27 November 2009
	BEST-LIKED TV ADVERTISEMENTS Artful dodgers By Charles Foster

is it possible to create advertising that is liked by both creative judges and "normal" people? Great advertising should meet certain criteria: it should grab consumers' attention, affect their brand experience, stay true to the brand, as well as engage and entertain while sending a clear and simple message. Millward Brown is often asked to compare best-liked advertising among consumers with campaigns that win industry creative awards. Our Adtrack research system has provided a census of new advertising's effectiveness for more than 20 years. Though the primary purpose is to help marketers and agencies plan efficient spending, it also looks at advertising likeability. Top scores demonstrate a superior ability to reach targeted customers with a persuasive message. Findings are based on an annual sample of about 50 000 interviews. So how many of these best-liked ads were honoured at the Loerie creative advertising awards in September? Only three: KFC's "Skop", Bakers Biscuits' "Fairyland" and VW Golf's "Lucky the cheetah". One reason is that an increasing number of ads shown in SA are global executions adapted to the local market. They cannot be submitted for local creative awards. Also, in our experience, consumers tend not to be as impressed by some of the "trophy ads" that push the buttons of the creative fraternity. The latter tend to naturally lean towards ads that are "works of art". As American advertising and marketing expert Jef I Richards once said: "Creative without strategy is called art. Creative with strategy is called advertising." This helps explain why consumers still enjoy ads with babies, animals and humour. The Adtrack results quoted here are across the SA market. There is no breakdown by income or social group, so it's possible some cerebral ads may be more popular in upper-income groups than in the mass market. As a judge in this year's Apex awards for effective advertising, I was encouraged to see how many qualifiers and winners had well-liked TV executions to support them. One wonders if there is a better correlation between effective advertising and liking, as opposed to award-winning and liking? The ideal option would be both, but this is not always the case. I recently attended the Effie Awards, Australia's version of Apex. I was struck by the power of simple, catchy, creative ideas to generate effective and, often, well-liked advertising. The Grand Effie winner was a campaign for road safety, the success of which was established by the number of lives saved, a remarkably powerful metric if ever there was one. The campaign featured girls suggesting that young Aussie drivers speeding weren't clever, just idiotic, and they showed these guys the "Pinkie". The Pinkie became a pop culture icon, which decreased the incidence of speeding when it was waggled at offending motorists. Simple but effective. So the million dollar question is: what do you want for your brand? To win awards or to create awareness and move the product? In the current economic environment, the need to prove a return on investment in marketing communications is compelling. Advertising is a powerful medium capable of transforming businesses and affecting marketers' investment in brands, a return on creativity you could say. By marrying the two, this can ease the often strained relationship between research and creative. As advertising guru David Ogilvy once said: "Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals." Foster is MD of Millward Brown SA