Pete Montgomery (ex UK) is Executive Head of Motivation and founder of charity fund-raising agency HEARtFELT. His insightful analysis of the trends and developments disrupting the Australian advertising scene have garnered Pete an enviable industry following.
RUN IT PAST PETE
Pete Montgomery (ex UK) casts an eye over your campaign before it’s exploded.
Q: Hi Pete. We’re launching a disruptive 10-million Telstra brand Campaign. It will drill down into retail and then frack across to employees and suppliers. Does this seem right to you? I need to get your blessing before Telstra will give us the nod. Appreciate this – Paul.
P: No-brainer Paul. Just remember when you drill-down into retail, and then frack across to suppliers, also remember to ladder-up into something else. Otherwise your strategic architecture can feel a little bottom heavy. Otherwise Paul, Good luck with it!
Q: Thanks for this opportunity Pete – you don’t get much for nothing these days. Other than interns. We have 10 of them. I still can’t believe we’re getting away with it. Anyway my question to you. We’ve launched a campaign for a leading grocery outfit and the retail tone doesn’t align with our agency’s stated brand values. Is there anything we can do? T.
P: Another no-brainer. Declare the campaign to be ironic, in a vanity piece in the industry media — or astro turf it on Mumbrella. Glad I could help. P.
Q: I’m having a garage sale next month and need a sign to nail up at the end of the street. So naturally I need an advertising agency to get involved. Can you recommend one for me? How much should I expect to pay?
P: Rob, mate, you might be going about this the wrong way. What you need to do is put the job out to pitch – say to 3 agencies. Choose a big safe one, say Clemenger, a middle-sized one such as Droga and a small one like UNO Marcomms. Play them off against each other and you’ll get the price down. Best of luck.
Q: Our agency has, among other clients, a tattoo parlour, a gun shop, a VD clinic, a schizophrenic person, and 20 charity accounts. Because none of them contribute to our revenue stream we’re constantly getting accused of doing scam advertising. These are real clients – it’s just that our internship model allows us to donate our time for free. Very frustrating. Interested in your opinion. David.
P: Scam advertising is always a vexed issue – and it really doesn’t need to be in my opinion David. A concerted effort by the industry as a whole to make it unvexed would deliver outcomes far more favourable to everyone concerned. Hope that makes sense. Good luck again at Cannes this year mate!
Q: Greetings Pete. I work in a large multi with around 87 people on my floor. Problem is, the men’s toilet has only one drier and no hand towels. Guys have a piss or crap, then walk out without queuing for the hand dryer. Germs love wet hands Pete. My complaints to the building services manger have fallen on deaf ears. What action would you recommend?
P: I’d start by telling the building services manager he’s a dick-head and take it from there. Things should unfold fairly quickly after that, so be on your toes. Get on Mumbrella anonymously and warn the industry not to shake hands with anyone from your agency. That should spread like hep A.
Good luck all!
6 WAYS TO FEIGN PAYING ATTENTION IN BRIEFINGS
I never much liked paying attention, particularly to people. Here are some strategies I’ve developed from my 20 years in advertising that make it appear you haven’t drifted off.
1: Reach across the table and slide any document towards yourself. Pretending to read it can gain you a good 5 minutes. I once managed a good half-hour tune-out in a multi- agency Telstra meeting by studying the paper thickness, the straightness of the edges, rubbing a smudge off the precious document and pretending to read the t’s and or c’s.
2: Blink a lot. Says you’re so focused and taking in so much information the windows of your soul are excited almost beyond your control.
3: Without moving your head, look up to 3 oclock. It means you’re thinking, when combined with cat’s bum lips. Don’t go to 2 oclock – that’s dangerously close to rolling your eyes and best left to actors.
4: If asked to comment on the conversation, say any shit as long as you end it with “does that make sense?”. No-one has ever answered “no” to that query in a meeting – at least there’s no record of it.
5: Tap your top lip rhythmically with 2 fingers – 3 will look too much like a war cry. Limit this one to around 3 seconds.
6: Tilt head and massage an eyebrow with the second finger – once again more of a 3 sec thing, but you can come back to it every 5 minutes or so and no-one will even remember you having already done it. Same for the lip tap.
7: Looking off to the horizon works a treat, but, and take caution here, if unaccompanied by a squint or frown can be disastrous. Do both the latter to be safe.
WHO WENT TO HELL THIS MONTH?
–Industry obituaries
Ron (Goodie) Goodsir 1938- 2015
This week saw the passing of advertising industry iconoclast Ron Goodsir. In the time –honoured manner Ron began his career as a mailboy in the now defunct Luscombe and Partners and rose to become Chairman of the George Patterson Group in the rarified company of writer Bryce Courtney. Together, with actor comedian Paul Hogan, they sold enough Winfield Red cigarettes to make life a living hell for an estimated 2 million Australians – something Ron remained proud of in his later years.
