Creativity is in the eye of the beholder

Prepared and presented by Mark Brown,

Planning Director, Leo Burnett

For IPA/Admap seminar 13th Nov 97

‘How to make creativity in advertising work

harder
(Slide CIIEOB)

Creativity. Why do we bother? There are many

benefits to producing communication in a
more creative way but there is only one real
reason. Generating impact. It is all about
connecting more effectively. Being more
visible. Being more relevant. Thereby, having
more impact.

(Slide ‘How to define and measure

creativity?)

This begs the question, how do we define

creativity? How do we know if we are being
creative? Who says? Why should we trust
them? How do we measure creativity? How
do we know if one idea is more creative than
another?

Let’s look at some ads. How do we know if

these are creative?

Show films - Jeep, New York Lotto, Anti

Drug

If they caused any reaction in you then you are

in good company because they all won
creative awards. We’ll come back to these
later.

If creativity is all about impact, then we can go

some way towards measuring it. There are a
number of research methods which aim to
quantify the sort of impact that an ad may
have. If we consider ‘impact’ to be the ads
ability to create awareness in the traditional
sense, then Millward Brown can give us an
Awareness Index. If we define impact as the
ability of an ad to stand out in a break, then we
can go some way towards measuring that.
However, most people will tell you that impact
is more than that. It is also about relevance.
Relevance to the brand and relevance to the
consumer.

So creativity is about impact, connection,

relevance. But impact on who, relevance to
who, connection with who? Fundamental to all
this is the intended recipient of the creativity.

(Slide CIIEOB) Creativity is in the eye of the

beholder.

(Slide Artist) Let’s for a moment consider

the art world. An artist produces a piece of
work.
(Slide artist with work) Who can say
whether it is creative? The artist will believe it
to be or else he or she will destroy it. But is it
enough that in the opinion of one person it is
creative? How many people need to agree
before we can deem it truly creative? Let’s say
they have a lover.
(Slide lover) Let’s say that the artist created
the piece for their lover.
(Slide artist+work+lover) If their lover finds
it creative, if it has impact, if it connects then
it is creative even if no-one else agrees.

Who determines if a half a cow in

formaldehyde is creative? It tends to be the
critics who give art validity. In this case
Damien Hurst produced his piece with his
peers in mind. He knew what they were
looking for. He also knew that they had the
tools to understand the piece. Most of the
general public think it is a piece of nonsense.
If it had been intended for mass popularity it
would have been deemed a failure.

This means that we can only asses an items

creativity if we understand it’s relevance for
the intended recipient.
(slide creativity is made up of two parts)

In other words, the concept of creativity not

only involves the idea, but it involves the
target.

(Slide build)Creativity is in the eye of the

beholder.

Henry Cole following his Great Exhibition,

formed the Museum of Manufacture within
which he created a display of mass produced
items. His instruction in the catalogue was

(Slide quote) ‘The public.... are requested not

to look at the articles in the museum as mere
objects of vertu... but to examine their beauties
or defects with reference to the principles laid
down, to aid the examination critical notices
will be found...’

In other words don’t consider the merit of the

object in isolation. Understand the context
including the role and target for whom it is
intended.

We can’t consider the creative merit of any

piece of advertising without fully
understanding the nature of the person or
people for whom it is intended.

How do we therefore judge whether something

is creative?

(Slide judging creativity)

As an industry, one of the only measures of

creativity that we have is the industry awards
that we have around the world. This is where
leading lights in the advertising and marketing
world come together and pass their opinion on
the advertising output of the previous 12
months.

The question of the relationship between

creativity and effectiveness has been explored
here today and Graham has referred to the
study undertaken by my colleague Donald
Gunn, on behalf of Leo Burnett.
(Slide do award winning commercials sell)

To remind ourselves, the study looked at the

400 most highly awarded ads between 1992
and 1995.
(Slide 86.5%)

The key finding of our four year study is that

346 (86.5%) of these were associated with
marketplace success.

Now, if you look at a given market category

over a given period of time, what tends to be
happening on average is that about one-third
of the brands are going up ... one-third are
going down ... and one-third are holding.

Well, 86.5% is over two and a half times better

than 33%. Which basically may suggest that
award show judges and our consumer’s have
got a whole lot in common in the way they
react to advertising.

(Slide Tick) Creative advertising works.

