Rob Morrice: Why I'm done with Vision+Media
Rob Morrice has had enough of Vision+Media. Here he tells The Drum why he's taking matters into his own hands.
I joined the Vision and Media Steering Group last year and volunteered myself on to the Client Group. I was ably joined by Peter Cobley (now of Home James in Leeds), Simon Rhodes (the principal of Smiling Wolf, a great little creative design company in Liverpool).
There were others, but they remain nameless because they did sweet f.a. They, like many volunteers had good intention. It’s just that their intention didn’t turn into action. We also had a ‘contact’ at V&M, whose role I thought was to facilitate us, but that didn’t happen either.
However Peter, Simon and I pride ourselves in being ‘men of action’ so we put together a simple plan, which Peter outlined to the Steering Group at the end of last year and which we further developed and finalised last Tuesday at a meeting in Liverpool.
The plan is simple. Develop a Website and Book to be marketed to the UK client community. The content would be a series of white paper ‘style’ articles by industry figures in the North West, educating clients about how the creative and marketing sector has developed in the region and what’s on offer here.
We intended to cover Ad Agencies, Design Companies, Media Agencies, Social Media, Digital Agencies, Branding Experts, B2B Marketing, Public Relations and Experiential. We also had a guru lined up to write about Creativity, a client to cover Agency Brokers and a Procurement expert to tackle that thorny subject. Added to that we were developing a Glossary of Terms, a list of worthwhile Award Schemes and a rundown of Trade and Accreditation bodies.
For clarification, it was our fourth meeting and we spent significant, if not quite substantial, working time in between. Then I received an email from Enda Carey (head of games, digital and creative services at Vision+Media) saying our project was ‘being brought to a close’ at the end of March due to withdrawal of funds by NWDA. In other words ‘thanks guys, but no thanks’ .
Actually, no I take that back, he didn’t actually thank anyone in the email, which is surprising because he’s not that type of guy. I reckon I can forgive him because likely he is even more pissed off than me. I will, however, be waiting for a thank-you letter from my local MP, George Osborne, the very man who ultimately took the dosh away. Some hope.
Truth be told, I wasn’t surprised to receive the email. I knew it was coming ages ago. If Peter, Simon and I were cynics, we would have downed tools ages ago. But we are not. We three come from the school who believe if you say you are going to do something, you do it. I wish successive UK governments were the same.
We’ve been hogwashed for years about how there’s going to be substantial, meaningful help for the creative industry and it virtually always coming to nothing or the money allocated goes into the wage packets of civil servants, consultants or research companies. I’ve never seen a halfpenny of it and I don’t ever expect to.
But what sticks in my throat is the endless twaddle spouted from Westminster about consultation with industry. Consultation my ass. Nobody in government has ever asked my view on anything and I was a Board Member of the IPA for ten years and currently run the No 1 B2B Agency in the country. And everyone knows I am more than willing to put my tuppence worth in on subjects I feel strongly about.
Anyway, I’ve had enough of it. Enda said in his email we could target Creative England. That’s a laugh – if not a contradiction. More chance of getting through to Fabio Cappello.
Instead, with the support of Peter and Simon, I have put it to Gordon Young that we go ahead and do the Website and Book in conjunction with the Drum and even extend it to other regions. He’s said yes so now we are going to do what maybe we should have done in the first place - take it into our own hands. At least that way, we’ll know it’s going to happen.
Rob Morrice is the managing director of Cheshire agency IAS b2b Marketing.