Branding must direct ad TV

As a communications agency we reject Mick Brown’s assertion that agencies are hostile to “programmes” as a form of communication (“Ad-funded TV,” MW July 15).

Our role is to create, build and sustain the values of a brand. We evaluate and recommend the most effective medium to carry the message, whether it’s “obvious and traditional” or “different and new”.

To paraphrase C5’s Nick Milligan, “it is ideas (and the lack of them) that is the issue”, not the support of advertising agencies. A powerful brand idea transcends media.

If advertiser-supplied programme ideas are divorced from a brand’s core values and the objectives of its strategy, it is no surprise that agencies will be “essentially hostile”.

Many of our clients are considering “brand-led” programming as a media solution on our recommendation.

Web production houses are seeing the value of working with communications agencies because of the strategic input we can bring. The overlap of our skills makes it a more integrated proposition.

If TV production companies were more open to working with communications agencies rather than around them, they would see that the perception of hostility is not real.

Nick Eggleton

New business director

Poulter partners

Leeds