Lets consider this again. Our universe was not

the most effective ads in the world, it was the
most highly awarded ads. This was the start
point of the study. There is no question that it
proves that critically acclaimed ads are much
more likely to be successful. But what else can
it tell us.

These are the ads most widely admired by our

peers in the Advertising and Marketing world.
I asked myself the question When assessing
the pool of ads did the judges ask themselves
‘Do I like it?’ or did they ask themselves
‘Would the target find it creative?’ We will
never know for sure but I thought it interesting
to look at the brands featured in these ads.

(Slide Judges were target)

80% of these awarded ads could be said to

have a target market which includes a group
called ‘successful people in advertising and
marketing’. Is it possible that the ads deemed
to be creative by these people are indeed
creative to them because they are the intended
target. In other words, they may have been
assessing the ideas on the basis of how much
impact the ads had on experts in the
communications industry.

Perhaps it is easier to deem a piece of work

creative if it caused a positive first reaction in
the individual. Perhaps it is more difficult to
judge whether work is creative for other
people. It is easy for us to talk about what
makes us respond. It is less easy to talk about
what makes other people respond. This can
become subjective. One creative directors
view of a 14 year old Indian girl in Aberdeen
may be different to the next creative directors
view of that same person.

Perhaps in reality for work to be deemed

creative, it must work for two audiences.
The consumer and the marketing peer group.

(slide two audiences)

Indeed, it can be argued that it is this very

duality which is the making of great creativity.
It could be the bringing together of two often
discrete audiences and the inherent desire to
produce an idea which has impact amongst
both of them which facilitates the creation of
really great advertising.
Perhaps the trick is to understand what the two
audiences have in common in terms of
attitudes, behaviour or values which gives a
platform for the truly creative idea which
resonates with both targets.

Having said that, I feel that there can often be

an imbalance. As an industry, we know
ourselves pretty well. We know what makes us
tick. We have an intuitive understanding of
what is required for an ad to have impact
amongst our peers. In order to give the
consumer equal weight, we should know them
equally well.

As we all know there can often appear to be a

conflict of interest within the client and agency
brand team. It can seem as if creative teams
are creating with the peer group primarily in
mind and giving the consumer second billing.
It is perhaps not surprising that a client will be
keen to re-dress the balance. If every member
of the brand team recognised the importance
of both targets in achieving great creative
work and every member of the brand team
knew the two targets equally well then we may
have a greater first time success rate.

When creative process works well it is because

the creators have an intuitive understanding of
the consumer target. When account teams and
client teams consider the merit of creative
work, we must have the same intuitive
understanding. We must strive to look beyond
the stereotype and see the people within the
target group.

We will always have a first reaction as

individuals.
(Slide two stages)
What we must then do is project that reaction
onto the target consumer.
(Slide build) ‘If I felt that way how would the
target feel?’. Too frequently we, we simply go
through first stage of this process. The second
stage of this process requires an intimate
knowledge of our target. This in my mind is a
key area for creative techniques. Any method
which gives us a deeper insight into our target
can be of huge benefit in making creativity
work harder.

(Slide two points of impact ) This has impact

at two points. Firstly in helping the creative
process by giving the creative team the most
intimate understanding of the target.

(Slide build) Secondly it has an impact when

the work has been developed. When we come
to asses the merit of an idea as an account
team or as a client we can be more objective
with a common, thorough understanding of the
target. We can begin to overcome our
subjective point of view and consider the idea
within the context for which it is intended.

(Slide understanding means we can push

further)

The better we know our target, the better able

we are to be ‘creative’. It liberates us because
we are not dealing with stereotypes. It helps us
move forward from how we have always
thought about the consumer. It allows us to
break the rules. We know how far we can push
it.

If we don’t know them well then we can’t take

the same level of risk with the same degree of
confidence.

I was once involved in the making of a new set

of Oxo family films. For the first time one of
these films had no product shot or brand
mention. This was only possible because the
whole brand team knew the target equally well
and understood that they would self complete
the message and that we would achieve a very
strong take out even without any product or
brand mention.

Remembering the films I showed at the

beginning. All three films have won creative
awards. In the case of the Jeep film, it required
a clear understanding of the consumer and a
high degree of confidence that the target didn’t
need to see the car beauty shot. New York lotto
delved deeper to find that their target would
love to get one over on their bosses. The Anti
drug campaign got through the bravado
surrounding this topic and uncovered a true
human insight making an incredibly emotive
ad.

