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A legacy of experience and wisdom

By Paul Middleton, issued by Ebony+Ivory

29 Aug 2024

As we approach the end of the year, I find this is a good time for reflection and planning. I start with a review of what we’ve achieved and what we need to do better. This year, I went back a little further and found myself looking at the old advertising my father had done in the 90’s for our agency.

I’ve often referred to the client pain points he actively targeted in his advertising, and I believe they are the same today and we still live by them to ensure we truly deliver on what a client needs. But the ad I looked at was not about the pain points, it was simply titled The Journey and spoke about the importance of our logo, which was a set of scales at the time. It read:

“In 1969 these scales symbolised the need for a balanced outlook in advertising, the most important force in marketing. There to remind us that good advertising is a blend of many things -

Form and Function,
Science and Showmanship,
Impact and Restraint -
each plays its part in the whole to Maximum Efficiency.
34 years later…
More products, more advertisers, more competition, more media options.
The Science needs to be more precise,
And Showmanship more visible.
Good advertising continues to be a blend of many things -
Form and Function,
Science and Showmanship,
Impact and Restraint -
each playing its part.
It’s all a question of balance.

Science | Showmanship | Performance | Results”

It reminded me again, that now - 50 years later - little has changed…

Having recently read Professor Byron Sharp’s latest - and deeply interesting - book, How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know, it entrenched the fact that finding the balance in advertising, whether it’s traditional or digital, is still as relevant today as it was in 1969. Prof. Sharp uses empirical evidence to demonstrate how critical constant and broad-reaching advertising and brand communication is to the purchasing behaviour of consumers. The two key elements being ‘constant’ and ‘broad-reaching’.

But what does that mean and how do you achieve it? I believe it’s quite simple, and in today’s myriad of ways to reach, engage and delight clients, it’s all about integrated marketing that creates an always-on presence that’s impossible to ignore. When we focus only on one thing, we never gain the traction that is possible, and needed, to catapult a brand to achieve greater success. And that’s why we’ve grown our agency to provide an integrated specialist services offering that incorporates all the services you expect from a traditional agency married neatly together with the digital age to help optimise advertising campaigns, save time, money and resources and drive growth.

Let’s talk about your advertising needs… az.oc.yroviynobe@ofni or call us on +27 11 327 6871

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About Paul Middleton

Paul Middleton is a director of Ebony+Ivory, the oldest independent, specialist services agency with the rare privilege of a track record that spans more than half a century. We have all the services of a traditional agency married neatly together with the digital age.

E+I is an independent design and media agency with a 50-year track record for strategically-strong and tactically-smart campaigns. The unconventional, conventional agency. We're wired to go beyond brief and to deliver brand savvy campaigns on time and on budget.