One might expect China to win more awards in the "new" media
channels, digital and integrated, given its enthusiastic adoption
of digital technology. But most of its awards are in the "old"
media of print, cinema and TV. In these channels, it wins 21% as
many creative awards as the U.S., while in digital and integrated
channels it wins only 3% as many.
Perhaps Chinese marketers have not yet had the support or
evidence to value creative awards. That seems to be the message of
a study by research company Millward Brown comparing Chinese ads to
ads from other Asian countries. Chinese ads are mainly used to
convey product facts. They are more likely to show a demo of the
product composition, together with multiple product messages. They
are less likely to use humor or music, and, crucially, fewer appeal
to the emotions.
However, a new analysis suggests creativity can hugely increase
effectiveness. The analysis split campaigns entered for the IPA
Effectiveness Awards into those that had won creative awards and
those that had not. It turned out the creative campaigns sold
eleven times harder than the non-creative campaigns.
An average effective campaign grows the brand's market share by
0.5% points per unit of communications weight. However, an
effective and creative campaign grows market share by 5.7% points
per unit of communications weight. That's eleven times more market
share growth. Creativity gives a turbo boost to effective
campaigns, leaving effective but not creative campaigns behind in
the dust.
Where does the turbo boost come from?
There seem to be two factors. First, emotive campaigns are more
likely to win creative awards and more likely to be effective, too.
They are twice as likely to increase profits as rational campaigns,
because they exploit the "hidden power" of advertising. Most brand
learning is not actively processed: we pay little conscious
attention to brand communications. However, when we choose between
brands, our choice is influenced by markers created by past
emotional experiences and learning. Logic persuades but only
emotions motivate.
Second, creative campaigns are more likely to generate brand
buzz. In the new communications age of consumer-generated content
and social media, this benefit is multiplied many times over.
Creative campaigns get discussed in chat groups, forums and Twitter
aand searched on Google. Facebook groups emerge that love them, and
they are imitated and parodied on YouTube. All this extra coverage,
frequency and engagement costs nothing.
Advertisers may wonder whether the findings of the IPA research
apply in Asia. We believe they do. This region's best creative
campaigns share the same characteristics as the IPA collection,
only more so. They are even more likely to exploit the power of
emotions and create more brand buzz. It seems creativity sells the
same way in Asia, including China, as it does globally.
We have identified five barriers to getting better creative work
and suggest how to overcome them:
1. Is your pre-testing system obsolete?
Does your pre-testing system encourage creativity, or stifle it?
It's easy to find out. Get the 10 best-scoring campaigns from your
research supplier and review them with your agency's creative
director. How many of them, if any, have won creative awards? Ask
about the diagnostic feedback from the research company. Does it
inspire and motivate the creatives, or reinforce mediocrity?
2. Is your creative approval process
streamlined?
How many layers does creative work have to go through before it
gets made? Are there people who can only say `No`? Is the initiator
also the decider? Creative ideas can be stifled by bureaucracy. Our
own David Ogilvy liked to quote a short verse in this connection:
"Search the parks in all the cities. You`ll find no statues to
committees."
3. Does your firm appreciate the importance of
production values?
Your consumers probably do. High production values send a signal
that you have confidence in the superiority of your brand, which
produces more favorable brand perceptions.
4. Do you incentivize your agency for
creativity?
Behavioral economics shows that practically all business
behavior can be explained by incentives. If you congratulate your
agency for winning creative awards, and make winning them part of
the bonus package, it will try harder. But if you treat creative
awards with indifference, so will your agency.
5. Do you practice "pervasive creativity"?
You will get a more creative product if every stage of the
development process stimulates and inspires, from the marketing
brief, to the creative brief, to the research, to the
pre-production meeting. Every contact with the agency is an
opportunity to challenge it to do better creative work.
Tim Broadbent is Ogilvy & Mather's
global effectiveness director, based in Beijing.
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