Rory Sutherland at IAPI on Behavioural Economics

Wonderful insights (I am going to minimise my use of the word insights soon, I promise. It's the internet thief's way of saying I'm gonna steal your routine.) from Ogilvy UK veepee Rory Sutherland. This is the TED version of the same talk he delivered in the National Gallery last Wednesday for IAPI's AdFx 2010 series.

Marketing needn't be big and expensive to make a lasting impression, and he gives some inspiring and funny examples of how to do it.

Google China, DIT goes digital and Cybercom want a meeja head

Big news this morning is that Google looks to be squaring up to the Chinese government's meddlesome ways when it comes to censoring search. Their full release is here. It seems that they're already losing market share in China, down from 19% to 17% in Q4 2009. Baidu, the state controlled search behemoth, hogs over 75% of the market. Still, 17% of the Chinese market is not something to leave lightly. I don't believe Google are being 100% transparent here with their release, and something big is obviously coming down the tracks for their business model in that part of the world, but it's still a little chilling to read between the lines as they attempt to protect their China-based employees in the last para here, from David Drummond, one of their senior Corporate Development and legal beaks.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

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More on this one later, but for now an overview. Dublin Institute of Technology and the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland have teamed up at last to recognise that digital upskilling in adland is most definitely needed on the curriculum. This neglected area will hopefully begin to benefit from a brand spanking new course, the Postgraduate Diploma in Advertising and Digital Communications. It's a part-time evening course run from Aungier Street and is heavily skewed towards digital communications but still incorporates much of the trad side of how things are done. It is practically geared, being run by professionals at work full-time in marketing communications (myself included).
If you're interested in doing it or signing up some of your staff there may still be places. It's due to start in the next couple of weeks. Talk to IAPI's Aisling Conlon at advertisingpostgrad@gmail.com.

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Down by the river in Ringsend Cybercom continue to build their comprehensive digital offering. Rob Reid wants a Media Account Director to head up their Media Department. They'll have five people under them. Impressive for a digital ad agency, not great for stage diving. Full details here or email rob.reid@cybercom.ie.

Happy Wednesday all.

Monday's adlinks

Fascinating insights into the behaviour of the top business brass in IAPI's new Business Media Study as reported in the Business Post. Lots of juicy, but these two caught my eye.

'Business people don’t seem to like online advertising, with 53 per cent saying they were unlikely to notice it'.

That's possibly because, as Moray MacLennan, CEO of M&C Saatchi Worldwide, says 'users are logging in for communication rather than commerce.'

Also, 62 per cent said they were unlikely to take note of a mobile phone ad. They haven't been exposed to this, then.

How about this to juice up your creativity. No idea who did this, but it is rather excellent. Does Mister Collins agree? From the Chip Shop Awards.

OMG! On the buses was never this funny.

Brendan O'Broin's A to Z of brands and performance in the last year. From Marketing Magazine.

Group Chairman of BBH on the future for agencies. Hmmm.

But digital will flourish. Wayy!

'With Design Innovations, Digital Platforms and Culture-Busting Ideas, These Shops Were Tops'
America's top ten agencies for '08.

Happy Monday, people of marketing.

Who is Ireland's largest advertising agency?

Have a guess. Is it McConnells? McCann Erickson? IIBBDO? QMP? DDFH&B? Pretty big hitters all, representing some heavyweight (what my old boss Frank Young in Wilson Hartnell used to lovingly call) Blue Chip clients. I guess the colour refers to Vegas more than the Embassy Grill.

Anyway, I'm not sure how the billings stack up. I could probably do a graph or something, look up the IAPI website. But I can't be arsed and it's after one in the morning. Ultimately you know it's going home to one of the many heads of Medusa, innit. Interpublic, Havas, WPP, Omnicom and Publicis have, between them, Irish advertising by the curlies.

Speaking of the IAPI website, I see that there are fifty eight member companies on the list. Impressive. Ireland's biggest media specialist is bound to be in there somewhere, right?

Anyway on an entirely unrelated topic, I read an interview in siliconerepublic.com with John Herlihy, Google's European Director of online sales and operations, and he has this to say in ironically a not-very-coded way to advertisers.

I believe many Irish companies are missing a trick, and there is a big opportunity for businesses to go out and capitalise on the shift of consumers to the online arena. Research shows people are becoming increasingly value-conscious as a result of the credit crunch, and are choosing to go online to both inform their purchasing decisions and to look for the best value available. If you don’t have an online presence, then you’re losing business.

I don't think that ad agencies should feel concerned by this. Akin to Spinal Tap's smaller stadia final tour, the audience is simply becoming more selective.

It's also probably entirely irrelevant, but that same Google just posted some juicy figures for the final three months of 2008. Read these while bearing in mind that in its biggest market, the US, Google has a healthy but not exactly knicker-bursting 35% of the search market. Here in vanishingcubland it's got about roughly in or around oh I dunno say 100% of that same market. So do the sums accordingly. Stats from the Beeb.

• Net profits of $204.1m (€147m) in the three months to 31 December.
• This compares to the $27.3m profits the company made a year earlier.
• Total fourth quarter turnover jumped to $1.03bn from $512.2m.

I'm just saying. It's not really relevant anyway, cos Google's not an ad agency. They just find stuff for you and do a kinda fun themed logo every so often on their search page, right? If they were an ad agency they'd probably be more into Powerpoint and they'd definitely be members of IAPI. I just wonder how they make that pot of cash in this climate just from being friendly and not evil and über-helpful when we're searching for shit. But they're absolutely, definitively, categorically not an agency.

Meanwhile, I read today in the Business Post that we're facing tough times, but media executives are upbeat. So that's all pretty jolly. Ed McDonald, Chief executive of the Association of Advertisers in Ireland, says that

In tighter economic conditions, it is vital that businesses look on their marketing and advertising spend as an investment rather than as a cost. Sure, it’s a cost, but it is more importantly an investment as essential as any R&D investment or capital equipment purchase or property lease.

I'd agree with all that, Ed, but I'd sure hope for agencies' sakes that clients don't start looking at remarkably accountable alternatives to the tried and trusted agency setup.

Dermot Hanrahan meanwhile, a long-time mover in broadcast and online circles, is staking it less on trad media and more on what's been working well for him up to now.

‘‘Online is still the fastest growing medium and it will continue to grow strongly. It... has gone from being an optional extra to being the medium which will eventually matter most. Marketeers who don’t use it are becoming rare, and are usually confined to decision makers above a certain age. Growth forecast for 2009 range from 15 per cent to 20 per cent, despite recession.

‘‘The medium is the most accountable, measurable and increasingly innovative as we see the decline of old banner ads and the growth of newer, more engaging, video-led ad formats. Again, the lower cost of entry in online advertising positions it better than most for the year ahead.”

Interesting bit about the decline of banner ads. I wonder if he's punting virals as newer and more engaging?

Happy Monday, Adland Ireland.