Transparency in all things

Ending the numbers racket (MW last week) got me thinking: it isn’t just the financial services industry that should be held to account for “customer apathy and alienation”. Responsibility must also lie with the agencies that hang on the coat-tails of their financial clients, whose money they are quite happy to take to market these products.

If the learned Dr Robert Hunt found it “impossible to deduce the exact charges of credit cards from the small print”, then one wonders what agency account handlers and planners were thinking when putting together client strategies and their own internal briefs.

If they didn’t really understand or care about the detail, then a creative department would be left in the dark, which in turn would leave the hapless consumer with no chance of fathoming out what is what.

I for one welcome any initiatives that encourage transparency. It will mean the propositions we are asked to market by the financial services industry will have to be clearer. That will lead to more focused briefs and a higher quality of creative work. And that, ultimately, should benefit the consumer, who won’t be subject to the bland and confusing communications he or she currently has to endure

Mark Wilson

Creative director

MSB&K

London W1

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