Ideas for Britain

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• Publisher: Matador
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781785897870

Recognised and respected throughout the advertising industry for blowing the whistle on fraud at a publicly quoted advertising agency of which he was managing director, Hugh Salmon's career was further affected by complications of a broken back caused by a rugby injury. He witnessed the suffering that disabled people are forced to endure and realised that the understanding of human behav-iour and the creative talent in advertising agencies could be applied to improving society as a whole - particularly the poor, the underprivileged and the disabled. After standing as an independent MP in the 2010 general election, Hugh's challenging observations on life and human behaviour featured in his blog 'A Different Hat' on the marketing website Brand Republic and Huffington Post. Ideas for Britain, previously published as an ebook, is a compilation of some of these blog posts from 2009-2015. From Theresa May's ignorance of the most basic law of advertising to a call for the role of government to be redefined in a changing world; from the simple belief that every child has a talent at something to innovative proposals for the education system; from the realities of living as a disabled person to a radical new future for the NHS (including a call to separate care from cure and the launch of a new National Care Service); from the failure of immigration policy to the underlying tensions of an increasingly divided society (since evidenced by the 2016 EU referendum), Ideas for Britain takes an adman's innate understanding of human behaviour and challenges the political classes to seek more creative solutions to the core issues facing Britain today.

1

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING MATTERS

1.1 HOW THE UK GOVERNMENT IGNORED THE MOST BASIC LAW OF ADVERTISING

11 OCTOBER 2013 09:07

The Rt Hon Theresa May, Secretary of State for the Home Office has announced that she wishes to create a ‘hostile environment’ for illegal migrants to Britain. But early attempts to do this run the risk of alienating those of us who have every right to be here.

In July, the Home Office, led by Ms May, launched an advertising campaign against illegal immigrants to the UK. The chosen message was as follows:

In the UK illegally? 106 arrests last week in your area GO HOME OR FACE ARREST Text HOME to 78070 for free advice, and help with travel documents

The media channel used to transmit this message was ‘poster vans’ which were driven through six London boroughs where, apparently, ‘illegal immigrants are likely to be’.

I was one of many who found this to be a particularly tasteless piece of work and posted to this effect on Twitter and LinkedIn. But 224 people felt more strongly than me and complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) who, this week, ruled:

‘The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told the Home Office to ensure that in future they held adequate substantiation for their advertising claims and that qualifications were presented clearly.’

In relation to the phrase ‘GO HOME’, the ASA weasled as follows:

‘We acknowledged that the phrase “GO HOME” was reminiscent of slogans used in the past to attack immigrants to the UK.... We recognised that the poster, and the phrase “GO HOME” in particular, were likely to be distasteful to some in the context of an ad addressed to illegal immigrants.... However, we concluded that the poster was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence or distress.’

Whatever the ASA have found, who are the people who thought up and created this distasteful piece of work – and who on earth approved it?

Whoever they are, surely they must know that all advertising in the UK must be:

Legal, decent, honest and truthful

The ASA makes no secret of this requirement:

‘Our mission is to ensure that advertising in all media is legal, decent, honest and truthful, to the benefit of consumers, business and society.’

‘Legal, decent, honest and truthful’ is a phrase that was cemented into my mind on the first day of my advertising career. It is the DNA of the UK advertising business.

I will leave it to you to judge whether these posters were ‘decent’ or ‘to the benefit of society’ or not, but there is an even more fundamental aspect of advertising of which the Home Office seems to have been ignorant or ignored.

As ever, David Ogilvy said it for me:

‘Do not address your readers as though they are gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone.’

This is the most basic law of advertising and one that I have stuck to throughout my career. It is, if you like, in my professional DNA.

It means that, however you define your ‘target audience’ in terms of the media you select, the content of your message must be such that you would be comfortable to say it to one person – not some amorphous group.

Whether you are in advertising or marketing or the media or are ever anything to do with the communications business, you must remember that any form of communication between human beings is a one-to-one thing.

I cannot over-emphasise how important this is.

So let’s re-look at this poster van and consider its ‘GO HOME’ message as a transmission from the Home Office to one person – alone.

For example, what would happen if Theresa May were to stand outside an underground station in London and – for this is what this poster did – say to passers by on a one-to-one basis in this multi-racial, multi-cultural, cosmopolitan capital city of ours?

‘Are you in the UK illegally? GO HOME.’

‘Are you in the UK illegally? GO HOME.’

‘Are you in the UK illegally? GO HOME.’

