shoreditch House 19th November 2019
Mike Yershon 60/20
The Fearless Breakfast is our response to the traditional conference and meeting format. Traditionally familiar, often one dimensional but increasingly optional to attend. This event was sold out within 2 hours of tickets going on-line.
In Brief
Nicole set the tone - immediately the place was relaxed and ready for anything.
Gemma Greaves, the CEO of the Marketing Society discussed the importance of ‘Fearlesness’ with Nicole.
Dave Trott injected his unique humour and truth as he explained what a game-changer Mike Yershon is.
Mike Yershon was the inimitable Mike Yershon. Literally unstoppable.
The audience would have stayed all day.
Background
Mike Yershon was the youngest ever fellow of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. He was recently voted in the top 50 game changers in the ad industry over the past 100 years - when the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising celebrated their centenary.
Mike changed how media was done and even what media was. Mike still changes
In Mike’s Own Words
“I Had A Journey Of Good Fortune - I found myself in a situation where I loved my job and I wanted to be the best I could be at it. I’m fortunate enough to have boundless energy and it does not seem to have diminished with age, yet!”
“I was always frustrated by the prevailing attitude to media and the business of it all. Media was constrained by being the cinderella department in the three full-service agencies I worked for. Media was presented, as an afterthought in the last 5 minutes of the creative presentation to clients. On one occasion my presentation was dropped by the agency CEO because there was not enough time. This frustrated me no end.”
“Enough was enough and I decided to take the risk and set up on my own - selling the idea to advertisers of media as a separate contract to creative. The client wanted increased sales and entrepreneurial thinking. This was right up my street and still is today. I wanted to sit on the client-side of the table promoting plain language and transparency.”
“The media plan had to calculate precisely how, through what method and means, in the most effective way possible, and for what amount of money the client could get the promise of the product/service to its customer. This is still true today.”
The Alchemist
“What was a presentational afterthought for half a century is now one of the most important calculations a business will ever make. In my opinion, it always was. The easy solution was to put it on TV. Nowadays that is not an easy solution. Thankfully I found a few clients, now very wealthy people - who agreed with me. But I had to form my own agency to really make my point!”
“Being prepared to take the risk of leaving a highly paid job with no clients no money no offices and no staff was a big risk. But I was determined not to be in a position when I would look back and say to myself I wish had taken the chance when it was there.”
“My specialist subject area back then has expanded to embrace what it means to be a business right now.” - Mike Yershon
“I’m amazed, and it seems to work every time, that I find it hard not to answer a problem. Once the problem virus enters my body and my brain then that it. I’m locked and loaded like a laser-guided missile fixed on the target. I can’t switch it off. On my constitutional walks, as I speak to others somewhere in this whirlwind lies the answer and it becomes my mission to unlock the solution to whatever the issue is.”
“I can’t write down a formula because it’s different each time. What stays the same is my persistence and bloody-mindedness at needing to fix it. I never give up trying to find the solution to the problem. Obviously, I will draw on my experiences. It has been said of late that people are looking for people who do not have the experience because the issues today have no previous relevance. I see the point but feel the combination of experience and keeping up to date with all that is happening today combines the best of both.”
The Creative Business Of Media
“Today we have well over a hundred channels in media and more new technologies and dimensions than we could ever imagine. Cultures have changed beyond recognition, consumer behaviours have transformed in so many ways. Expectations are different but business results are still expected, the calculations still need to be made, but the real cut-through of the innovative media and creative idea still needs to be found.”
“Someone smart said - the more things change the more they remain the same - but the aim of every business is to reach the target audience - at the right time - through the right channel - with the right message - as often as the budget will allow. NO different today than it was in 1959.”
“There are infinite ways to identify and know the target audience. A myriad of ways to dynamically alter the message as your audience passes by different screens, there’s the real-time assessment of how well that value proposition is doing through which media platform and with what treatment. There is one big difference though. Between 1955 and let us say the end of the 20th century, there was one media planning strategy decision that made sense above all else. Put it in commercial TV.”
“I don’t mean to suggest that no money should be spent on TV now, but my issue is what proportion of the total marketing budget should be spent on TV. The balance should include what I call a ‘test and run’ policy. It should include what I call ‘activation’. This, for example, could be anywhere that pulls in a big crowd. We need to find the best ways in creative and media to make it work towards ROI. This is also a policy of test and run. Too often I am told we did this or that but it did not work.”
