Alarm bells for Singapore’s creative industry

There is a serious threat coming to the creative industry in Singapore, commodification.

There are now more media options in play than sadly most clients and agency folk know what to do with. That coupled with the fact that there are simply not enough people in the industry that know enough about all of these new media channels to be able to use them in a cohesive and more importantly successful manner.

The effect of this being basic, simple, execution-based creative… Rather than thought-driven, result-focused, earth-shaking idea based creative. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some extremely talented creative heads, strategists and client side marketers here. They’re easy to spot, just look out for the people pulling their hair at your local Starbucks when they open the newspaper to ANOTHER shocking, thoughtless ad or maybe kneeling next to a bus shelter yelling “WHYYYYYY” at the ad posted on the side of it. Unfortunately they’re the minority and like most developed nations, the majority rules, so we will continue to be subjected to inside the box, uninspired, ‘me too’ advertising for a while yet.

Which brings me to the other edge of the sword; some clients have forgotten what great, purpose driven creative is like. They’ve been served gruel for so long that they’ve forgotten what lobster is like and are now ok with gruel. On the whole, creative has lost its value to them. Alarm bells people!

So now we have a situation where agencies are getting away with directionless, dead-end campaigns and clients aren’t even pulling them up on it, so it goes live, the audience is underwhelmed yet again and we go around the merry go round again. When did we stop thinking laterally? When did Key Performance Indicators become secondary to “just getting the ad / campaign out”?

Every single campaign has a goal, it has a purpose, it has something to achieve. That purpose is not so a marketer can tick a box on their ‘to do’ list or so an agency can tick a box on their ‘to invoice’ list, it’s an investment that’s meant to address a specific business requirement and effect a positive return for the marketer, otherwise known as ROI.

ROI has a few key ingredients; a well thought out, specific brief that details the exact requirements of the client, a creative team that is prepared to do whatever it takes to over achieve on that brief in every single way possible and a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears along the way to make sure everything goes to plan without shortcuts.

Remember people, we’re getting paid to do this, it’s not a holiday.

Without ROI, the creative industry is heading down a very dark path, more clients will internalise their creative teams (which has already seen tens of millions wiped from the market), more media agencies will offer free creative as a throw away item and clients will forget once and for all what great creative is like and the immense effect it has on a campaign. So either start thinking or start digging.

Ask yourself this: When was the last time you were truly excited about a campaign or ad going live?
I don’t mean because it was pretty, the shoot was expensive or it was your biggest media spend to date and will be all over Orchard Rd but because you were truly excited about the effect it was going to have on your audience?

Tobias Wilson, Managing Director, @ccomplice