But it was Ron’s foray into product development and subsequent manufacture of fibro-based school chalks, that earned him a place in the history books and in hell. The industry will miss our irreplaceable Goodie and offer him the fondest of farewells.
5 WAYS FOR OVER-5Os TO AGE-PROOF THEIR RESUMES.
1-5: If you’re over 50 in this industry and looking for work – you’re effed. In fact Bunnings won’t even want you, without a trade. Best to sit at home and create closure by settling old scores anonymously on Mumbrella. In a later post I’ll cover Disruptive trolling for over-50’s. In the Meantime this blogger hopes that headline above at least gave you a moment’s hope.
CAMPAIGNS DISRUPTING
BUDGET DIRECT- 303lowe
“ I eat risk for breakfast – tastes like bacon” quips lovable risk-taker Captian Risky hilariously in 303Lowe’s latest campaign for Budget Direct. It reminds me of an ad in the UK in the 70’s and another 3 in the 80’s, and nineties, when this style of heavy handed humour was excruciatingly funny. One wonders why the fake US accent? Cultural cringe? Did Paul Hogan’s Leo Wanker teach the industry nothing? I’d like to think not, but I’m thinking did. But all that was B.D. (Before Disruption)
WOOLWORTHS CHEAP CHEAP–Leo Burnett.
This lesson in how to cheapen a brand from Todd Sampson’s Leo Burnett lit up the Mumbrella trolls switchboard with anonymous industry indignation. “We were looking for disruption and the industry gave it to us” a self-effacing Todd may have said somewhere out in the Multiverse. Our universe’s Todd , on the other hand, hasn’t been seen associated with the campaign to this blogger’s knowledge. But in fairness, how many ways are there to say prices are down without resorting to pre-school level puns? The answer is one less. And Birds-eye want their birds back.
CAMPAIGNS WITH PEOPLE DANCING
The number of campaigns with people dancing ecstatically due to the features and benefits of a product or service, are now too many to mention. Obviously they must work – this blogger can think of no other reason for them to exist. And with a growing community of Indian Australians, we can look forward to many more. Happy days for the industry.
HEARtFELT BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT SITCOM.
Heartfelt have welcomed in the cameras for a warts and all look at the ups and downs of a start-up charity fund raising agency. I’m always asking our clients to take risks so why not us? With my CD Saxon, writer Lachie, and our digital native intern Madison at my side I believe we can pull something off to disrupt the branded entertainment model. It’s about thinking from the inside out while turning the model on it’s head, from outside the box. For instance the guys are pressuring me to do a spin off of the show centered on myself – before we do the actual show. Interesting idea. Look out for Heartfelt on HBO this fall, if you want.
CAREERS AT HEARtFELT
Agency all-rounder. Full time. 3 positions.
You are fun, have a can-do attitude and are hilarious. ( to be tested at the interview) You are competent across the Adobe suite and have had at least 3-years client-facing experience . Ideally you will require minimal training and will hit the ground running in a small fund-raising agency where creative excellence is a given and caring is in the DNA. Disruption comes naturally to you, as is not being afraid to fail– or to succeed! Or occasionally being called a dick head. We invisage someone presentable in a modelly way, someone who will constantly surprise us, and themselves, with dazzling ideas and sparkling copy – and someone’s who’s as comfortable with writing a caustic, anonymous Mumbrella post as with researching and writing a 20-page white paper on innovations in the F2F, B2B sphere. If this sounds like you, you are clearly up yourself, and we’d like to talk to you. These are unpaid Internships.
AGENCY WORK IN PROGRESS
We’ve been very busy at Heartfelt lately with three campaigns set to disrupt:
–HOMELESS TRACKER APP
Homeless off the streets will go online for the first time with the launch of Heartfelt’s Follow-the-Homeless app. Inspired-off by the Qantas Q-Tag, it involves tagging a group of homeless people in an inner-city park and allowing the user to track them in the evenings to see where they end up sleeping rough. It’s tagged with the line “Get the beeps off the streets” Heartfelt has also partnered with Fisher & Paykel to print attractive doona-cover patterns on the sides of the cardboard fridge boxes their fridges come in. Just because the homeless can’t be at home doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to at least feel at home. See our upcoming reality show Heartfelt to see how it all works out.
–FLYING DOCTOR CAMPAIGN TAKES WING.
With so many channels to disrupt now, it comes as no surprise we’ve found one more. Our brief: position the Flying Doctor Service as top of mind in a donor acquisition campaign that creates space around the brand. Our solution. To stencil ink red crosses on the pale under-wings of city pigeons. We’ve begun trials and are now confident a water-based ink is more suitable to the task than spray enamel. See our upcoming reality show Heartfelt to see how it all works out.
