A brand that is not noticed cannot be bought
Our interview with award winning brand strategist Eaon Pritchard on being interesting, industry realities and thinking long term..
IN APOCALYPSE NOW, MARTIN SHEEN TOLD US TO “NEVER GET OUT OF THE BOAT”, UNLESS WE GO ALL THE WAY. Someone who has stepped out of the boat, and has the results to show for it, is Eaon Pritchard, award winning advertising strategist and blogger.
We sat down with Eaon to get his thoughts on where the industry is going and to debunk some industry myths...
“I wasn't a great creative director but had a sense that I was great at something, I just didn't know what.”
Eaon Pritchard
Q: Eaon, How did you get started in advertising and why advertising?
Eaon Pritchard: I sort of blundered into it, really. There was never a plan. After I left art school I was more interested in music. I was a club dj full-time and started a record label with some friends. To save money I designed our own flyers for the clubs and sleeves/labels for the records.
That led to joining a little design agency and doing other things, directing oil industry safety videos and making websites in the early days of the web.
Around the end of the 90’s I got the idea that interactive tv was going to be something so moved to London to be involved in that, from a product development standpoint and then became creative director with an online gaming company.
My first dabble with advertising per se wasn't until about ten years ago when I joined upstart digital ad agency Weapon7 in London.
Until that point I'd been on the creative side but morphed into strategic planning. I wasn't a great creative director but had a sense that I was great at something, I just didn't know what.
I've no formal planning training or anything, but was always interested in human behaviour and psychology so planning was probably a more natural fit.
Q: We hear from many students, that they feel underprepared for (work)life after school and once in an agency, it is often a sink or swim scenario, because seniors are dealing with their own careers.
How you would compare your training to the way juniors are now trained, by you and by other agencies you know?
Eaon Pritchard: Again, I've had no formal training for any of this. At art school I was a painter. They never gave us any business training there, either.
Every year there were hundreds of painters and sculptors tumbling out onto the streets with no idea what to do next. But is that the purpose of university education? Just to prepare you for work? I hope not.
I often say to students that a degree certificate or whatever proves only one thing — that you have the ability to learn. The ones who get noticed tend to be the ones who network really well, and have something to say for themselves.
And once you are in there then the real learning happens. About 90% of what you need to know you will learn on the job.
Is it sink or swim in agencies? Pretty much. But that applies to everyone not just juniors, that’s why seniors are dealing with their own careers.
The web is a boon for students who want to make their mark. Early on you can connect with and follow just about anyone in the industry and get yourself noticed.
Getting noticed is the key. A brand that is not noticed cannot be bought.
Q: Should people entering the advertising industry still have a right to training, given the vast amount of information out there and opportunities to learn, connect and create on your own?
Eaon Pritchard:
The best training is really to just find the people who know what’s what and stick close, read voraciously and put the hours in.
About 10,000 is the number I've heard. If I were starting out now I'd pay more attention to understanding office politics, agendas and dynamics. Get a handle on that as quickly as possible and the rest is easy.
Q: When it comes to the skills needed as a strategist, Mike Arauz of Undercurrent wrote that, “The typical ‘T-shaped’ team member is no longer adaptable enough to keep and maintain their value in a market that evolves as quickly as today’s market does. The ideal evolving skill set for today’s digital strategy world is shaped more like an expanding square than a ‘T’.” Would you agree with this particular assessment?
Eaon Pritchard: I'm not sure what that means, to be honest. If he means be able to wear a number of hats, then yes it’s probably a good idea in theory.
For a junior in a job situation though, I doubt many agencies are looking for generalists at that level. Experience earns you the right to be vague.
A lot of people talk a good game about the ‘new’ agency models, but in terms of mass adoption by the industry I'd say we are a long way off that day at the moment.
In fact, there’s a growing belief that what we know as ‘digital strategy’ is increasingly pulling apart from the advertising business altogether, so much that it’s becoming less valuable, and somewhat confusing to talk about them in the same breath.
