by Gau Narayanan. Ok, so I’ve slightly, embellished the great Dan Wieden’s quote; I hope he won’t mind. The purpose of this piece is to support his belief of how communications function by looking at what kind of work works before I try and explain why it does and the implications for marketers and agencies.
If we ever want to look at the kind of work that delivers for business, we must start with that of Peter Field, the preeminent econometrician. Through his work for the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the most-rigorous effectiveness body in the world, he has examined the link between creativity and effectiveness. These findings have also been built on by empirical studies by research companies including Brain Juicer and Kantar Millward Brown, and they all draw similar conclusions. His seminal work fuses The Gunn Report database of creatively awarded campaigns with the IPA Effectiveness Databank, with the goal here of determining the link between creativity and effectiveness.
Key observations
His report has a few, key observations:
- Creatively awarded campaigns achieve greater effectiveness levels with much greater certainty than the non-awarded campaigns: they are more reliable investments.
- The greater the level of creativity (ie the more major creative awards a campaign wins), the greater the level of effectiveness
- Creatively awarded campaigns are 11 times more efficient than non-awarded ones in terms of the level of market share growth they drive per point of ESOV.
- The link between creativity and effectiveness appears to be driven by an ‘emotional’ approach which in turn drives buzz, which drives sales and profits.
- And these emotionally based, creatively awarded campaigns also achieve success across greater numbers of business metrics beyond share growth.
So it seems the effectiveness data shows that Wieden was right — work that moves people also moves product.
But why?
To answer this, we need to leave the world of advertising and enter the world of neuroscience. Research and clinical trials by neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio, published in his book Descartes’ Error, helps us better understand how we make decisions.
For centuries, we’ve believed in the concept of homo economicus or rational man. Led by the great thinkers such as Plato, Descartes and others, we have always believed in the power of rational decision-making. However, research by Damasio shows this isn’t the case.
To prove this, he talks about the case of Elliot, a regular white-collar worker who is successful, happy, with above-average IQ. Unfortunately, he developed a tumour which destroyed part of his brain in the limbic system, and Damasio noticed two very important consequences of losing this part. The first was that he lost his emotional capabilities — Elliot couldn’t feel — no happiness, no sadness, no joy and no anxiety. What was really fascinating is that he also lost something else which was supposedly rational: the ability to make even the smallest decision. This was observed in a simple exchange between Elliot and his doctor. When given two choices for his next appointment, he began to weigh up the pros and cons of each choice but couldn’t make his mind up; the rational aspect was perfect but the decision-making was gone.
Emotional centre flips decision switch
From this and other tests, Damasio surmised that it was actually the emotional centre that flips the decision switch. Essentially, emotion helps you decide and move quickly, without all the effort that processes complex stimuli. Analysis informs decision but, when it comes to actually making the decision, we choose what feels right. This is how we navigate the world — the supermarket, the car dealerships, the mall or the mobile phone shop — making very quick, unconscious decisions, governed by our emotional decision-making limbic system.
We’ve seen that emotions help us decide and communications that appeal to our emotions deliver greater business results, so what does it mean for the work we deliver with and for our clients?
I’d argue that the work needs to be simple, memorable, (crucially) branded, and believable for the brand and, given the above, this needs to be wrapped in an emotional story. If we drive reach across platforms and achieve a critical mass, and if (and only if) this story is well-told and worth sharing, it will be shared and talked about, across platforms, more so today than ever before. This in turns drives fame for brands, and ultimately, sales.
Utterly memorable
This is true for all the work we’ve see at Cannes. Whether it’s Guinness Surfer, Cadbury’s Gorilla, Dumb Ways to Die, or this year’s Fearless Girl, Meet the Superhumans, Van Gogh Bnb, or Meet Graham, to name a few, they all subscribe to the ‘theory’ above; they all have very few rational reasons to believe but are utterly memorable, because they move people to feel and buy. As a result, they drive salience at scale and drive business performance.
If you’re still sceptical and need a final data point, then look at the IPA Grand Prix-winning Effectiveness 2012 case study for John Lewis in the UK, entitled “Making the nation cry and buy” [3.3MB pdf]. The title says it all, and the results are impressive. John Lewis turned to emotional advertising to win a place in the hearts of British consumers, which helped the company earn £1 074m of incremental sales and £261m of incremental profit in just over two years. And this success and approach is continuing across multiple platforms.
So, when developing your next brief, remember the importance of emotion, the need to move people and today’s complex world: keep things simple, branded and memorable.
Gautham “Gau” Narayanan is regional director at BBDO Africa and managing director of Net#work BBDO. He joined Net#work BBDO at the end of 2014 after 13 years at AMV BBDO London, and has helped the BBDO agencies across Africa land several new business wins, focuses on talent development across the four BBDO offices and runs BBDO’s regional accounts.
“Motive” is a by-invitation-only column on MarkLives.com. Contributors are picked by the editors but generally don’t form part of our regular columnist lineup, unless the topic is off-column.
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