Creative advertising works better. Now, how can I get it?

Every now and then an article pops into one timeline or other and it's like switching a light on. And then, in very special circumstances an article pops up and it's like someone switched the light on, and a loud "hallelujah" echoed forth. 

In this case, it was this article by Ryan Wallman in Marketing Week.

So what did Ryan say?

In the afterglow or glow of cynicism following the Cannes advertising festival, he poses this simple question to marketers, : "How much should you concern yourself with the creative work that supports your marketing?"

Of course the answer is as simple as the question. A lot. You should concern yourself a lot. Marketers get the agencies they deserve, and they get the creative outputs they deserve. You and I know this. But incredibly there are some marketers that still doubt the effectiveness of creativity.

Ryan helpfully shows us some research:

1. Admap research, based on an analysis of more than 1,500 case studies, which ranked the top 10 factors that drive advertising profitability, showed that creative execution was the second largest contributor to advertising profitability after market size. Read more here

2. A 2017 Nielsen analysis of advertising effectiveness, based on nearly 500 campaigns across all media platforms proved that creative quality was easily the most important factor for generating sales, contributing more than double the next highest factor (reach). In fact, Nielsens says that "creative remains the undisputed champ in terms of sales drivers". Read the report here.

3. He references Les Binet and Peter Field’s work for the IPA, that demonstrated how creatively awarded campaigns are more efficient at driving market share growth than non-awarded campaigns. He also acknowledges some recent criticism of the "Survivorship Bias" of the survey which of course might be valid. However, the results are borne out by other research institutes such as Ehrenberg-Bass and Nielsen who have reached similar conclusions.

Highly creatively awarded campaigns are more efficient and more effective.

The main point of Ryan's article thus far is this: 

"To state what may seem obvious, marketers can benefit from good creative work – and can benefit even more from great work."

But how to get it? 

You might think that research is the answer. Turns out that sometimes gives you the exactly wrong answer. 

"Peter Field has demonstrated a negative correlation between the use of quantitative pre-testing and the success of IPA award entries. This implies that if you use quantitative methods to pre-test your creative work, you might be doing the opposite of what you intend thereby reducing its likelihood of success."


Here's where Ryan gets to the "hallelujah" part.

Loosen your grip on the creative process.

"Creative work is like a rebellious teenager – the more you try to control it, the less it will do what you want.
With that in mind, the first step is to give your agency some space. Brief them well, then let them do their thing.
Second, remember that it doesn’t really matter whether you ‘like’ the creative work or not. What matters is how your customers respond to it.
And third, don’t analyse the work to death. It will inevitably lead to compromise, and the end result will be anodyne (or worse)."

I'm going add some of my own magic dust onto his hallelujah. Here are my simple steps to achieving great creativity.

Understand, and believe in, great:

Take the day off, in fact take one day off every month, and truly understand  what makes great work great, and how it is an undisputed competitive advantage. If you really believe in its efficacy, maybe you'll try harder to make sure you and your teams deliver great, not mediocre-but-meets-the-deadline.
There are hundreds of resources: get your popcorn out and start with this one:  The IPA - effectiveness learnings

Write inspiring, tight briefs:

Briefs are a strategic document - not a process document. And tight doesn't mean prescriptive, it means absolute clarity in terms of the job to be done.
Briefs are way harder to write than anyone thinks and like most chefs can tell you: bad ingredients in, bad meal out. There are a few key tips to writing good briefs - but most important is to understand that it's not something to be banged out in ten minutes, or cut and pasted from last year's brief. Get the right training, get the right people to write them, give enough time for them to be inspiring. Remember also the three drivers of great briefs: Brevity, Clarity, Fertility. 

Learn how to evaluate and give constructive feedback:

Again, this is harder than it looks. Get your own opinions out the room. Use a tool if it helps to distance yourself. I invented one which I'll give you here for free. I call it R2OI2. (Trips off the tongue doesn't it?) Simple: R = Relevance and Resonance. O = Originality. I = Insight and Idea. and there's ROI = will it deliver against investment and objective?
Biggest wins - a powerful insight and a big idea. If you spend time looking through any Cannes winners' case studies (which you should, after you've done the IPA site backwards), you'll start seeing that insights and ideas are essential. When you evaluate work - if there's a gigantic idea there but you don't like the execution - keep the idea and work on the executions. Mostly, the execution is thrown out with the bathwater. 

And lastly:

Up-skill your team.

Many people land up in marketing or advertising with considerable skills, just not these ones. I'm not being facetious and I'm not saying it because our Creative Fitness and Business Marketing Academy courses could change your life. I mean they could. But, this stuff is difficult and it's risky and it's expensive, yet many people don't know how to do it, and even fewer of then don't know how to do it brilliantly.

