Getting a gong from the IAA

Last week, at a fun dinner in London (to celebrate their 75^th anniversary), along with several other worthies, I was given a gong for the contribution I had made to the International Advertising Association two decades ago.

I was elected world president of the IAA at a rather critical moment. First, the Soviet Empire was crumbling, and a whole new range of countries was emerging as market economies. And second, advertising was under attack, seemingly throughout the western world, with governments threatening to legislate for ad bans on all sorts of products that were legally sold.

At that time, in 1989/90, the IAA was the only organisation that could address these threats on a global basis, representing, as it did (and does) the three parts of the business ‒ the manufacturers, the media and the advertising agencies.

And yet, the organisation was clearly completely ill-equipped to create and implement the programmes necessary to defend freedom of commercial speech. The whole ethos of the IAA was not connected with advocacy, but rather was a global club, where the primary reason for belonging was to network.

So I embarked very early on a re-structuring of the governance of the organisation, reducing the executive committee from around twenty-five to just a handful of key players. Of course, this was much resented by all those who were being jettisoned.

And, together with the paid executives, director-general Norman Vale and his number two Richard Corner, we deployed three initiatives: first, to be alert to threats as they emerged, sharing best practice in dealing with each; then to create a roadshow that would travel through the emerging post-Soviet markets ‒ Russia, Czechoslovakia (as it was), Hungary, Poland and, importantly, China ‒ setting out the case for advertising, and inaugurating IAA chapters in each; and, perhaps most important, we launched a global “Campaign for Advertising” (together with tracking research), proclaiming the economic and social case ‒ the media space and time all donated.

I wonder how well the IAA would cope today, faced with similar opportunities and threats?

Next to Bad Boy at Shakespeare’s Globe

Walking in the sun along the South Bank of the Thames yesterday, I dropped into Shakespeare’s Globe.

I’m right next to the Bad Boy Pulled Pork stall. That’s the flagstone with my name on it. Nearby are Ben Kingsley, Paul Eddington, a “William Shakespeare” and “Japan”.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was World President of the International Advertising Association (and a director of the Globe), I was able to persuade lots of media owners around the world to donate space so that we could advertise the personalised flagstones for sale.

If I remember correctly, they were £500 a pop, and we were able to raise many tens of thousands towards the building of the theatre.

Have you been yet? It’s a very special experience. And tickets for groundlings (best place in the house) are still just £5.   

http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/

My fifteen minutes of fame

Chapter of accidents, more like.

As world president of the International Advertising Association, I was asked to chair the first-ever advertising conference in China. It was May 1991, just twenty-four months after the Tiananmen Square protests.

The fun started early. Arriving early morning on an overnight flight at Beijing airport in my comfortable track-suit, hair awry, I was greeted by TV cameras, photographers and eager Chinese journos, notepads at the ready.

On the day before the conference, I made five speeches to different gatherings, ending with a Gala Banquet in the Great Hall of the People. My host kept reassuring me that no speech would be required, but I knew enough by this stage to be aware that it just might be a necessity. So, after some twenty of twenty-seven courses (I couldn’t get past twelve), he motioned to me that it was my turn. Up I got…

In the weeks running up to the conference I was constantly badgered by the organisers for a copy of my opening keynote speech. But since I was going to speak about the nexus between market economy, freedom of the press and the role of advertising, I was advised that all the interesting bits would be censored.

So I kept it all to myself until the last moment, personally handing copies to each of the interpreters. There were around ten thousand delegates.

In the break afterwards, there was a long, long line of people to shake hands (and be photographed) with, and from time-to-time one would whisper to me, “We never heard all that before here.”

Job done. Even if it was just a start.