The case for Creativity - Hurman, 2011

Great book, building a case for creative advertising by analysing the business effect of creative vs. Uncreative advertising based on a quantitative analysis of IPA and Effie winning campaigns vs. Campaigns represented in the Gunn report.

“Our objective is effectiveness. Our strategy is creativity.” BBH” (Hurman, 2011, p.24).

According to the IPA 1/7000 campaigns wins a creative award. (Hurman, 2011, p.19). At the Effies 1/5 campaigns that win an Effie also received a creative award. (Hurman, 2011, p.19).

““Everything that’s wrong with the advertising business can be encapsulated by the fact that we have separate awards shows for creativity and effectiveness,” said Deutsch L.A. Chief Creative Officer Eric Hirshberg to Creativity in 2008. “It’s hard to imagine what the analogous award shows would be in other creative industries. It would be like the journalism industry giving out one award for prose, and another for accuracy.” (Hurman, 2011, p.28).

“However, what these findings suggest is that, by and large, if an agency does well at creative awards shows, it’ll also be doing well in terms of effectiveness; that there is a much stronger correlation between high creativity and high effectiveness than there is between lower creativity and high effectiveness.” (Hurman, 2011, p.40).

“advertising isn’t just about producing original, engaging and well-crafted ideas; and that the real trick of advertising is doing so in a way that solves the problem of selling a client’s product.” (Hurman, 2011, p.52). “for creativity to be effective, it needs to be an amplifier of sound strategic thinking, rather than a replacement for it.” (Hurman, 2011, p.54).

 “Social psychologists in the late 1970s found that as people were repeatedly exposed to a ‘persuasive message’, they developed ‘counterarguments’.” (Hurman, 2011, p.74). “Likewise, an unoriginal argument is likely to suffer defeat at the hands of our cognitive immune system.” (Hurman, 2011, p.74). “an original argument has a better chance of persuading people because they haven’t yet developed cognitive immunity to it.” (Hurman, 2011, p.75).

“What this implies is that less creative campaigns are not only less efficient, but also less predictable than creatively awarded ones.” (Hurman, 2011, p.91).

 “”So the suggestion is in fact that creatively awarded campaigns are more reliably effective than non-creatively awarded ones. (…).” (Hurman quoting Peter Field, 2011, p.91).

To sum up: “They generate more large business results than less creative campaigns. They’re more efficient – they produce better results on much lower levels of media spend than less creative campaigns. And what’s more, highly creative campaigns are more certain to produce those results than less creative campaigns.” (Hurman, 2011, p.97).

“the ones that we call ‘fame’ campaigns – they’re the most effective of all.” (Field in Hurman, 2011, p.132). “it is about creating perception of being the brand that is making ‘the waves’” (Field in Hurman, 2011, p.132). “This encourages brand usage by creating perceptions that the brand is bigger and ‘more important’ than before.” (Field Hurman, 2011, p.132).  “The most significant different between creatively awarded and non-awarded campaigns was in the scale of fame effects they generated, i.e. online and offline buzz.” (Field in Hurman, 2011, p.133). “uncreative advertising is very rarely ‘interesting’ to anybody. And while awareness can be bought, awareness doesn’t translate into conversation.” (Hurman, 2011, p.149).

“A recent UK study found that 40% of the top 50 UK brands’ Google pages feature negative PR. (…) That’s a scary fact when, for many companies, Google is their homepage. In 2010, 30 times more people Googled ‘Ford’ than visited ford.com. Their heavily sanitised corporate website full of positive messages is all a bit academic.” (Hurman, 2011, p.138).

 “”The real benefit of these camapigns (…) is not just in the volume sales result, but in the price sensitivity and price elasticity of brands. (…) An extra percent of volume, only a small proportion of that is profit. Whereas if you raise your price by 1%, essentially all of that is incremental profit.” (Field in Hurman, 2011, p.149).

“What makes the case all the more compelling is the absence of contrary research. If there is a case against creativity, it’s extremely difficult to find.” (Hurman, 2011, p.154).

“creative advertising made people conclude that the company had gone to a greater effort for them (52% higher for creative advertising), that the company was smarter (69% higher), that the company developed more valuable products (50% higher), that the company was better at solving problems (83% higher) (…) that the company was worthy of their interest (88% higher) and that the company’s products were worth purchasing (37% higher).” (Hurman, 2011, p.160).

“The theory that taking a less creative approach is more likely to produce a business result is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support that notion, and plenty to disprove it. It’s true among the hundreds of thousands of campaigns produced worldwide each year, examples exist of creatively awarded campaigns being ineffective. But while w earnestly try to lessen those instances, it’s important to remember just how uncommon they are. The research shows that for every 50,000 camapigns, just one will win a creative award without producing a business result. By contrast, just shy of 15,000 uncreative campaigns will deliver no return to their advertiser.” (Hurman, 2011, p.165).

“Highly creative but ineffective work is extremely rare, but very noticeable because it wins awards. What’s less noticeable but without doubt far greater cost to the business community, is the amoun of uncreative advertising that creates little return on its investment.” (Hurman, 2011, p.165).