“I won’t rest until I have made it work.”
Back To The Future. The Beginning
“There’s always a close relationship between creative work and creative media planning in my mind. To me, they are two sides of the same coin. Separating them never made sense. The reason I moved to separate them was a signal of the frustration I felt. Media needed to prove itself as a function of equal importance to creative and now it ranks in that way. The media agency contract ranks pari passu with the creative agency contract. Creativity and Media are inseparable parts of the job that needs doing.”
“If I was a client, and it was my own money, I would insource media planning. I have a view about insourcing media buying - but let’s get media planning in-sourced first. For me it is the raw material of being in business.”
“Digital is on everyone’s mind. Yes it’s disruptive but it blows nothing up except the immediacy, extent and pace of it all. The speed with which everything can be considered and done is exponential. And pretty soon even today will seem slow. We are entering the no-code, fully automated, quantum computer, carbon nanochip mixed with every thing else world - science fiction fast becoming fact. But what I’ve been doing to calculate success stays unwaveringly the same.”
“Bring it on.”
My 20 year plan is about putting back - into my roots - school, youth club - back into the advertising industry and being an entrepreneur. I can’t stop thinking in terms of putting back.”
Breaking news - There’s No Agency Of The Future
NAMING THE ENEMY -
No Comparison
There’s much talk around what constitutes the agency of the future. It’s not the conversation that we wish to be in.
We do not want a comparison with an agency of the future any more than we would like to be compared with an agency of today.
The word agency has too long been associated with the creative industry. Marketing, media, advertising and branding.
We believe in the roles but not the industry that’s grown to profit from them.
A World In Disarray
Advertising, the creative industry’s glamorous elder sister, has done so much to bring the game into disrepute.
On the whole:
The Ad industry is highly visible, severely criticised and deservedly so.
It is under the spotlight for being variously, crass, expensive and sluggish.
It’s done little to prove that it’s valuable and responding to criticism.
Its practices have been opaque, superficial, arrogant, plagued with confusing language and complacent when it comes to properly solving the challenges it’s given. The creative industry is in disarray not because advertising isn’t valuable to business but because the industry and its methods have become irrelevant.
Agencies have focused for too long on justifying their methodologies in order to win awards and far too little on understanding the client's business and what it means to drive value.
*We accept that this is highly unfair to some great talent out there. But they are the ones; the few that would probably agree with us.
What’s Needed?
Value, for clients, comes from the brand, marketing and media strategies that drive performance and deliver a return on investment - to the business.
These returns are measured in reputational improvement, market attention and trust. (The outcome is success, sustainability and profit)
The role rather than the words ‘marketing’, ‘media’, ‘advertising’ and ‘brand’ are what’s important - to the business.
Business is nothing; it doesn’t exist without marketing and marketing is nothing without the media and the intelligence to develop the winning strategy.
WHY NOW?
We are reaching peak frustration.
Clients need breakthrough ideas that bridge the gap between almost certain destruction and a new era.
The work agencies did historically is being replaced by necessity.
Clients realised that it’s possible to be smarter and invest in what they know works. If they can find the capability to engineer it.
Clients can create their own creativity, they can improve on their agencies contribution by owning their own data - and by increasing effectiveness through adding automation and digital systems.
They can get access to creativity by greater use of experienced advisors who know how to extract value from their business marketing and business media skills.
Now it’s not about an agency of the future but by giving clients direct access to objective business nous and creative experience.
What Our Brand Needs To Convey
Our brand has to convey access to creative concepts and skills into the minds of the CEO. These are the stricken leaders of companies where there’s no longer a choice but to contract for value of this nature.
Access to the skills capable of creating breakthrough concepts, ideas and innovations. Innovations that will transform the stricken business.
A model of operations that can ‘make’ products and solutions that currently do not exist.
Access to the capability most required to drive value for the future business and least likely to exist inside the business in the future. The kind of strategic horsepower and creativity of mind suggests talent and skills most often found in the entrepreneur, not the employee.
Who Cares?
Our audience is likely to be leaders of the large enterprises seeking to change. The change is triggered by the realisation that the enterprise will fail or is under intense scrutiny by its shareholders, the market or the competition.
The business is atrophying or has an identifiable opportunity within its grasp. This is a decision well worth $1 million investment for us to calculate the past and the future position that the business needs to take.
Why Us?
We are a collective.
