Creative effectiveness - TheMarketingOrchestrator N°35
Dr. Lucie Poisson
Entrepreneurial Head of International Marketing | Business Angel in SaaS Startups | Supporter of European Tech | Content creator (TheMarketingOrchestrator.com)
Marketers, are your creatives genuinely performing? How can you measure it effectively? Understanding the impact of your creative efforts on ROI is crucial, but what does creative effectiveness entail, and how can you ensure your campaigns are impactful from the very start?
Check out the answers of the best marketing specialists I have selected for you in this TheMarketingOrchestrator newsletter N°35:
<1> How creative quality steers ROI success
Is there any better sample to study ad effectiveness than the (costly) Super Bowl commercials? Not really, right? That may be why Kantar has explored ads for the famous game, as AdAge reported in March 2022. The study usefully reveals the current stats of affairs: the creative quality of an ad plays a pivotal role in driving return on investment. As the research exposes:
Advertisers saw a 3X higher ROI when improving an ad's creative quality from "average" to "best."
In the dynamic digital landscape, where marketers focus heavily on media metrics, Kantar's thorough research points out that creativity is a vast and often untapped lever for ROI.
As an entrepreneurial marketer, I resonate deeply with the fact that great creativity isn't just about what you say; it's about how you say it and what challenges us as marketers to prioritize and amplify the often underestimated power of storytelling in our marketing.
<2> Measuring creative effectiveness: the marketer paradox
In his article published in Marketing Week on July 2023, Josh Stephenson highlights marketers' critical importance on creative effectiveness, even as measuring its success remains elusive. With 80.5% of marketers recognizing its influence and a substantial number increasing their focus on quality creative, it's clear that standing out in a challenging economic climate is paramount. However, only 57.3% of marketers measure the effectiveness of their creative work:
What if it was time to find innovative ways to track the impact of creatives for sustained success?
<3> Creative measurement: what top advertisers do
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In her article published in 2021 on Kantar, Leila Buckley reveals how 2021 Creative Effectiveness Award winners like Heineken, Bosch, and TENA harnessed advanced market research technology. How? These brands refined their ads through consumer feedback, creating distinctive and emotionally resonant content that builds long-term brand equity. Buckley explains how automated ad testing platforms have revolutionized this process, offering the agility to gather and act on consumer insights quickly. Indeed, these tools enable iterative testing, allowing brands to explore new creative territories and refine messages in real-time without sacrificing research rigour—a meaningful agile approach toward effectiveness measurement, from my point of view.
<4> Creative Effectiveness Ladder or what creative effectiveness truly is
During the virtual Lions Live 2020 festival, James Hurman and Peter Field reveal a framework for planning effective marketing communications, as reported by the IPA: the creative effectiveness ladder. Each level of the ladder represents one of the six specific marketing outcomes to be, from least to most commercially impactful:
Derived from analyzing nearly 5,000 case studies, this framework clearly shows the different levels of effects that a significant creative pushes forward. The creative ladder is an excellent tool for measuring how far we are in brand building… and the path to continue.
Good to know: you will find the initial video and the related white paper with each ladder precisely detailed on the IPA page.
<5> Cracking the code: five tips for improving creative evaluation
Entering the dynamic phase of creative evaluation, Dan Stone, the creative director at duft&watterson, clarifies what really matters for you and your marketing team to identify what makes a powerful creative. Stone's directive is clear:
Personal Note: In my marketing journey, I've learned that effective creative evaluation demands a fragile balance between strategy and gut instinct.
The evolving insights from industry experts and cutting-edge research underscore a vital truth: creative quality is a powerful driver of marketing success. By leveraging advanced measurement tools and embracing innovative strategies, marketers can transform creative efforts into substantial ROI and lasting brand impact. To thrive in this dynamic environment, we must prioritize creativity, balance data with intuition, and continuously seek new ways to measure and enhance our marketing effectiveness.