Barnes, Catmur & Friends has maintained the top spot again this year on the
2014 Effie Effectiveness Index, to be the Most Effective Independent Agency in Asia Pacific.
In a short interview with Daniel Barnes, Managing Partner of Barnes, Catmur & Friends, he shares his views on the key challenges in achieving marketing effectiveness; and how the creative-led advertising culture in New Zealand can be a boost for effectiveness.
What are your thoughts on Barnes, Catmur & Friends coming in the top as the Most Effective Independent Agency in Asia Pacific?
We're naturally delighted. This is our second year at #1, so it’s nice to have kept up the consistency. We also went up a notch from #5 to #4 world wide too. However I guess that just makes the bar that much higher for next year.
In Barnes, Catmur & Friends’ approach to marketing, what aspect of it do you think contributed the most to the current success?
One of our key differences is our full service integrated model. As well as creative, we’re a fully accredited media agency, do award winning DM work and have a strong design capability. This team-based full service model - as opposed to the fashionable fragmented approach with multiple different players - means that all the elements of a campaign should work together to get a more effective result. At least that was our theory and it seems to be working so far.
In your views, what are the key challenges in achieving effectiveness for a campaign generally and specifically in the New Zealand culture and market?
Generally the main obstacles to effectiveness are 1) lack of strategic clarity 2) lack of alignment between differing parts of a campaign and 3) thinking the consumer is interested in this or that corporate communication goal. They’re not. They’re interested in what interests them, and sometimes that’s advertising as Gossage used to say. So that’s the aim. Specifically in New Zealand we have quite a creative-led advertising culture, so that’s a bit of a leg up in effectiveness too.
Define marketing effectiveness in one sentence.
What’s in it for me?