Our Julie has been moonlighting as a journalist recently. If you didn’t see her article in Marketing Week, we’ve included it below.
Everyone wants creative that works, right? Return on investment is under more scrutiny than ever. And yet how much intelligence actually goes in to creative work to ensure its success?
By intelligence, I mean the consumer insights that should inform creative work. I don’t mean ‘Janet and John’ type info on the target audience such as age and basic socio-demographics – such traditional and basic definitions now seem almost anachronistic. I’m talking about asking questions of the audience and really listening.
At a time when the world and his wife are constantly interacting – whether that’s on Facebook, Twitter or innumerable blogs, people are up for sharing their lives, loves and hates more than ever.
Why not take a leaf out of Chris Tarrant’s book and ‘Ask the audience’? Consumers like to be asked and tend to respond in hoardes. If you have a treasure-trove of untapped knowledge, why wouldn’t you use it?
Asking consumers what they want is not a replacement for talented conceptual creatives but what it does do is shape ideas and messaging so that they completely resonate with the audience. It adds science to subjectivity.
Irked by the frequent lack of consumer insight when conceiving creative campaigns, we developed a process called Proven Creativity. This involves asking the audience what they want from the product or service in question before starting creative work. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Then why is it so infrequently done with specific reference to developing creative communications? Especially when it’s proven to deliver better results. Sure, some folk pre-test ad concepts, clients conduct customer research of all types and good DM agencies are positively turned on by profiling, segmentation and testing. All good stuff. But what we do specifically relates to creative work – before it even gets started. We do it, because time and again, it’s proven to be worth its weight in gold as far as response rates and ROI go.
How does it work? Before creative is started, we survey the audience to find out what resonates with them. Questions depend on the communications in question. For a product launch or re-positioning, we might probe compelling propositions and appealing messaging hierarchies, then ensure that ensuing communications are crafted to closely reflect consumer preferences. For established products and services, we often get into the nitty – gritty of the vernacular, imagery and response devices a particular audience prefers and ensure these are reflected back in the creative subsequently developed.
No surprises then, when the audience receives the resulting communication, that response is better than ever before. You’ve given them what they want, articulated in a way they find compelling! It’s not rocket science but it is creative science and when you really need results, that’s a whole lot better than a wing and a prayer.