You might have guessed from our front co ver that weve loosely themed this issue around Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes Night). For our non-British readers, this is a tradition in Britain and indeed some former colonies which dates back to the 5th November 1605 and marks a failed plot to destroy the Houses of Parliament. To this day the tradition is continued with bonfires and fireworks (and, inevitably , the odd casualty ).

The link between what we do at GyroHSR and the planned blowing-up of Parliament is not as tenuous as it may first seem. Any of you who have the pleasure of dealing with GyroHSR in any of our operations will know that we have a unique, shared language and that one of the key words in our vocabulary is ignition.

The work that we do with our clients across the varied disciplines, geographies and verticals is united by one thing: it is designed to ignite ideas and behaviour. Through investment in rigorous insight and an uncompromising creative approach we produce iconic, challenging work that changes the way people interact with their customers, their products and services.

There are as many definitions of marketing communications as there are Pantone colours, but the one that Ive always liked the most is extremely succinct and reductionist. Its activity designed to change consumers behaviour. Ultimately, thats why countless billions of dollars are spent in our sector every year to drive businesses forward. As a business with much of its origins in CRM and direct response, metrics like demand generation and ROI are part of our DNA.
However, with almost another twelve months under our belts of working in ber-competitive markets, being pushed to up our ante and offer ever more sophisticated and innovative work, the question is: how can a marketer get an advantage? And the answers simple: creativity.

Simple, really, when you think about it. But people often lose sight of this, particularly in the B-to-B space, where we do so much of our business. Forget the old 70s prejudices about trade and tech marcomms! Businesses today are still producing and accepting mediocre or substandard work that wont move the needle, and hiding behind the old excuses about complexity (products, buying criteria, distribution). They are exactly that, excuses. Business buyers dont lack sophistication, they dont drop 30 IQ points in the car on the way to work in the morning!

At the end of the day, creativity is why agencies exist, its why all of us chose this career, and if it isnt, youre in the wrong job and should leave. My CEO recently paraphrased Picasso saying that everyone was born an artist, and life is simply there to corrupt that feeling until nothing is left unless you fight back. And fighting back, thats what marketers need to do in the face of apologetic mediocrity.

Youll read in these pages extracts from a sizeable piece of research that we carried out recently which looked into the future shape of client and agency relationships. Its covered in more detail further on, but in summary its creativity that clients value above everything else in their engagements with agency partners. Its that magic, the unique way of making them and their businesses stand out, and grow. Its what ignites. Budgets may be under continued and sustained pressure, but businesses are spending less on media and less on execution, not less on ideas.

Another significant piece of research weve just carried out (we will publicise it in the next edition of Gyrometrics) looked at the effect of the rising influence of procurement in the sourcing of creative services. One of the most refreshing findings to come from this is that in the most forward-thinking companies, those that truly value their brands and keep them at the heart of their businesses, procurement has advanced way beyond a remit to drive down hourly rates and is instead helping marketers to buy creativity and manage more qualitative outputs that impact their business.

We started this year with a call to arms from our North American CEO Rick Segal, who said that in these recessionary times its the duty of marketers to drive businesses out of their torpor. Its time for marketers of the world to ignite.