It might be that such an approach would not only provoke the ‘hostile environment’ Theresa May seeks but also a hostile response.

For, if she carried on behaving like this and continued to transmit her slogan to each passer by, she might be arrested by the police for breaching the peace or causing an affray – or even, perhaps, a riot.

And then, subject to the extent of the affray and damage caused, she might even find herself sentenced to a spell in prison.

And which Government Department is responsible for police and prison?

Yes, you’ve guessed it. The Home Office.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

1.2 BRANDING: UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUST

23 APRIL 2013 09:04

When I joined the advertising business, there was a new buzzword called ‘marketing’. Few knew what it meant. At Ogilvy & Mather, where my career was born, we had a guy – yes, one person in the whole agency – whose job was to explain this new concept to our clients.

Now, some people argue, everything is marketing.

In his wonderful, intelligent lecture on screenwriting, Charlie Kaufman said:

‘They’re selling you something. And the world is built on this now. Politics and government are built on this. Corporations are built on this. Interpersonal relationships are built on this.... it has all become marketing.’

In this sense, within the space of my career, marketing has gone from nothing to everything.

That’s some journey.

Now, it seems, there is another word that is commonly used and little understood. It is the word ‘brand’, the application of which is called ‘branding’.

What is branding?

There is no easy answer for, as David Ogilvy said:

‘Brand image is an amalgam of many things – name, packaging, price, style of advertising, and, above all, the nature of the product itself.’

‘The nature of a product’ can be defined in terms of ‘rational’ and ‘emotional’ benefits.

If your clients tell you the truth, rational benefits are easy to identify. The trouble is the rational benefits of a product are often the same as its competitors. Commercial success depends on the identification, and often creation, of emotional points of difference.

I love this part of my job because, to define the emotional values of a brand, you need to understand how human beings think and behave.

And, as I hope you find in all my posts, people are interesting aren’t they?

This is why the best way to understand a brand is to think of it as a person, a human being, replete with a complex blend of rational and emotional characteristics.

In life, the way we behave influences other people to like or dislike us on a sliding scale. If you are nice, people like you. If you are horrid, they don’t. You may or may not care about this.

But brands do care whether or not you like them, particularly if they want you to buy them.

So what is the one thing brands must do to make you like them? Again, David Ogilvy has the answer. He called it a consumer promise:

‘A promise ... is a benefit for the consumer. It pays to promise a benefit which is unique and competitive, and the product must deliver the benefit you promise.’

To deliver a promise, a brand must tell the truth.

And people must trust the brand to do so.

Sadly, it seems, trust is an evaporating characteristic in society today. As I pointed out in my last post, although you and I trust our doctors, politicians don’t.

Who, in my life, have I trusted but trust no more?

I won’t name individual brands, but here are some of the sectors they are in:

I don’t trust cyclists.

I don’t trust horse racing.

I don’t trust food companies.

I don’t trust supermarkets.

I don’t trust loyalty cards.

I don’t trust marketing.

I don’t trust newspapers.

I don’t trust banks.

I don’t trust business.

I don’t trust priests.

I don’t trust the police.

I don’t trust politicians.^*

You?

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*In the online version of this post, each of the categories on this list are hyperlinked to the reason why I do not trust them.

1.3 IT MAY BE RIGHT. IT MAY BE GOOD. BUT IS IT INTERESTING?

29 JULY 2014 19:26

David Ogilvy said this about advertising:

‘You can’t bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them into buying it.’

As my advertising career began with Ogilvy, I have been interested in ‘interesting’ for a very long time.

In today’s world, is advertising interesting?

First, as any adman knows, we need to consider the competition which, in terms of interesting, includes all the other things that compete for people’s interest.

Next, we need to establish whether there are different levels of interesting? Are all interestings equal? Or are some more interesting than others? How interesting does an interesting have to be to get noticed?

Is there a league table of interesting where, li...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Advertising & Marketing Matters
• 2. Britain Matters
• 3. Government Matters
• 4. Health Matters
• 5. How to Solve The NHS Problem
• 6. Welfare Matters
• 7. Education Matters
• 8. Housing Matters
• 9. Immigration Matters
• 10. Money Matters
• 11. World Matters
• 12. Business Matters
• 13. Rule of Law Matters
• 14. Media Matters
• 15. Social Media Matters
• 16. Social Media Legacy 2010
• 17. Party Politics Matter (NOT)
• 18. Politicians Matter (NOT)
• 19. Appendix I – Battersea Needs Hugh
• 20. Appendix II – Blowing the Whistle
• A tribute to my father*
• Acknowledgements