We give direct access to real and objective creativity - in every aspect of marketing and media - available inside the business for the benefit of the business.
The successful clients recognise that this role has to be fulfilled by people who understand business strategy and how to create the right attention and relationship with their audiences.
Our business is wholly focused on return on investment and supporting the leadership in whatever way that is needed.
This is the conundrum for anyone trying to create strategy today.
Our Promise
It is almost impossible to predict the future - but that is the solution every client needs. Not being able to predict the future cannot stop us from imagining it and working out the best path. It has been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.
In order to create the future, we have to weigh it up.
It is possible to identify patterns based on experience and to project possible scenarios that are of least risk. To do nothing presents higher risk therefore this is a valid strategy.
It is possible to identify existing utility and to project gaps in that utility where new opportunities, services and ideas may lie. To not predict such gaps presents missed opportunity therefore this is also a valid strategy.
It is possible to apply creativity, ingenuity and innovation to develop new ideas that have not previously existed. To not imagine such futures is irresponsible for today’s leadership and therefore is also a valid strategy.
*To all this add the principles of test and learn and a leveraged model to call up the appropriate provider prepared to solve the right problem at the right time.
Given the three fundamental truths above, clients both now and in the future will need to gain these skills from somewhere and that somewhere will be us. Our work will have a direct impact on the business and will be measured in the value delivered.
“For us to be useful we have to drive value rather than provide services.” - The Travelling Wilburys
ONE: Business - WE HAVE a business focus before all else.
Strategic and critical thinking determines the path to value - everything else follows that.
We assist the business to prepare and become ready to respond accordingly to ‘media/marketing’ action.
Chaos and uncertainty define the landscape and test and learn dictates the path.
Execution is all that matters
TWO: Singularity - WE develop everything digitally and traditionally.
We build the ‘map’ most navigable by the business and most appropriate for maximum media/market exploitation.
We ensure the business is fully aware of the opportunities this presents and is equipped to exploit them.
THREE: Creativity - WE understand how to get insight from the data.
We infer the media/marketing brief dynamically and in real-time together with the client.
The brief holds the key that unlocks creativity.
Creative ideas and tradecraft drive the value across all media
“Ingenuity, great creative ideas and execution win over bullshit, language, layers of bureaucracy and account managers along for the ride.” - The Travelling Wilburys
FOUR: Science - interpreting the mindsets of human beings is central to every business and media case.
Empathy, emotion humanity, network, peer and community effects influence everything.
We are always leveraging new tools and technologies to understand sentiment and shifts in opinion at scale and with individuals.
We understand that today’s consumer is increasingly averse/impervious to blunt force promotion.
FIVE: Story Telling - WE appreciate the power of the brand.
We appreciate the different applications of storytelling across different media
We understand the critical importance of meaningful content
We know how to build relationships through real-world experiences and stories that resonate.
We know how to use plain language.
SIX: Measurement - WE will back up the amount of value WE creates with evidence.
We invest in tools and technologies that can inform and update progress.
We rest on business models that target performance and mutual value.
“The relationship is a trusted partnership.” - The Travelling Wilburys
A Manifesto For Business By Mike Yershon, Nicole Yershon & John Caswell
It was always this way
Marketing is the mechanism (system) by which an Organisation makes its promises to its audiences. It Creates the ‘Meaning’
Manufacturing is the mechanism (system) through which an Organisation makes the promised ‘substance’. (service, solution or product) It does the ‘Making’
The Organisation is the system that connects/coordinates the two. The Management of the above.
A Definition Of Marketing: The Meaning - The brand, the promise, the advertising, media planning/buying, the PR, the messaging, value propositions, the story, the corporate identity, the packaging, the UI/UX - the research and analytics that improve the awareness and course correction and insight and data that drives decision making inside the organisation.
A Definition Of Manufacturing: The Making - The design, creation and making of the substance, product, service or solution. The plant, infrastructure, resources, systems, skills, rules, procedures, techniques and capabilities to make or do what the organisation makes/does.
A Definition Of Organisation: The Managing - Whatever isn’t covered by the above. The management, payroll, strategy and leadership. The decisions that ensure marketing makes the most efficient and effective interface with manufacturing - and vice versa. Managing the partners - eg distribution of what gets made - the substance and so on.
NOW
Enter Disruptive Technology
Digitalisation shortened the time and distance between ‘marketing’ and ‘manufacturing’ and the odds of success for anyone misunderstanding that.
