Wartime Advertising

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov, 2001 by Jillian S. Ambroz

In the days after September 11, advertisers scrambled to drop scheduled pages and pulled back on campaigns that might be deemed inappropriate. Now, as the nation braces for an uncertain future, we asked media buyers if their clients are making major strategy changes, and how print will fare in this troubled climate.

Alan Jurmain Executive vice president, director of media services, Lowe Lintas & Partners

There was a two-phased response to the events of September II. The first was immediate in nature-all of our clients chose to get off the air and withdraw their media presence during the two- to three-week period. All the advertising was re-expressed to run before year's end, and really nobody pulled any money off the table.

The second response was a re-evaluation of 2002 plans. Happily, at this juncture, there have been no budget shifts, reductions or real diversions from our original planned activities, From a creative perspective, [what] we put out to consumers is undergoing plenty of scrutiny to make sure it is in tune with consumers' changed receptivity to advertisers' messaging, in terms of what's appropriate and what's inappropriate. Moving forward to 2002, the role of print will resume. It's an important role, as it was prior to the [September II attacks]. From a media standpoint, September II just made a soft market even softer.

Carol Lewis Vice president, group media director, McKinney & Silver

None of the campaigns that I'm working on have changed. Coincidentally, we were in the middle of the strategy process before September II, so this is just one more piece of the puzzle that we're putting together. It's too early to tell if the economy will affect strategies. Whether or not print is more viable right now depends on the product and who the target is. There are so many variables. It depends on your sales cycle. I haven't seen clients pulling away from or turning to print. Most clients have a well-established understanding of the climate and wouldn't generally make an about-face suddenly. The key thing for most of our clients would be to stay the course, use what you know, and not make a knee-jerk reaction.

Allen Banks Executive vice president, executive media director, Saatchi & Saatchi North America

The tragedy helped to expedite us into economic recession, which is apparently where we were moving before September II, so advertisers are re-evaluating their marketing plans.

There was a hiatus of activity for a few weeks; now, there's a re-evaluation. That re-evaluation goes on all the time in terms of where advertisers will spend their money. No advertising plan is ever set in concrete. Print may or may not be more important. It really depends on advertisers and their circumstances, and how they're going to move forward-but they all will move forward. It's not business as usual, but it's going to be business again.

Bruno Crea Executive vice president, director of planning services, BBDO

Most of our clients haven't really changed any of their plans versus where they were a month or two ago, even with this tragedy. If there are changes in strategy and changes in budgets, I'm not sure that you can point to September II; rather, that could have been an added dimension to the unstable and unsteady economic climate. Historically, the fourth quarter is [the time] clients tend to cut money to make their bottom lines. While there's a cautiousness, certainly, after this tragedy, I think there would have been a cautiousness anyway.

Peter Beiro Media director, Earle Palmer Brown

My clients are essentially travel and utilities. Travel was somewhat affected before the attack because of the slowdown in the economy and the slowdown in business travel. But since then, it has almost been on hold. Now we are waiting until things clear and are taking baby steps. On the utility side, we were on hiatus before the September II attack. But we've resumed because they [the gas utility business] have a short window [to] do most of their gas heat conversion. We went back on the air and we're going full-bore.

Down the road, I don't see much change. Print may be a little more important in this environment because we use print to communicate more involved ideas. The ad industry, like everything, just has to get back to doing what it does.