On the digital side you have data driven marketing which has much more in common with what we used to call direct response than advertising, then there’s the apps, services and digital products like the Fuelband with this deeper engagement component for the more interested brand users.
Whereas what we call advertising is still very much about just getting brands noticed and recognized by the rest of us, who don’t pay much attention and just need an easy purchase of baked beans without having to think about it. Both things are good, but we should be mindful of the distinction. I don't have any problem saying this now.
“For a long time I was the social media douchebag, however I got to a point a few years ago where I had to confront my own cognitive dissonance, I was standing up in front of clients and audiences telling them things about social media marketing and the death of advertising that I knew inside was complete nonsense.”
Q: In the article Mike mentions some areas to focus on. As readers of your blog we know that you have been focusing on behavioural sciences. Why did you pick that area instead of coding or something else?
Eaon Pritchard: People like Mark Earls were a big influence early on, his book ‘Herd’, and that led to exploring a bit more in the areas of psychology and then behavioural economics.
Also Daniel Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ was pivotal. Once you start digging there’s a wealth of blind tested, peer-reviewed and replicated academic research into just about every aspect of decision-making that can be tapped into. In many respects the great ad people have known a lot of this stuff for a long time, anyway.
The most creative and most commercially successful advertising in any medium has always talked to *system one.
For anyone interested in communication, then knowing how humans are likely to behave and respond in different situations and how to influence that has got to be the priority.
Also, as Rory Sutherland says, one big advantage of having behavioral economics as a set of principles to wheel out in the boardroom is the fact that it has economics in the name. It speaks the language of CEO’s and Finance directors — evidence — and it allows us to frame ideas to be more easily bought.
*more on the differences between system one and system two can be found here.
Q: What areas should students and graduates, looking to up their chances of breaking into the creative/communications industry, focus on? Why?
“In a broad sense the *old Russell Davies maxim is still a good heuristic. Be interesting. And the way to be interesting is to be interested.”
Eaon Pritchard
Notice things, and be a good listener. People who have a reputation as good conversationalists often don’t say that much, they just listen.
On a nuts and bolts level, be quite focussed in what you want to do initially, and be prepared to accept that this may involve some compromise. No-one likes to hear this but it’s a fact.
For aspiring planners, client service is often a way in — and it’s the area where there are usually the most entry-level positions. Junior planner roles are rare, clients don't like paying for planning anyway but if they have to pay for it then they want experience. Think the long game.
*The old maxim, Eaon is referring to.
Q: Daniel Kahneman, once said: “If you are serious about hiring the best person for the job you should, select a few traits that are prerequisites for success (technical proficiency, engaging personality, reliability, and so on). The traits should be independent from each other, and you should be able to assess them with a few factual questions.”
What factual questions would you ask to see if someone would be a good planner/strategist?
Eaon Pritchard: Ha! Here’s a simple one I've used before.
A car travels from A to B at a steady speed of 60 mph.
It returns to A at a steady speed of 40 mph.
What was the average speed of the car?
The intuitive answer is 50mph but, of course, that’s the wrong answer*.
As a planner you have to deal with numbers and data, if you're not careful then all kinds of biases can trip you up. It’s pure system two stuff, slow down your thinking and figure it out.
The trick is in noticing what you’re not noticing. This is what the best planners can do. See the thing that isn't there.
*If you want a copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, email your answer + deets to petar@gapjumpers.me. A winner will be picked randomly in two weeks and the book will be shipped.. Do give it a proper go, not just a go(ogle).
Q: With the way that tech, design, comms and product development are merging, what would you advise a 20 year old Eaon , if he asked you where to work and in what location: advertising agency, client, tech startup, something different? Why?
Eaon Pritchard: (sings) ‘I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger’ Channelling Ronnie Lane. It comes back to the ‘be interested, interesting’ thing. If you do that then opportunities will arise.
Take them.
Thank you Eaon…
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