\n
As long as I’ve been in the advertising business there has been a
\nvery large question smoldering under the surface of my skin: Does
\nadvertising that we deem to be more creative actually produce better
\nbusiness results, or is that just a fond wish that “creatives” and our
\nsupporters have invented to justify treating advertising as an art, and
\nnot just a blunt instrument?<\/p>\n
As a former copywriter and creative
\ndirector I am a strong believer in the power of creativity in
\nadvertising. In fact, every neuron in my tiny little brain is committed
\nto this belief.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there is another part of my brain (the part
\nthat used to teach science) that tries to remind me about intellectual
\nhonesty, and keeps saying to me, “How do you know this?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
I am not
\n a scholar on this subject. I have not gone through all the literature
\nand all the studies. But I have been exposed to some of the research on
\nthe subject and it worries me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The studies that I have seen and
\nread generally seem to take the following form. The researcher starts
\nwith a group of ads that have been recognized as exceptionally creative
\nby experts or by respected awards organizations and compares their
\nreal-world business effectiveness to advertising that has not been
\nrecognized as such. The results are often convincing, and the “creative”
\n ads exhibit significantly superior effectiveness.<\/p>\n
An argument one could make against this methodology (which I will not<\/i>
\n make) is that it is dependent on two factors that ought not be taken at
\n face value. First, that the experts and award committees are actually
\nable to accurately discern levels of creativity. Creativity is a
\nnotoriously difficult thing to define and the idea that the people who
\nhave been tasked with defining it are particularly qualified to do so is
\n a difficult case to prove.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second argument against this
\nmethodology is about the business results that are used to measure
\neffectiveness. How do we know they are reliable? As someone who has
\nwritten more than his share of case histories, I am very sensitive to
\nthe effect that imaginative writing can play in the description of
\nsuccess.<\/p>\n
If the people assessing creativity are not uniquely
\nqualified to do so, and if the measures of effectiveness are not wholly
\nreliable, then the conclusions cannot be taken seriously.<\/p>\n
But I am
\n not going to criticize the methodology on this basis. For the sake of
\nargument, let’s assume that the experts and awards committees are fully
\nqualified to define and assess creativity and the metrics that are used
\nto define business success are fully accurate.<\/p>\n
I still have a problem.<\/p>\n
Creative
\n awards are usually presented in the year following the initiation of a
\ncampaign. You can’t give awards for advertising created in 2020 until
\nthe year is over. Consequently, awards committees and experts usually
\ndon’t get together to make their determinations until “awards season” a
\nfew months into the following year.<\/p>\n
So there can be a lag time of
\nbetween 12 and 18 months between the time a campaign launches and the
\ndetermination of its level of “creativity” by the experts. In this lag
\nperiod there is every opportunity for the people who are going to be
\ncharged with determining creativity at a later date to be exposed to
\nbusiness results of campaigns. Trade publications, advertising insiders,
\n the business section of newspapers, and industry gossip are reporting
\non winners and losers every day of the year.<\/p>\n
It is highly likely
\nthat the experts are reading and hearing reports of advertising
\nsuccesses and failures throughout the year. By the time they are tasked
\nwith determining levels of creativity, the experts and the awards
\ncommittees have a very good idea of what campaigns produced highly
\neffective advertising the previous year and what campaigns fell flat. Is
\n it realistic to expect these people to ignore what they know about
\nsuccess and failure when they are assessing levels of creativity?<\/p>\n
I
\n find that hard to believe. It seems to me only natural that an
\nindividual will give higher grades for creativity to a campaign she
\nknows to have been effective than to one she knows to have bombed. It
\nseems highly unlikely that an awards judge will deem a campaign very
\ncreative if he knows the campaign was a disaster, the agency was fired,
\nthe marketing director replaced and the campaign pulled off the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I
\n am not implying that experts and awards committees are remiss in their
\nduties or unprincipled in their decision making. I am merely suggesting
\nthat they are human. The likelihood that a human will take something he
\nknows to have been a massive failure and compare it favorably to
\nsomething he knows to have been a massive success is not high.<\/p>\n
If
\nthis is the case, then the process can be, to a worrying degree, a
\ntautology. Campaigns known to have been effective are presented as being
\n highly creative, and campaigns thusly deemed highly creative are
\npresented as proof of superior effectiveness.<\/p>\n
It can be a very simple but obscure example of circular logic.<\/p>\n
I
\n still firmly believe that creativity is the single most important
\ndetermination of advertising effectiveness. But I wish I had a more
\nsubstantial, scientific basis for that belief.<\/p>\n
See Part 2 of this piece here<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As long as I’ve been in the advertising business there has been a very large question smoldering under the surface of my skin: Does advertising that we deem to be more creative actually produce better business results, or is that just a fond wish that “creatives” and our supporters have invented to justify treating advertising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12023],"tags":[14239,8397,14214,17676,1087,5227,8402,2485,17677,5393],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-47014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","tag-ads","tag-advertising","tag-branding","tag-contrarian","tag-creative","tag-effective","tag-marketing","tag-online","tag-television","tag-web"],"yoast_head":"\n
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