Do you agree with the decision made by Coca-Cola and Adidas, which both sponsor the Fifa World Cup, to come out and express concerns about the goings-on at the governing body, or should they have just kept quiet like the other sponsors? Whose reputation will it damage more?
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a great admirer of Ralph Nader, who once said: "I have a theory about power. It can be exercised responsibly only so long as it remains insecure." If you set out to find an organisation that best demonstrates the truth of this theory, you need look no further than Fifa.
All competitors in open markets are responsive because they have to be. Competition keeps them constantly on their toes. If they become unresponsive for too long, they suffer at their competitors’ hands. That’s why monopolies are bad. For a time, in theory, they may deliver the best stuff at the lowest possible price in the most efficient manner. But monopolies become complacent; they feel too secure; sooner rather than later they begin to abuse the unchallenged power they wield. Autocracies and dictatorships may be much the best at making the trains run on time: that’s why impatient chief executives, frustrated by committees, non-executive directors, planning permissions, environmental activists, shareholder groups and the impertinent media, may envy autocrats their unbridled power.
But once they assume such power, their days, praise the lord, are numbered. Fear of failure is the most effective guardian of responsible behaviour. That’s why any organisation that’s too big to fail is too big. Democracies work, not because the wisdom of the people can decide a nation’s energy policy for the next 20 years but because they can rid themselves of a government that consistently fails to do so on their behalf. And elected governments live with that knowledge.
For a great many years, Fifa has seen itself as impregnable; above the law and above the jurisdiction of any nation. The corruption it institutionalised spread, identified but unchallenged, through its participating nations. It proved to be immune to media revelations that would have destroyed a less-bunkered organisation. It’s a matter of some shame that, in the end, it took America – a nation for whom soccer is relatively unimportant politically – to blow a great hole in Fifa’s fortifications.
Four years ago, both Coca-Cola and Adidas (and I think some others?) voiced serious concerns. Had all Fifa’s sponsors collectively demanded reform under the threat of a boycott – and had they meant it – Fifa might just have tottered. But Fifa was too big – too secure – for any unilateral action to hurt it. And so, unreformed, it plundered on: a monstrous confirmation of Nader’s maxim.
It’s quite unfair to blame the sponsors. But who else had the power to challenge Fifa’s? And what are sponsors’ responsibilities? There are serious implications for sports sponsorship in general.
Does 2015 herald the return of the full-service agency?
I think I’ve been asked this question every year for the past ten. And I think I’ve answered it in much the same way.
While clients continue to find value in media-buying companies’ buying power, which encourages their growth; while still forbidding their creative agencies from working for competitors, which severely limits their growth – it’s hard to see how full-service agencies could again become the norm.
But apply a little Levitt-like thoughtfulness and all becomes clearer. Clients don’t want a quarter-inch drill: they want a quarter-inch hole. They don’t want a full-service agency: they want full service. And, increasingly, they can find it in various forms.
Is it time to stop using the word ‘digital’?
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that digital resembles Japanese knotweed; it’s become ineradicably embedded in our language. Its greatest value is that it doesn’t mean anything. Or, rather, it can be used to mean just about anything. I’ve often wondered what the digital landscape looks like. Whole conferences are devoted to the subject and I still don’t know. Its main function seems to be making people like me feel hopelessly analogue.
Jeremy Bullmore welcomes questions via campaign@haymarket.com or 北京赛车pk10, Teddington Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, TW11 9BE