COLUMN: Innovate or go backwards

We had our first directors' meeting last month. It was a very interesting discussion. Part of the meeting was to review how we got on last year, while the rest was focused on what the plan of attack should be for this year.

As it turns out, the conversation we've been having is much the same as it is around the region. First of all, it seemed that it took until February for everything to wake up. My theory is that people were so shell-shocked at the end of last year that they needed to take more time off; furthermore there was a sense of relief that we managed to survive an extremely turbulent time. How I felt at the end of last year is actually unprintable; suffice to say I needed a very good break to recharge the batteries.

So as we look to the year ahead, bearing in mind many of us are near the end of another financial year, all we can see is a lot more challenge. And in many ways the challenge is greater than this time last year. Back then we all knew that the world was going to hell in a handcart and we needed to cut our cloth accordingly. Many of us did this and came out weathered but not beaten. An achievement in itself.

The big difference is that it's now very hard to actually work out the lie of the land. There are mixed signals in terms of property prices, building consents, manufacturing figures etc, and an uneasy calm that makes it hard to determine how things are going to go. And while the business world is fully back in the swing of it, there doesn't seem to be a lot of momentum or depth to what activity is happening.

So I reckon it's going to be another very challenging year. And the more disappointing aspect to this is that whichever way the cloth was cut last year is not going to fit this year's conditions. It will be a case of innovate or go backwards.

The reason for this is that businesses found new ways of doing things last year; in our case it was about finding new and innovative ways to talk to our clients' customers while at the same time making sure that everything we did was action based and had the potential to lead to a sale. Many of the businesses we deal with pulled marketing spend and some went completely underground as survival mode kicked in. So we had to work extremely hard to add new clients to the mix just to keep our revenue line straight. There was a lot of prospecting and cold calling. A strategy that was shared by many others.

But now businesses need to think again about how to deal with the conditions. In a business-to-business environment such as the one we work in, we are finding that many businesses have the same or slightly fewer people – all of whom are having to do a lot more than they were 12 months ago.

We're also finding that the money they didn't spend last year is still not going to be spent. On top of this, there is still a real wariness and a complete lack of urgency when big decisions are required and, of course, huge competition and discussions around price for every job.

This is not doom and gloom, not even close. It is the way it is and the way it is likely to be for some time.

Chris Williams is chief executive of King St Advertising.

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