Marketing Australia – February-March 2019

marketingmag.com.au

90 ANNE MILES

The truth and lies your

agency is telling about

your future customer

Unconscious bias and agencies on autopilot threaten

our success and our society. Anne Miles compares some

campaign winners and losers.

T

he truth is many of our

creative agencies don’t

understand the future

customer and are on

autopilot, with unconscious bias

threaded through their creative

work. Brands are risking long-term

damage by trusting agencies blindly.

Campaign activity, furthermore, is at

the forefront of society and, done

poorly, perpetuates fl awed concepts

through our culture. Worse still,

marketers are not taking

responsibility for it.

A look at the creative work in the

media is all the proof we need that

something is up with our industry’s

understanding of our customers. It

is hard to imagine in a day and age

with so much customer research

that much of the work would still

end up perpetuating lies about our

customer, therefore representing

missed strategic opportunities and

limited brand performance. Having

been on the client side and in many

agencies, I can see the machine at

both ends. Many cut and paste past

data and insights into briefs without

questioning if they remain relevant.

MARKETING 2019

Anne Miles is managing

director of International

Creative Services, an

industry voice for inclusion

and a business founded on

providing opportunity for a

diverse community.

Many are also using outdated

customer profi les that were created

with unconscious bias behind

them in the fi rst place. Past data

does not necessarily mean correct

data today.

There are of course some brands

and their agencies doing a great

job, but many creatives are still in

the mindset that to give one gender

power is to disparage another or,

worse still, the agencies are on

autopilot and can’t even tell that

that’s what they’re doing.

The truth about

our customers

No one category is to blame here,

but let’s look at the automotive

and personal care industries for

a moment. Roy Morgan research

shows 23 percent of adults aged

18 to 34 have chosen not to

purchase a car at all. Twenty-fi ve

percent of those 18- to 34-year-

olds are using the Uber app. Two

hundred thousand users of ride-

sharing services are leading a new

movement that could mean, to

ensure future growth, automotive