Attitude of television sales requires retuning
As Britain moves into the digital age the attitude of television sales houses needs to change. If old-style salesmen are allowed to keep plodding the same path, no one will achieve the deal they want. Mike Gorman is media director of Saatchi &
So here we are, at the threshold of the digital dream. Irrespective of the technical currency that will really decide the success or failure in consumer perception or take-up, the really interesting thing for me is how the dinosaur salesmen will approach it.
It seems to me that the sales operation of the TV companies are wasting a significant resource.
Marketing departments everywhere commission, buy and think about data and then discard it in pursuit of the convenient sell, because of the need to commodity-trade. The average TV salesperson – and there are many of them – has as much interest in marketing or client products as a terrorist has in fair play.
Ad agencies act in the best interest of clients. We have to prove it, and failure to do so results in the loss of business. Clients have to act in the best interest of consumers, otherwise purchasing or legal sanctions ensure they are penalised.
The TV salesman acts in his own interest, motivated by fear or a bonus, and without imagination.
In some instances sales support is so afraid of losing its annual price hike that it resists the opportunity to increase minutage because of a spurious effectiveness argument.
I can hear the screech of pens in St Martin’s Lane and Gray’s Inn Road, and elsewhere, but don’t take total responsibility, chaps. The big media buyers with whom you have formed an unholy alliance of lowest-common-denominator mediocrity also have to take a share of the blame. After all, they don’t want their deals over-complicated by those fussy planners do they?
My plea as we enter the multi-channel environment is talk to the people who have client knowledge and client interest at heart. Fragmentation of the audience and the multi-dimensional approach to the provision of entertainment and information demands a new approach to selling television.
Volume is a concept which is an economically practical way of conducting trading, but does little to recognise the requirements of clients and brands.
I would like to see television salesmen selling their medium to the decision makers – the clients and planners – and recognise the importance of their medium. Don’t devalue its efficacy by becoming an extension of the auditing department.
