His main focus has been the diminishing role it now plays in his company's plans. He has been both eloquent and insightful, but there's a growing feeling that a couple of his points are now dated, or at least worthy of interrogation.
In his latest FT article, Harrison says that TV no longer needs to be first choice on the media plan. With more media options than ever before, I agree that brands can now benefit from a multimedia strategy, but to reduce your TV spend over time is a high-risk strategy. Dr Stephen Buck's recent study for the Advertising Association demonstrates a causal link between TV adspend and maintaining or increasing market share for premium brands. "Winners," he says, "spend relatively more on TV advertising than losers."
Harrison maintains that TV doesn't sell itself well enough. I have some sympathy with this. Have we been knocking Harrison's door down with proof that those brands that stick with TV prosper? Probably not. But from what I've seen of Channel 4, five, Sky and IDS in client presentations they do a good job for the category as a whole. As for ITV1, we've made massive efforts to improve our sell. From staging our TV Matters conference to presenting on a far more bespoke basis to clients and agencies. In October, we release a piece of work by Professor Geoffrey Beattie on the impact of television on the brain.
Harrison states that "supermarkets have replaced TV as the delivery channel for a mass audience." He believes it is more powerful to run display ends than to buy a TV campaign. Well, I can't remember the last time a display end built a relationship with me; I can't remember the last time I talked about one in a pub; I can't remember the last time Channel 4 scheduled a programme on the 'Top 100' display ends; and I definitely can't remember humming the tune to the last display end I saw. But all these things happen with great TV campaigns. TV and cracking in-store communication is a powerful, relationship-building mix. Reduce television and, over time, you'll reduce share.
Andrew Harrison has been fantastic for our medium. ISBA/IPA have also forced us to up our game. We're only ten minutes in, but we're all a bit fitter than we used to be.