Less than a week ago, Chevy announced that it would be firing
Campbell-Ewald, its advertising agency of over 90 years. This is the
firm that brought us the Heartbeat of America, Like A Rock, and
American Revolution ad campaigns, some of the best-loved and most
memorable car ads in American history. Now it has been dismissed. The
sad fact remains that unless you or someone you know works in the
advertising business, you probably never give a second thought to the
agency behind the ads you see — and rightly so. Companies hire
agencies to make the brand the star, not the agency behind the scenes.
Still,
there are consequences to this decision for a lot of people. As a
marketer, I tend to think of the talent at Campbell-Ewald and how —
despite their careful custody of the brand and passion for the vehicles
they touted — these people are now on the razor’s edge, potentially
leaving another huge hole in the Detroit economy. Campbell-Ewald has
over 1,100 employees in four offices including Detroit, and 25% of its
business was directly related to Chevrolet.
But mourning Campbell-Ewald’s loss is hardly my point. The truth of
the matter is that as much of a blow as this is to the agency, it’s
probably going to be an even bigger surprise to Chevy, once it finishes
congratulating itself on making such a big move.
You Get What You Ask For
What I mean by this can be illustrated by my experience at Chrysler.
When we were the lead client — the Chevy, as it were — we did a bit
of agency shuffling ourselves. We orchestrated a multi-cultural agency
review and we were also involved in an effort to merge two agencies
that had previously worked on the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge accounts.
The thinking behind all the disruption was that we would get “better”
work. But in the end, the lesson I learned from this whole process was
that the client, meaning the car company, gets what it asks for,
regardless of who the agency of record is.
Certainly agencies have different skills, talent, and ideas that
make them better suited to certain types of campaigns. But I can tell
you first hand that agencies do what they are paid to do, and one of
their greatest complaints is that their client does not allow them to
push the envelope of marketing. Today that might mean social
networking, blogging, or just the advertising creative. But at the end
of the day, the messages that the consumer experiences are approved and
guided by the client, not the agency. So if that is true, why do
companies change agencies? Usually, most agency upheavals come as a
result of new people who want to shake things up and put their own mark
on the business. Sometimes, the company or client truly sees
opportunities that it feels the current agency is simply not qualified
to handle. And other times, it’s as simple as casting the agency as a
scapegoat. I think all of these motivations are playing into the
situation at Chevy, as GM tries to convince the world that it’s not the
same old company, post-bankruptcy.
Modern Marketing
Let’s be honest, GM needs to show results, any results, to a
suspicious public that now owns a majority stake in the automaker. And
I think Chevy could indeed use a more modern marketing effort. I have
written before about Toyota’s social marketing efforts, or lack
thereof. GM isn’t doing much better. Just assess the simple metrics of
Twitter followers: Of the major auto manufacturer’s, Ford seems to lead
the way with just over 30,000 followers. GM, VW and the rest trail, and
I know I may sound like a broken record here, but compare that to
Southwest Airlines who has over a million followers!
Now, you can’t tell me that the brand experience of flying on a
commercial airline is so much better than owning and driving a car.
C’mon, these companies sell Mustangs, Corvettes, and Beetles! These are
legendary products with huge enthusiast networks, and seriously, these
companies can’t manage more than 30,000 Twitter fans? This may be one
tiny element in a broad marketing effort but I think you can see the
point.
We Have Seen The Enemy
I remember being taken to task by my boss’s boss when I was at
Chrysler, about the ads that we were developing. This manager screamed
and yelled about the work, which frustrated me because he was looking
for a different result from the agency even though he had yelled and
screamed at them about the specific elements he wanted in the ads
themselves. He was unwilling to let the agency do their work and
insisted on giving frame-by-frame direction and then was angry about
the finished product. That, my friends, is the definition of insanity.
I can’t help but wonder whether Campbell-Ewald and Chevy were facing
this type of situation? I also wonder if Chevy is just too risk-averse
to have actually allowed Campbell-Ewald to stretch the envelope in
terms of its progressive marketing tactics? Might it be possible that
Chevy was just underwhelmed by the agency’s capabilities? Maybe. But as
Chevy forges ahead in its new relationship with Publicis Worldwide, I
hope it can remember Harry Truman’s old saying. Because no matter how
many scapegoats are tossed, no matter how many chairs are shuffled, the
buck stops with the people in charge. Until they change, nothing else
will.