Zyman (2004) found out that 84% of award-winning advertisements incorporated entertainment, humor, satire, slapstick etc. to their ads. Nevertheless, only 22% made a call to action. Meaning resulted in increased sales. At the end of the day, we all know the purpose of advertisement is to sell. If we can not manage to increase sales why do we advertise then? As Bhargava (2006, p.163) is suggesting “in most cases, if you manage to entertain your audience but do not generate a benefit for your brand then you have essentially engaged in public service, not a marketing campaign.”
Creativity factor in broadcast media is important to break through the commercial clutter and grab the consumers’ attention. Especially if you think of the fact that, actual message exposure is 25 to 50 percent of program exposure. Brands are competing to get a share of the viewers’ already very limited time and attention. Under these circumstances, everyone feels the pressure for creating ads that are attention-grabbing and memorable. But there is a fine line here. Most of the time, we are missing the point. The whole point of advertisement is to get measurable results. Obviously, this means prompt increase in sales or enhanced brand awareness, which will lead to increased sales.
I believe creativity in advertisement should never be the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to deliver your brand messages to your audience with sensible brand associations and encourage them to take action. Advertising agencies have other motives that lead them to perceive the creativity factor as fundamental. The more eye-balls the agencies get with the creative, the more people talk about it, the more their reputation and business is enhanced. Therefore, it is the clients’, especially the Brand Managers’ responsibility to set and prioritize the goals for the agency. Unfortunately, what we see in real life is Brand Managers also being enchanted with the creativity factor and loose sight of the real goal. But why is that? I think sometimes Brand Managers prefer to take the safe road. Since ROI for advertisement is not always very clear and is hard to quantify, Brand Managers depend on creativity as an easily-seen, easily-understood and comparatively justifiable success factor for their ads.
Ultimately, Brand Managers should keep in mind that it is their responsibility to persuade the consumers to buy their brands. This requires more than just a memorable ad. Don’t get me wrong. I am not against the creativity in commercials. On the contrary, I believe it is very much needed to grab the attention in this massively cluttered platform. However, the main role of a commercial, the art of persuasion, starts after you get that precious attention.
References:
Bhargava, R. (2006). Personality not included: why companies lose their authenticity and how great brands get it back. McGraw-Hill.
Zyman, S. (2004). Advertising doesn’t work. Creative Review, 24(7): 44-45.
Tags: Creativity in Advertisement, Marketing Campaigns, Rohit Bhargava, ROI on Advertisement, Sergio Zyman
May 12, 2009 at 1:58 pm |
I think this is pretty great insight. Super bowl commercials are a great example for this… people will come in to work the Monday following the game and talk about a hilarious commercial they say. Half the time, they can’t remember what product the commercial was for.
In my experience, the best method is to use as few words as possible (simplify, simplify, simplify), include a vanity link that drives them to a site to sign up, make a purchase, etc.
May 13, 2009 at 9:33 pm |
This reminds me of something that happened years ago. A young commercial director asked if I’d look at an ad idea he had for a spec spot. He’d already storyboarded it. He wanted my opinion on it AND advice on what product it might work for. The spot was just a funny gag. I explained that he had approached this backwards – first you have the product, then you write the ad for that product. It took several conversations for me to convince him that his approach was very wrong and would only create ineffective ads. I think this story is a good example of the way a lot of creative ad people think. They often value a compelling idea over an idea that is compelling and sells. While the compelling idea helps the creative person’s portfolio, if it doesn’t help sell what’s advertised, then it has failed.
May 14, 2009 at 11:27 pm |
Good points.
Infact, creativity would certainly work if it is distinctive in nature and paves the direction to the consumer triggering the mind to go for a product or service; but if the creativity, does not lead to any direction, or fails to reach the level of understanding like most Modern Arts, then the essence of the creation is lost, as you rightly mentioned in your write up.
May 18, 2009 at 12:02 pm |
These are some great points and for me the key is that creativity needs to be inspired by the product. You mentioned in an earlier post that you feel the recession will mean the end of many ‘copy cat’ products the market will shrink and will not be able to support them. This wil mean that not only Brand Managers will need to be more savvy but the whole business will starting from R+D. New products need to be truly new not just a copy of somehting that is already on the market. As a result these new products will naturally inspire their own advertisments, advertising agencies will not need to generate a totally new concept for their ads, the product will do some of this for them. The result will be a far more healthy market and better ads focussed on the product.