The Party’s Over. Let’s Celebrate.
In this guest post, Chris Stephenson of media agency PHD thinks he lost the room when he tried to tell the audience at the newspaper industry-organised Caxtons conference that it was time to change – and wishes he’d been able to offer more solutions.
It was reported this week that the Caxtons’ famed ‘junket’ to an exotic location will not happen this year. We were reassured however that next year said junket will be back
Well phew. Heaven forbid that in the midst of the biggest systemic shift in print advertising in several generations we miss the chance to junket it up somewhere exotic.
Bear with me…
It sounds like you came across as an obnoxious tit, if you don’t mind me saying. Maybe that’s why you left your audience so deflated. And as an aside, this whole thing of dancing on print media’s grave is becoming somewhat tired. Don’t regurgitate the problem, offer proven, constructive solutions. If I hear somebody else say “reinvention” I’ll scream!
Hi Anon,
You may have been somewhat fooled by Chris’ somewhat self-deprecating writing style. I didn’t see his Caxtons presentation (I’ve never been – it’s always seemed like something of a hard-to-justify junket to me) but I’ve seen him present on a number of other occasions. He never comes across as obnoxious.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Cool story guy
Yep, Anon, sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming lalalala is a great solution.This is why you’ll be left behind.
Mumbrella and Chris, tend to agree with Anon, least on “dancing on print media’s grave ” thing, it is very tiresome, particularly when you’re in the middle of it and audience numbers are still reasonable (in the millions), and those readers are still buying the stuff advertised…if it’s dying, at least let it die a natural death, not murdered by misinformation…
Well I was there unlike the rest of you. Chris was fuelled up, tee’d off and was terrific. Chris, you are mistaken. I think half the room was in shock and the other half needed time out to digest the truth. You mistook this for losing the room. You actually had ’em at hello.The only problem was that your media thinking comrades were absent from the room that weekend. And the boat. And the bar. And the boat.
Hmmm. I love an informed debate about a presentation by people who never saw it and a conference they were not at. Way to debate the issue. Some observations from one who was there.
1. Caxtons has a bad rap. I hear it used to be a wild party. It’s now a serious conference about advertising. Albeit one usually in a nice location. That’s the trade off for it being at the weekend in my opinion. I heard Lee Clow and Jeff Goodby speak last year. About serious stuff. Some junket. Give it a break.
2. Chris spoke well, was humble and had an opinion. Not an easy thing to pull off. Give yourself a break buddy, you were pretty good. The KPI is did Belgo slag you off at the awards dinner? He didn’t but he did have a pop at Goodby. So I reckon that’s credit to your performance.
3. There was no dancing or graves or gloom or doom about print. Nobody hastened its bleedin’ demise. That the Mumbrella readership assumes there was says more about them and how they feel about print. There was some discussion about things not being all rosy in the entire story telling medium garden. That was the theme of the 2 days. Hard not to mention some of the elephants in the room, like declining readerships / circulations and changing mediums. But nobody vamped it up.
4. And yes I think you do read an audience well Chris. You lost them a bit. I think you’re right, you didn’t show them a way out, didn’t get to clear solutions. Given you were talking about the future of all advertising, not just print, I think you get to play the ‘but thats a lot to ask’ card. Sometime it’s not you it’s them.
In summary we all know our industry faces re-invention and Chris made a valid, informed, entertaining addition to the debate about that. If it re-invents itself without the stimulus of the Caxton’s and the mindset shift that comes from being somewhere utterly different to the office, I for one will be sad. I’ve been to 3 Caxtons now and learned a lot from some very talented people. As well as having a beer or two in a nice hotel. Long may it and contributions to it, from talents like Chris continue.