–AUTUMN OF OUR WORKING LIVES.
Heartfelt has been quietly commissioned by the Dept of Employment Services to create a campaign to encourage the hiring of mature workers in the creative industries. Our autumnal campaign involves the printing of faces on plane tree leaves in the leafy cafe belts of Pyrmont and Surry Hills. As the leaves fall and turn brown on the footpath, the distressed faces of unemployed copywriters, art directors, and others, are walked over by heartless young HR managers. See our upcoming reality show Heartfelt to see how it all works out.
–FUNDRAISING ON MONEY
Why has no-one thought of this before,you ask. With Minister Joe Hockey’s approval, Heartfelt will soon trail placing charity advertising on the back of $20, $50 and $100 notes. Research showed that no-one cares about dead famous Australians any more. That single insight led me, and my team, to the idea of taking the legends off our currency notes and replacing them with advertising. It’s a perfect fit for fundraising advertising, being at the very touch point of the giving experience. Minister Hockey sees it as having potential for mainstream brands such as banks. See our upcoming reality show Heartfelt to see how it all works out.
FUNDRAISING CONFERENCE 2015– DISRUPT OR PERISH .
Heartfelt digital native, Madison, reports back BNSF conference in N.Y.
It’s so exciting to be interned in an industry whose only goal is help people make the world a better place. I recently had the privilege of attending the fundraising industry’s Disrupt or Perish annual 2-day conference in New York.
On day one I wore a Lorna Jane business suit my sister Jane lent me. First up to the podeum was thought leader Barry Brent-Smyth, the man who revolutionised the fundraising industry in the 8os with his invention of F2F (Face to Face) marketing. Although my hand was up at a question and answer session afterwards, I didn’t get the opportunity to ask Barry how he came up with the idea of stopping people in the street and asking for money. Next year.
The morning of day 2, saw me more relaxed in Ksubi jeans and a pale green t-shirt with a deer-head print I found in Surry Hills, as debate raged in a panel discussion about whether to ask for a second donation in the first thank-you letter. Some suggested a follow up phone call a month or so later should contain the second ask. Others insisted the sooner the second ask, the more chance of getting a second donation plus converting the doner to regular-giver status. It was a lot to take in for a novice like me. Lunch was much appreciated.
The final afternoon saw a presentation on the importance of buying a hot mailing list. “We’d all like a list of recently bereaved women over 60 whose birthdays are coming up –ideally near Christmas, but who can afford that list.” said industry stalwart James L. Koche jnr. to much applause. That line was to become “quote of the conference” and was printed on t-shirts and handed out in the conference bags.
The conference ended with us all being devided up into Filfullment Groups and presenting back with 10 ideas each group on how we see fundraising make our world, a better world.
All in all, my first charity fundraising conference left me inspired and happy to work for nothing for another year – if Heartfelt will have me.
LIVING JARGON
Industry jargon – from the greek ,Jarg – to abolutetate, is much maligned – often by the very people who use it. The art is to recognise when jargon crosses over from the user being a player, to being a pathetic attempt to look like one. This post will offer new jargon that is “alive” and safe to use.
-Tight-panced v.
Droga tight-panced Woolies. A term for a sexy agency – that takes on a massive retail account which clearly isn’t a good fit. The account in question typically thinks changing agencies will change them. Na.
-Decor-Stun v.
Decor-stun is the effect on a new client walking into the dazzling foyer of an on-trend agency for the first time. The new client will approve virtually anything. Decor-stun is believed to last around 3 weeks.
-Emploi v.
Replacing employ, to emploi refers to taking on unpayed interns (emploiees). The internment industry requires it’s own contractual language due to constant misunderstandings by young people who think they have been offered a payed job when they have simply been emploid. Also see payeed, wayges, and slave layba.
-Done beatle n.
Done beatle is the person in your agency always digging around to find where your idea was done, usually 10 years ago and mostly in the UK.
-Generational up-change n.
A new phrase created due to the recent upswing demand for advertising creatives over 50. Head hunters simply cannot meet demand from agencies looking for the aged-out to be re-aged in.
-Brand commotion n.
If you’re comfortable using disruption, stay with it – it has a few weeks to run. But just know that a select group of admired early adopters have migrated to brand commotion.
HEARtFELT REFERENCES.
Pete at Heartfelt has a can-probably-do attitude that effortlessly resonates with fellow team members Saxon, Lachie and Madison. The Heartfelt team set out to make us the bequest charity of choice in what they’ve isolated as the ’75-n-still alive’ category. And to drive the entire campaign by shelf wobblers was an inspired choice that payed-off with gold, at Cannes, for them.
–Leon Mcgarvey – President, Parkinsons Association.
Montgomery Unpacks the Industry 