Creative Rules

I’ve been in the business of being paid to create things that help sell stuff for well over a decade, actually, coming up on two decades. So, I may be a bit biased. It always seemed to me that the most creative marketing was the most effective. After all, who stands around the water cooler talking about the direct response commercial they saw on the History Channel at 1am? But, the Old Spice guy gets an interview on Ellen. The “pass around effect” is a legitimate measure, at least in my mind, of the effectiveness of a spot. No commercial, website, billboard, or Twitter engagement is going to guarantee a sale, but, if it changes consumers’ perception of a brand or product, helps them remember it hen they’re filling up their cart at Target or picking vacation spots, you’re half way there.

How often does anyone buy a car based on those commercial spots where they just show a bunch of driving footage and pitch you on the low price and warranty? I’d bet alot fewer than buy a vehicle based on the spots showing a hipster rodent in a little car or a truck pulling a yacht. If it’s not memorable, it’s not effective. If it’s not creative, either through humor, sex, visuals, cleverness, then it’s not memorable.

This has been proven in a couple of recently released studies by IPA, the University of Toronto and Ryerson University:

http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=144942