The promise to the audience is right there, fully exposed on display to all of us.
The audience sees what’s made and what’s being made right there.
The promise is palpable, viewable, experienceable and comparable in every dimension. In every sense.
What manufacturing involves is what marketing is.
A Definition Of Digitalisation: The act of automating the core business processes and systems to increase efficiency and effectiveness. The act uses techniques and technology, often third party skills and resources to transform existing business processes or install complete platforms and solutions for increased customer experience, business performance and all the transactions and actions within.
A Definition Of Promise: Everything that we hear, see and sense from a given ‘brand’ enterprise or utility. This promise gets called a wide range of things - brand, awareness, experience, reputation and all the new and evolving components that add up to causing a favourable choice of one solution over another. Omnichannel
The Singularity Of Business
The Definition Of Singularity: In our case the term singularity describes the moment when a system changes so much that its rules and technologies are incomprehensible to previous generations. Think of it as a point-of-no-return in history. Advances in expectations, processes and underlying technology mean that the way we’ve thought and worked are no longer valid.
First
Contemplate food, cars, consumer goods, retailing, fashion, sports goods, movies, computing, holidays - travel, legal services - anything.
Think Amazon, Google, Apple, Deliveroo and Uber and every one of their competitors as well as the online presence of every business on the planet.
Think about how we are influenced by countless channels and a plethora of evolving forms of media.
Social media, websites, activations, experiences, retail shopping excursions, out of home advertising, friendly referrals, consumer comment trails, peer opinion, traditional media channels, apps on our smartphones, product placements, Google searches, comparison website exercises. Everything.
We choose
Everything
The making and manufacture of each part of what we choose is open and on display through modern day marketing techniques and technologies.
Everything is increasingly configurable by us - the ingredients in our food, the details on our cars, the services we experience in our taxis/transport and the holidays, hotels and lifestyles we inhabit.
Everything available in any way, at an any time and for anyone with access to a screen and the credit.
All the components (the processes and systems of manufacture) have become more and more transparent as organisations seek to differentiate and create uniquenesses.
Second
Contemplate how close ‘we’ (the audiences) now are to the promises made by every one of these organisations.
Think how close the manufacturing/organisation has to be as they deliver and back up that promise of delivery and experience.
Think of every decision we make along the journey as we choose their ‘promise’.
That’s the work every organisation is doing as they digitalise their businesses.
Summary
We are reaching ‘singularity’ in business.
The place where the meaning, the making and the managing collide.
Through ‘digitalisation’ there is no longer any distance between what we choose through the marketing and the making of it.
We are directly involved with the people designing, building, packaging, distributing, transacting and servicing it.
We are fully implicated in the whole experience at every step because (increasingly) what we do has an immediate impact on what’s being made.
Therefore (however we define the organisation) it’s indivisible from the ‘marketing’ or the ‘making’.
In fact for the failing businesses it’s only the words used to denote them (marketing, manufacturing and organisation) that’s keeping them apart.
The challenge for problem solvers
We are living through a ‘digital' transformation. It’s transient. Future generations will look back in fascination at our preoccupation witH the word digital.
In the future we will stop talking about it as a thing.
It will be normalised. At the heart of the digitalisation of the world right now is the death of the distance between the marketing and the manufacturing and the management.
The Slow Collapse Of Silos
It’s sometimes worth looking at what actually happened.
“It took many years for advertising dollars to flow from radio into television in proportion to the time spent on the two media. The same was true from broadcast television into cable television - the same was true for the flow from print into digital, and from the desktop into mobile.”
“It is always the case that senior leaders at companies and agencies who allocate marketing dollars have grown up on and are most comfortable with prior generations of media.”
To succeed and thrive in the next era of marketing, leaders have to become leaders and stop separating marketing from business. They also have to stop distinguishing between traditional and digital channels. They are all channels.
Ads are still ads - whether on a mobile phone or a 48 sheet poster.
The leaders in this new world have to grasp these facts and the reality behind changing consumer habits. A new mindset has to emerge. And fast.
Problem solvers will reckon with and calculate strategies based on the different rules and practices that now apply in these new environments. The will decide what capabilities and strategies define success.
Investment Follows Attention
U.S. adults spent about 3.5 hours per day on their mobile devices in 2018. - eMarketer
People spending more of their mobile time in app-based environments, rather than browser-based environments. - eMarketer
Apps account for more than 80 per cent of all mobile minutes.
