Bruce has been talking to a lot of people in the advertising industry across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. In this episode he summarises how it’s all going – activity levels, shooting, working from home, etc. And he reports on everybody’s crystal ball gazing into the future.
You’ll find the full transcript below:
Bruce:
Let’s talk about the advertising industry. How is it coping overall? Is it quiet or busy? Is there any shooting going on? How is everybody handling working from home? What are people saying about the future?
Clare:
Hello.
Bruce:
Good morning.
Clare:
Good morning.
Bruce:
It’s freezing.
Clare:
Very chilly this morning.
Bruce:
Winter has arrived.
Clare:
Winter has arrived.
So what have you been up to in lockdown?
Bruce:
Well, look, it’s so quiet. I’ve just been talking to advertising people. It’s been good fun, really. I’ve probably spoken to maybe 100 people and have I enjoyed it, connecting with people because I’m not pitching anything, not trying to sell anything. Not ringing people up saying, “Hey, can I come and see you next week?” Just having a chat. It’s been good.
Clare:
That’s good.
Bruce:
A lot of these people I’ve known for a long time, some of them 20 years. So it’s actually really good to connect and have a chat to them and talk about what they’re doing.
Clare:
So you want to tell us about it? What are they doing? What’s the advertising industry up to?
Bruce:
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, sure. Well, it’s really interesting. I suppose you could say I’ve got my finger on the music pulse. Although it’s not like a survey, it’s not like I’ve rung people with questions. It’s all very ad hoc. But most of them are busy. Most of them have got stuff to do. A lot of them working on COVID responses and things like that.
Clare:
So there is a pulse, it’s not dead?
Bruce:
Well, no, it’s not dead. I mean, people are busy doing stuff. But I mean, from our point of view, it’s very quiet. We’re not working on big songs or hardly any. And I think it’s the same with most people. They’ve got stuff to do. But a lot of it is just posting socials and doing things like that. But I don’t see people working on big revenue streams. I think most advertising agencies are really suffering from a lack of really substantial work.
Clare:
I guess the big issue is they can’t do TV shoots.
Bruce:
Well, that’s the really big issue for the advertising industry. I mean, some of the issue is that advertisers aren’t advertising, but everybody’s hamstrung by not being able to shoot. Well, nearly everybody. Most people are working on animatics and user-generated content and stuff like that. Some people are doing limited TVC shoots, but when they are doing them, they’re really challenging the things that they have to do.
Clare:
Yeah, it’s all the social distancing and all the hygiene and all of those extra things they have to do.
Bruce:
And people are telling me that when they can shoot, it’s so different. You can only have one or two talent in each scene. A lot of the directors and producers are actually managing things remotely. So they’re doing conference calls, Zoom calls, I guess, either from their home or from their boardroom, trying to manage it remotely, not travelling.
Clare:
That’s a real, real challenge.
Bruce:
Yeah. And then you’ve got all this extra stuff that you have to do to do with paperwork. So they have to do much more detailed risk assessments and they have to have very detailed descriptions of what they’re going to do. They have to have explanations that everybody has to understand, so it’s not just turn up and shoot like normal. There’s so much work to be done preparing and so everything takes longer, everything’s much slower.
Clare:
Okay. Real challenge. And what about working from home? How are people coping with that?
Bruce:
Well, it’s a mixed bag, really. I mean, to begin with most people are saying right at the beginning there were way too many Zoom calls. One guy said to me that he just couldn’t believe that he’d sit in his chair first thing in the morning and sit in his chair the whole day doing Zoom calls, felt like he couldn’t see anything anymore at the end of it. But most people have settled into a rhythm. I mean the same thing with the technology of accessing servers, some people had trouble getting access to the assets on the servers in the beginning. But everybody’s worked that stuff out. Now most people are pretty comfortable with it, a lot of them don’t want to go back-
Clare:
Except those with little kids, they have had enough of homeschooling.
Bruce:
Well, that’s the really big issue. The world divides into two groups. Those with school-aged kids and those either without kids or with grown up kids. And people who have school-aged kids doing homeschooling they’re just going crazy, they can’t wait for everything to go back to normal and kids to be back at school. That is really hard and I sympathize with them greatly.
Clare:
Yes, that is a real, real challenge because we are not naturally teachers.
Bruce:
Well, if we wanted to be teachers we would’ve been teachers.
Clare:
So what is your take on the music and advertising industry as a whole and what do you think about moving forward?
Bruce:
Well, most people are optimistic. Most people are actually saying to me that they think there’s pent-up demand from advertisers, that they think it will come back later in the year, that people have to advertise, brands have to be on TV and on the internet and it’s all going to come back. Some people are saying there’s going to be a surge, a boom. Other people are a bit more pessimistic than that. But the really big issue is that nobody knows when that’s going to happen. It’s going to be a patchy depending on the country. Australia and New Zealand are looking pretty good. And if there is a resurgence in advertising it could be in a month or two, but you don’t know, it could be the end of the year.
Clare:
Who says we’re at the bottom?
Bruce:
Well, you don’t know if we’re at the bottom. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? We don’t know how when the climb back up is going to start and how high it’s going to be.
Anyway, we wish everybody in the advertising industry all the best, and the music industry. Let’s hope we get back to normal sometime soon.
Clare:
To the new normal.
Bruce:
That’s it. See you later.
Clare:
See you later. If you like it, share it.
Bruce:
Thank you. Bye.
If you would like to check out or subscribe to the whole Vlog series of Life on the Border of Music & Advertising, please search for “Bruce Tweedie Channel” on YouTube.
And remember, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, we can help you with finding or licensing songs. Message me!
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Please contact us if you need help with music searches or licensing songs for advertising campaigns, or just want to chat about music and advertising. We would love to hear from you! About anything really.
bruce at musicmill.com.au
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-tweedie-musicmill
Website: www.musicmill.com.au
Credit: the opening and closing sequences feature “Strong Hands” from Ben Catley:
The song: https://soundcloud.com/bencatley/stro…
About Ben: open.spotify.com/artist/66OGdUyXn2WSipn6ZYq7id
Disclaimer re copyright and fair use: https://www.musicmill.com.au/fair-use/
