Why the advertising industry is broken with Paul Mellor, MD of Mellor&Smith

Paul is the co-founder of ad agency Mellor&Smith and also started the event series #TakeFuckingRisks as a side hustle - which is now one of the biggest creative events in London.

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We covered plenty of ground in this episode!

• Should you specialise or be well rounded
• The state of the advertising industry today
• 89% of ads that people see are forgotten - can you imagine if this was any other industry?
• "As an industry we are fucking terrible at our jobs"
• What do we need to do to fix the industry?
  • First admit there is a problem - although this doesn't serve the industry
  • Having a backbone and standing up to clients
  • Stop being addicted to digital and short termism
  • Stop being fixated on data
  • Make advertising based on what people do rather than what the algorithm says
• Why clients don't trust agencies and what we can do about it
• The public don't trust brands, we need to rebuilt that
• Is the market research and insight industry broken too?
  • Serial focus groupers
  • Get down to the supermarket and see how people actually act
• Why we shouldn't approach B2B differently
  • They are still people, it's just not their money they are spending
  • Any B2B brand using traditional media is going to win
• How do you get clients to take risks?
• Why social media metrics are bullshit
• Is traditional media the most effective
• Is it the fact that the advertising as bad or is traditional media broken?
• Why influencer marketing is a con
• The role of advertising is to get you noticed, not to make sales
• What is "Take Fucking Risks"?
• Why there is a lack of honesty in our industry
• Why we need more trouble makers
• How do you deal with disagreements with clients?
• If you're so good at this, why are you only 11 people?

Links

• Follow Mellor&Smith on Twitter
• Paul's LinkedIn
• Follow me on Twitter