It's worth investing the time and money into building these skills. If you don't want to call me to do it, spend some time reading the work of Beloved Brands - there more tools and tips in Graham Robertson's blog and Linked in feed than you can use in a lifetime. He is immeasurably generous with his knowledge.

In the end

We all know creativity works harder and is a competitive advantage and delivers more bang for same buck. In fact the less creative dreck that surrounds us every minute of every day (something above 3000 messages every 24 hours), that we ignore, is often more expensive, takes more time and breaks agency-client relationships.

If you remember only one thing from all of this it's this: Mediocrity is Expensive.

Someone clever said it, and the story of the quote is in itself a lesson. Read about it here.

Make the rest of your year about aiming high. Because your business deserves it.

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Contact Gillian on gillian@adtherapy.co.za or +27832659099 to help you figure out how to find this holy grail. It's not easy, but it's not hard once you know how.

evaluating creative - the toothpaste tube lid in client/agency relationships

Experts say that the small things eventually destroy relationships. Like not putting the lid of the toothpaste tube back on, or squeezing from the top, not the bottom.

Tom Peters, in his book, The Pursuit of Wow, says that his company “sometimes asks clients to compare business relationships with romantic relationships. Take the ending of a typical long-term romantic relationship. Issues as mundane as leaving the loo seat up, socks on the floor and not putting the lid back on the toothpaste tube all mount up to break the romantic bond.

The Forum Corporation of America analysed the causes of customer migration in 14 major manufacturing and service companies and found that 70% moved on because they didn’t like the human side of doing business with the prior provider “

One of the biggest toothpaste tube lids in advertiser/agency relationships is how creative work is evaluated and how that evaluation is communicated. Of course there are other areas, such as new marketing director wanting to change agency, creative work strategically unhinged, budgets not adhered to and so on. But this area of “judgment” is where trust is made or broken. And where trust is present, great work often follows. Why? Because the agency’s best creative teams want to work on the business. They feel respected as professionals. And the client feels like a valued member of the creative process.

Of course the starting block for evaluation is the brief. If the brief was poor, chances are the work will not be great. And if you are evaluating great work against a poor brief, that’s going to be tricky.

Poor evaluation also comes as a result of “I don’t like it” thinking. Not whether or not the target consumer’s may or may not resonate with the message, but just because…

Given how subjective advertising is, and how so often the decision makers are nowhere close to the intended audience in terms of attitude, age, habits, gender and so on, it’s tricky territory.

Layer this with the internal dynamics where the people in the room aren’t always the final decision makers. And there may be a hierarchical speakers-order in the room.

Throw in the fact that the agency team is bursting with barely contained excitement. They KNOW it’s right.

This is where “communication” comes in. The art of constructive criticism, feedback that accurately articulates concerns and aims to make the work better, is a rare skill.

This relates to both the Marketing team as well as the Account Management team giving feedback/writing the brief back at the agency. Feedback should be about direction not judgment.

Of course “I don’t like it” is a perfectly acceptable thought. It’s how it’s articulated that makes the difference.

Feedback can be sugar coated. This invites the wrong work to be presented again, an ambush!
Feedback that’s overly prescriptive or worse, illogical, simply turns off the creative tap. Remember, there is no discount on hourly rates if the tap is off!

This is where the sometimes controversial, and usually hated by agencies, “huddle” comes in. A “huddle”, named by P&G, is simply an opportunity for the Marketing team to “have a moment” with the work, without the agency looking at them like hungry hyenas. Agencies hate it because they think Clients will choose the ‘safe’ work if they are left alone.

But the “huddle” is actually a great tool for agencies.

Agencies have lived with the work before the client sees it. All the rough edges have been challenged and ironed out in reviews. Good agencies may even have done consumer research to be sure they can answer the concerns client may have.

Client on the other hand is a bit nervous, uncomfortable, because this is outside their comfort skills-zone; they worry about saying the right thing (from senior level to junior), or having to reject work, with excited people staring at them. Sometimes they just don’t know what they think, or how to express it, at that moment.

Also, if you have a situation where you have a hierarchy of team players in the room and each one gets his or her say, there is a very good chance that there will be confusion about the debrief.

The huddle allows all layers of the hierarchy to feel free to speak, and able to contribute. Sometimes the junior is the best creative critic! In a big scary meeting the junior will not say a word, and an opportunity is lost. The marketing team can have a good debate, and go back into the discussion, with one clear message. And the discussion can continue.

Recent Adtherapy clients who exercised this reported that they are choosing more creative work than ever before.

Wouldn’t it be great for 2010 if agencies and clients could crack these areas: great briefs, followed by skilled evaluation of creative, followed by constructive and positive feedback? And I repeat, these skills are as essential for the Client to master as they are for the “internal client”, the Account Manager.
I can almost feel a great ad coming on!