pointed to the oversized black pencil on the back of his business card. The big pencil (=big ideas) was advertising agency Leo Burnett's logo in the 1970s, before it was replaced with the founder's signature. Earlier this month, Bernardin, the chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide, reintroduced the pencil globally. The new-old emblem switch wasn't the main thought behind Bernardin's India visit.
The real agenda was to champion the creation of "Wildfire Brands" (a concept co-created by Leo Burnett and Contagious Magazine, an American quarterly on path-breaking marketing strategies, that talks of creating communication that spreads like wildfire).
In an interview with Business Standard on the future of advertising, Bernardin spoke about the need to measure ROI on advertising not as a return on investment but as "return on interest". Excerpts:
Your agency is pioneering Wildfire Brands as a concept. Some time ago, Saatchi & Saatchi's worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts was in India, speaking on "lovemarks". Do clients buy into these concepts, without their being looked upon as fads?
We chose the name Wildfire Brands for obvious reasons "" ideas that spread. It's easy to keep it current by adapting it and adding recent examples. I wouldn't classify this as something that is in fashion at the moment "" unless you believe that the engagement of consumers today and the possibilities arising from them are passing fads.
Is there a juncture in the brand's lifecycle when you can ignite a wildfire?
If you look critically at brands you could ask: is there a lifecycle for brands anymore? In the old world, manufacturers launched brands and models projected the brand's usefulness.
But in a world where consumers are engaged potentially in everything, any negative publicity through blogs or online communities could kill brands quickly and cut short its lifecycle. Conversely, consumers could become engaged in what was thought to be a dying brand and bring it back.
Pontiac is a great example. Not that GM thought it was dying, but they were having a hard time trying to sell those cars. When GM introduced a new line of high-design vehicles, its communication was aimed at making Pontiac modern and socially relevant with the "designed for action" campaign.
The campaign included live events at the Pontiac Garage in New York City's Times Square; the famous Oprah Winfrey giveaway, when GM gave away cars to each member of the audience at the studio; an integration with The Apprentice; and content partnerships with Virgin Records and Apple.
The campaign resulted in a 1,400 per cent increase in web traffic, global PR worth $110 million and a sales increase of 11 per cent. Not to mention that the Pontiac G6 became a top 10 nationally searched brand on both Yahoo! and Google. Now it's the best-selling brand for GM.
Pontiac's success was backed by a hugely successful alternative media campaign. Will alternative media soon be known as mainstream media? As alternative media grows rapidly, what role will conventional media play?
I don't know whether alternative will ever be called mainstream media. But it will cease being called alternative media. However, conventional media will continue to be extremely important.
In India, the reach of TV is the most efficient. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future. Although TV viewership declines in many parts of the world, it's still heavily in use "" I wouldn't write it off. I also believe we tend to think too much in terms of being on TV. We need to think about it as a digital space, which we call television at the moment. But we also need to develop content for that Blackberry screen or the GSM phone.
Is advertising adequately equipped to deliver new media solutions?
Whether it's ready or not, you have to deal with it. It's very much about to what extent agencies are embracing what's available to them from new technology. Those who embrace it fastest will get the biggest ROI [return on "interest"] for clients.
How do you sustain "return on interest" in advertising?
It's as simple as engagement. If there is a momentary interest that dissipates after a number of weeks, there is little engagement. That's the difference between engagement and creating a nice and funny ad.
The key is in being both entertaining and engaging. We must get customers to participate with advertising and the brand.
As customer involvement with brands increases, what are the challenges for advertising?
It's always talent. We have to attract an unfair share of the best talent in the world and not from traditional sources. We have to attract design talent and every other kind of talent that would work in today's space, be it in PR, entertainment and so on.
Aren't margins getting squeezed as the cost of talent shoots up? How does advertising deal with this double-edged sword?
We just do. I don't think anything is going to be different in that regard. Clients and agencies and every business I know of are responsible for controlling costs.
Also, client-agency relationships are becoming more important than the quality of work in winning or retaining accounts. Isn't that hurting advertising?
I would not agree that personal relationships are becoming more important than the work. Because personal relationships are the result of great work. I don't know of a client who can be sustained merely on the basis of a personal relationship if there isn't good work to accompany that. All accountable ad agencies need to keep providing good results.
But it's widely believed that Cadillac moved away from your agency because the new agency has an excellent relationship with the new marketing head at GM?
That's an example just like Volkswagen moving from Arnold Worldwide to Crispin Porter+Bogusky. It's a very clear example of the exception proving the rule.
