It’s an age-old charge for marketeers across the world – Is our marketing working? 

Ever answered “no, it’s not creative enough!” ? 

For many marketeers it is this charge (or sometimes an even deeper misunderstanding of the power of marketing) at board level which actually results in ‘safe’ marketing campaigns.  A kind of ‘status-quo’ approach, carry on doing what has been done before.  Stick to the kind of campaigns that are ‘safe’ and we stay under the radar.  Wholly inappropriate summed up by the famous quote ‘If you continue doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten’. 

In this day and age, return on investment (ROI) is more important than ever.  It is something that every marketing activity should hold at the heart of it. Through the concept, planning, execution and review stage, ROI needs to be at the centre of activity hence the need to create great monitoring structures. But what of creativity?  Unfortunately, particularly in ‘auserity’ times it is creativity that suffers most, often it is the agencies more than the clients who want to be seen as understanding the need to tone things down.  

However two recent reports look to point to the opposite conclusion…the more creative your advertising, the better the returns. The findings come from a study by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and Thinkbox which analysed the correlation between the business performance of 213 brands over a decade and their appearance in The Gunn Report (considered to be the world’s most respected creative awards competition). The IPA estimated that there was a 1-in-7000 chance of any one, randomly selected campaign, appearing in both the lists.  As it turned ,18% of the top business (effective) brands appeared in the The Gunn Report.  

The story doesn’t end there though.  Using other measures such as ‘share of voice’ and market share, a combination proven to demonstrate advertising effectiveness, the results were startling. The report concluded that creative campaigns will drive twice as much share of voice growth (and even more profit growth) than a non-creative campaign.  Also, that creating fame not a brand alone is proven to be the most effective advertising.  For example, what has a gorilla got to do with Cadbury, or a meerkat to do with price comparison websites?  

 

Further backing of creativity in your marketing comes from the unlikely source of Deutsche Bank, who last year published an investor note which concluded. Companies that increase their spend to sales ratios grow sales 30% faster and profits 50% quicker than their peers. 

So perhaps now is the time to get really creative with your marketing, it will probably be the most creative part of your marketing that produces the best results.  

And that kind of news is the kind to share with everyone….Simples!! 

Happy Simon 

Tags: marketing, advertising, marketing strategy, happy, branding, gorilla, meerkat, creative marketing, sales growth, Happy Creative, Simon Brooke