Going Down With the Ship

Lavish indulgence, wanton debauchery and questionable morality; these are the principles on which the profession of advertising has been based since our forefathers realized that you could trick drunken rubes into buying your butter if the milk-maid showed a little leg at the county fair. It’s a proud tradition and, if you believe what the panic-mongers on Wall St. are saying, it might be in jeopardy.

It’s true, companies have been cutting their advertising budgets as they weather this economic storm, which means less cash on hand for scotch and cigars, but there might be more to this turn of events than meets the eye. As it stands, companies are coming to the obvious conclusion that the old holy trinity of advertising - TV, print and outdoor - isn’t as relevant, or cost-effective, as it once was and they’re looking to find a lifeboat before the whole thing goes under. Oddly enough, a global economic meltdown might be the perfect opportunity.

With executives pinching pennies, and the whole world howling for companies to tighten their belts, slashing a few million dollars from an advertising budget is an easy first step, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong first step. Spending the money to produce a TV spot and run it on the dozens of specialty networks you need to get a decent reach/frequency only to have half the audience TiVo past it anyway is a bad idea no matter what shape the economy is in. This won’t be the death of the 30-second spot, but it’s bad news for the commercial break.

Luckily, for every TV screen being turned off there’re two monitors being turned on and the money men are starting to realize that. Basically, with the TV model of advertising being left behind, the loss of a few million dollars from the ad budget doesn’t mean that a company is going to run fewer ads, it just means they’re going to need to find more cost-effective mediums. It’s a good time to be a code-monkey.

Saying the internet is the future of advertising is nothing new, but it might just be the golden goose that gets the industry through this economic crisis. Companies now have every incentive to invest in a broader advertising strategy, which means some lateral thinking, creative buying and, probably, more ads being produced. Sure, the margins one each project might be a little thinner, but the economics of scale can work in our favour.

The days of producing a slick 30-second spot, running it during the Super Bowl and calling it a campaign are over. I know, the web doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of TV, at least not yet, but it’s been the wave of the future for more than a decade and maybe an economic meltdown is what we needed to shake up the ivory tower.

It doesn’t mean we have to stop drinking in the office, but we should probably start inviting the IT guys.