In my first job at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising London, a long time ago in the golden years of advertising I quickly learnt the power of marketing as a force for change in the clients I was working with - both a force for good change and potentially bad. A new client that worked with our agency at the time - Schweppes (a major soft drinks company) - asked us to test out a new product concept as a precursor to a fully blown launch of that product across the UK. We were told that the test was just a formality and really to test the advertising and promotional campaign that would accompany
We duly conducted the test, including advertising, collected the results and presented the results to the marketing team at Schweppes. In presenting the results we had a dilemma - the results at first glance seemed good, but when we analysed them at a deeper level we realized there was a problem. The good news was that consumers loved the advertising and the concept; they bought the product in droves; and they liked the first sip or two. The bad news was that they didn't want to buy or drink another as it made them feel sickly.
The client management team at the time didn't want to know about the bad news as they had already invested enormous amounts of time and money in the project. Many agencies would have followed the client line and glossed over the truth and in the process captured a very healthy advertising budget for at least a year or two to support the launch of the new drink. But we didn't. We believed that we had to protect the consumer - that was our mission. And any short term decision taken today would only come back and bite us when the product inevitably failed and fail it would.
We laid out the issue in black and white. And calmly said we would NOT take the business even if they decided to launch the product going against the research findings because the product 'sucked'. The client was not happy. In fact they were furious and left the meeting vowing never to do business with us again.
Six months later we were given a big chunk of Schweppes business and became one of their top agencies. Clearly cooler heads had prevailed and they realized that we were not just an agency but people who had their longer term interests at heart (and ours).
What did I learn at the tender age of 21.
- Don't sugar coat customer feedback
- Marketing needs to stay true to the customer - defend the customer at all costs
- The truth will always win out in the long term
- Marketing can change business. It can lead from the front and not just be a follower
