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P&G’s Marc Pritchard Talks Creativity and Advocacy in Role as ANA Chair

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When the world's largest advertiser talks, the entire marketing community listens. Procter & Gamble's Chief Brand Officer, Marc S. Pritchard, not only shared his thoughts about raising the bar on creativity at the ANA's annual Masters of Marketing conference, but he is taking on an additional leadership role as the new ANA Chairman. He outlined his agenda for marketers, and also offered his perspective on creativity and today's hot-button issues like "content," "media transparency," and "agency relationships.

As incoming Chairman of the ANA, Marc Pritchard will emphasize three key areas

  • Higher-quality advertising
  • Advertising that makes a difference
  • Media transparency

In both his opening keynote address and his Chairman's speech, Marc Pritchard referred to the industry maxim that "clients get the advertising they deserve." As a result, "Job one," he said, "is to be the absolute best at our craft." He encouraged marketers to "create the very best advertising the world has seen," and added that in the midst of so many negative headlines, it is critical today "to invest in our creative agencies and all the agencies we work with."
Priority #2 for Marc Pritchard is to create advertising that makes a difference. Ultimately, this means work that has the potential to make the world better. "Our voice can be used to step up on important matters such as gender equality, racial bias, diversity and inclusion, and environment and sustainability."

His third area of focus is media transparency, and he stressed that this is a subject to which the entire industry is accountable. "We have spent too much time and money on nonstandard and faulty measurements, and on a media supply chain that is murky at best, and in some cases, even fraudulent. If we can create driverless cards and VR experiences, surely we can find a way to track and verify media accurately. It's time we come together to solve these problems," he said.

There's no question that Marc Pritchard believes in the enormous potential of advertising at its best. In fact, much of his address on raising the bar on creativity focused on what he described as "the craft of advertising." And while he offered a clearer definition of advertising and examples of strong creative work, he also joked, "Let's face it, advertising has a bad reputation. I guess that's why we've been trying to rename it 'content.' "

(Please download the full PDF of this article at the link to the right.)

Source

"P&G's Marc Pritchard Talks Creativity and Advocacy in Role as ANA Chair." The Internationalist. Number 79, 2016.

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