Consumers typically have 30 apps, which they use for different purposes - social media, music, entertainment, games, news, information, calendars.
People spend 97 per cent of their mobile time in their top 10 apps.
This means that we spend more and more of our attention in curated bubbles. We need to trust these decisions because the owners of these bubbles have vested (not always our) interests. This phenomena (app era experience) is a big change from the browser era (experience).
We have to take account of how the mass audiences operate now. Fewer and fewer people sit down and allow the TV to dictate what and when we view.
In the average home, we have access to smarter TV’s with any number of channels and platforms - AppleTV+ Amazon Prime, TV Players (BBC iPlayer) Netflix and literally hundreds more.
There’s A New Word - Get With It
We all have access to Radio, we can ask Alexa for anything - and we can subscribe to shopping channels in seconds for delivery of everything to our homes. This is the lens through which marketers now view the opportunity to gain attention and cause transactions.
It’s no surprise therefore that Google and Facebook are in the spotlight. They have huge shares of attention and therefore are enjoying the digital spending spree. Around these behemoths, the halo is amplified by other ‘social media’ (Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok) and online chatter (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram)
Does the business understand how these platforms work?
Does the business know how to create the right message and mix of investment in these channels?
Does the business know how to create products and services that can be consumed through these channels?
The next tier is also capturing massive consumer attention - Amazon and Alibaba, gaming channels such as Twitch, e-sports, audio, over-the-top streaming apps, Netflix, Apple TV+ and the large social media channels - Twitter, Instagram.
E-commerce is growing 23 per cent annually on a global basis
E-commerce is rising at a much more rapid rate in up-and-coming markets such as India.
The questions arising:
Can we take advantage of the lessons learned in these media and through these platforms?
The Advantage Of Experience
In the past, circulars, coupons and promotion-rich glossy publications were distributed to consumers in their homes and as they entered stores.
Virtual malls such as Amazon, Flipkart, and MercadoLibre are the latest iteration of in-store advertising. An example - Amazon offers a bewildering array of options for businesses wishing to get to market.
They have a powerful position - they pay for favourable placement on product category pages - they insert paper promotions inside the boxes that are delivered to customers. Additionally, they can run ads on the Twitch streaming property, on Amazon Prime, on Alexa in our homes and in the Whole Foods stores.
Can we create solutions that take advantage of these platforms?
Would the business be able to think differently enough?
Calculate The Future Based On The Reality
In 2018, Google's ad revenue amounted to almost 116.3 billion US dollars. The company generates advertising revenue through its Google Ads platform, which enables advertisers to display ads, product listings and service offerings across Google’s extensive ad network (properties, partner sites, and apps) to web users.
Amazon will earn almost $10 billion in US net digital ad revenues in 2019. That's an increase of more than 33% over 2018. In the fourth quarter of 2018, Amazon’s revenues, which is mostly advertising, reported $3.4 billion in revenues, up 95 per cent from the year before. Amazon is expected to reach $38 billion in advertising sales in 2023 (According to Pivotal Research)
Amazon is growing faster than any other publisher with at least $1 billion in net US digital ad revenues this year. That will also continue through at least 2021, when Amazon’s ad revenues will grow more than 10 percentage points faster than Facebook’s, and more than twice as quickly as Google’s.
Facebook reported advertising revenue at $16.6 billion for the final quarter of last year, up 30 percent year-over-year. Total revenue earned during the quarter was $16.9 billion, with daily active users (DAU) at 1.52 billion, up 9 percent year over year.
Facebook reports strong ad revenue. Facebook reported its average price per ad decreased 2 percent in the fourth quarter, with the number of ad impressions served across its platforms up 34 percent.
Facebook did not break out advertising revenue by ad product type, but did report 93 percent of ad revenue during the fourth quarter came from mobile advertising.
Facebook Stories ads and Instagram shopping. In response to a question during the earnings call regarding Stories ad adoption, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg reported two million advertisers were currently using Stories ads — but did not clarify if those were Facebook Stories or Instagram Stories ad units. Facebook did say that Instagram Stories has reached 500 million daily users — half of the platform’s total one billion users.
“I’m confident that we’re going to get there, but I want to make sure that we’re giving the right outlook on how we expect the near future to go,” said Zuckerberg. The CEO said the area he’s most excited about is Instagram shopping and commerce opportunities.