The advertising industry is hated, says Dee Madigan, executive creative director, Campaign Edge,
“We are the reason all our kids are fat and the reason Siri knows too much about us,” she told the AANA’s Reset conference.
When she started her agency she decided to “do things and we were really comfortable with” and feel good about that.
“We have a range of clients that include things as diverse as ... the peak body for autism, dementia," she says.
“We also do a lot of political campaigning and we did the 2022 gederal election campaign for the Labor Party, which turned out okay.
“So in the spirit of positivity I want you to start off with this slide. Everyone hates us. And I think that's a really important place for us.
“We have a reputation. If you look at the veracity index for all professions, we're sitting there at the bottom. The ones above a politician.”
Buy why does it matter if advertising isn’t liked?
“We need a social licence to operate today. Particularly if you're in an organisation where you need investment,” she says
“We want to attract the people in the industry. We want people to go to work and feel proud of what they do. That's really important. And we need political power, as an industry.
“Politicians are driven by the public. And if the public don't like us, it's very hard to be part of those conversations. We want the politicians to listen to us, we have to have political power.
“They are really strong lobbying groups out there that are going to hurt our industry. And the only way we can protect that is actually by behaving a little bit better.”
Back to the basics.
"The one thing we have got going for us that we have always had going for us is creativity and somehow we seem to have forgotten about that a little bit.”
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