How to get ahead in advertising

After an illustrious career advertising everything from cars to supermarket chains, Mark Lund is turning his hand to getting the UK government’s message across. He tells Diana Milne why his role as CEO of the Central Office of Information won’t be easy.

“In terms of a lot of the health communications there's a challenge in terms of how you reach and find the right tone of voice for those audiences that are less targeted commercially”
-Mark Lund

IT'S Mark Lund's first week as CEO of the UK government's Central Office of Information and already he is facing some of the biggest challenges of his career.

Lund may have a £400million marketing budget at his disposal, but getting the government's message across to the public about such topics as how to prevent the spread of swine flu won't be easy. The Central Office of Information is responsible for co-ordinating the government's many information campaigns on everything from welfare benefits to sexual health. In the 12 months ending in March 2008 the government spent a total of €435 million on marketing and the COI was responsible for some of the year's most creative and powerful press, television, radio and online advertising campaigns. Indeed it is one such campaign,  released 20 years ago, that Lund describes as having had the biggest impact on his career: "The first campaign I got excited about was an advert 20 years ago to recruit people to the Metropolitan Police. It was very powerful in changing people's views of the police as it asked people to put themselves in the shoes of a police officer as he or she confronted some of the ethical and actual dilemmas that came with the job," he goes on to say.

Pastures new

As Chairman of the Advertising Association and CEO of top UK advertising agency Delaney, Lund, Knox and Warren (DLKW), Lund has masterminded some of the UK's most high profile advertising campaigns, including recent campaigns for Morrisons and Vauxhall Corsa.

He acknowledges, however, that creating campaigns designed to appeal to audiences that are not often targeted by commercial advertisers, won't be easy: "The younger and less affluent and the older and less affluent are both audiences that are less commercially targeted but that are very important to government." This applies, particularly, he says, to health campaigns - Swine Flu prevention being a prime example."In terms of a lot of the health communications there's a communication challenge in terms of how you reach and find the right tone of voice for those audiences that are less targeted commercially and that creates its own challenges," he says.

Another challenge is to continue to provide advertising that meets the more demanding needs of the 21^st century audience: "The new communications world is a much more vociferous and complicated thing than it was even ten years ago," says Lund, going on to describe how, whereas yesterday's communications model was based on "push", today's is very much based on "pull". "The old model of communication was very much we had a product that we told the consumer about in the hope that they would absorb the information in a passive way then react to it in a positive way. Now, the advent of widespread internet access means that the possibility of interactivity has become much greater. Ideally there would be an engagement which exists between the government and the citizen which allows the communications mechanism to be more effective."

He says he is very excited about the opportunity to take advantage of interactive digital platforms to push the government's messages, particularly given the scope of issues he will be tackling:"If you're talking about the range of things that the government is trying to shift its everything from eating more fruit to wearing a condom, renewing your road licence to wearing a seatbelt. That creates a much greater intellectual and creative challenge. Whereas in the commercial environment every piece of behaviour you're trying to change comes down to either a different choice of brand at the point of purchase or the consumption of a more premium variant of the brand."

Falling numbers

Working in public sector advertising also provides immunity from the financial woes affecting commercial operators, which saw total UK ad spend fall by 3.9 percent in 2008 and advertising spend in the fourth quarter of the year tumble by 9.6 percent year on year. The Advertising Association has predicted that advertising expenditure in the UK could grow by as much as 52 percent in real terms over the ten year period to 2020. In the meantime however, the sector has been hit hard with print media particularly affected. Print expenditure fell by 12.0 % while expenditure on magazine advertising fell by 9.9 percent. The only medium that saw a rise was internet advertising, which rose by 17.3 percent.

Lund however, maintains that since traditionally the industry has shown consistent growth, it will survive the storm unscathed: "All the historical precedent is that advertising spend rises fairly consistently. If you go all the way back to the Second World War, in the UK, in no year has ad spend either grown or declined by more than five percent. Generally it's a very consistent and steady market. But in times of sudden economic downturn mixed in an ongoing technological revolution, the beneficiaries have been digital online media and the ones that have suffered the most are the press."

The easy availability of statistics showing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, means media is under the spotlight like never before, with the weakest vehicles quickly identified and disposed of by advertisers, says Lund: "People know much more rapidly whether what they are doing is effective or not."

In this increasingly cutthroat world creativity and innovation on the part of advertisers is crucial to their survival. But with companies forced to slash their marketing budgets how can they ensure that they survive the storm? Lund believes on that contrary that there is no better time for companies to advertise with the downturn creating ripe opportunities for cut price campaigns. "When you look at the long-term historical perspective those companies that continue to market and promote themselves during downturns generally come out stronger. Because at a time when your competitors are spending less, it is in effect, less expensive to buy share of voice and share of mind than it ever is during a time of prosperity. The market is less cluttered and the real cost of media goes down because demand goes down. You can then buy share of voice more cheaply and there is a very good historical correlation between share of voice and share of market."

Share of voice and ensuring that voice is heard loud and clear is now top of Lund's agenda at the COI. But whereas his commercial counterparts will be seeking to gain market share his remit will be to change hearts and minds - a challenge he admits requires a very different approach - particularly at a time when what is at stake is the public's welfare.

Mark Lund began his career in advertising as an Account Management Trainee working on ice cream and frozen food at Lintas. He then spent six years at Collett Dickenson Pearce, where he rose through the ranks to become an Account Group Head. In 1990 he joined Euro: RSCG as Director of International Development. In 1992 Mark rejoined the Lintas network, working for both Lintas Worldwide and Still Price Lintas in London, as head of account management. Lund then joined Delaney Fletcher Bozell in 1995 as Managing Director. In 2000 he and his partner Greg Delaney led a management buy out to form Delaney Lund Knox Warren, where he became Group Chief Executive responsible for all the companies in the DLKW group. He sits on the Council of the IPA and is a governor of the History of Advertising Trust. He is also currently Chairman of the Advertising Association.