Here are some more films where the intimate

knowledge of the target led to a different way
of doing things. A cereal that doesn’t show the
cereal or talk directly about the benefit but
recognises that there is a common attitude
amongst it’s target. A family fast food chain
whose client knew the target so well that they
felt comfortable with ads that made reference
to sex and featured a divorced couple, and an
underwear brand that really knows it’s target
as you will see.

Show films Special k, McDonalds, Fruit of

the Loom

How do we get to know our target better. What

techniques are available to us to help make
creativity work harder?

Obviously we have research. But reading

research off the page barely touches the
surface. We need to get to know the target.
Live with them, talk to them, get to love them
a little. We need to do everything we can do
break down the stereotypical, or subjective
view of some of our more common target
segments. There is no such thing as a Frozen
Pea consumer. There are only people. Some
people happen to buy frozen peas but it is not
their buying of frozen peas which defines
them, there are more important things in their
lives.

(Slide Getting intimate)

I have heard tell of the researcher who

conducted Perrier groups in a Jacuzzi. This
may be taking it too far.
However, through a fuller understanding of the
target we can produce greater creative work. It
is therefore a source of competitive advantage.
We can achieve this competitive advantage by
looking at the target longer, harder, or
differently from our competitors. Here are
some tips about how we can achieve this
clearer insight.

(Slide Top Tips) Tip 1 - Don’t rely on

researchers to this. Do it yourself. If you want
to truly understand breakfast time, go and
watch people having breakfast or at least film
it. You can talk to people in groups until the
cows come home about their breakfast
behaviour. But it is only in observing it
directly that you would see the military like
precision of family breakfast time. Consumers
are unlikely to be aware of this because to
them it is just normal everyday life . It is our
observation which can unearth insights.
Comedy often relies on human observation.
The comic will see patterns and peculiarity in
everyday things that we may not otherwise
notice. I think comedy can be an excellent
source of ideas as well as an example of the
power of human observation. So, a little light
relief for a couple of minutes to illustrate the
point.

(Show Comedy clip about human

observation)

(Slide build) Tip 2 - Abuse research. No

research is pure so abuse it as much as you
like. Some of the most insightful
understanding can come from the brand team
spending a day or two with people from their
target market. Get them into a hotel, talk to
them about their lives, ads, the product
category. Of course you will end up
influencing them. This is no way to evaluate
advertising but it is a great way of getting a
common understanding of your consumer.

(Slide build) Tip 3 - Use lenses to look

through. Semiotics , NLP etc. give us different
ways of looking at consumers. Don’t group
people together based on their behaviour. Look
deeper. There is a wonderful database owned
by Synergy Consulting which groups people
by their values. This goes far deeper than any
behavioural segmentation and gives us a much
greater, clearer insight into them and what
motivates them.

(Slide build) Tip 4 - Use other peoples

observations of your target. In exploring night
people recently huge insight was gleaned from
talking to gatekeepers to the nightlife. Bar
staff, Doorman, Taxi drivers etc. They
provided unique insight into the target. The
Mercedes Skid marks ad demonstrates what it
feels like not to be a Mercedes owner. This
insight into the non-target has then been used
to produce a feel good ad for Mercedes
owners.

(Slide build) Tip 5 - Don’t use consumers to

be the final arbiter of creativity. Use your
intimate understanding of them. The only way
of knowing how consumers will react to
advertising in the real world is by showing it
to them in the real world. At its best, research
can only approximate that. It is incredibly
difficult for people to imagine how they might
feel in the future. If we use consumers as
arbiters we will only find out if an idea fits
with their current perception. We will not learn
about how things could be. We are paid to use
our judgement to find out how people might
feel about something. It is too easy to use
consumers as a crutch to avoid using our
judgement.

Knowing them better means that we should

rely on them less to tell us we are doing the
right things. It is far better to invest in research
heavily before the creative process starts than
to use it as an evaluative tool. By spending the
money early we get the benefit of it
throughout the creative process.

(Slide build) Use consumers as a source of

inspiration not as a means of limitation.

To finish with I’d like to show you some more

ads. Try to imagine the situation before these
ads were made. We’re in the daily newspaper
market. We need to create a unique positioning
which the editor, marketing department and
advertisers are excited by. I think you will see
that the only way in which these ads could
have been made is if everyone involved had
the same clear and profound understanding of
the target market.

(Show Daily Star films)

Thank You.