Creative advertising generates sales? Brits say so

Hi Everyone-
I received my usual pile of mail news alerts today, but this one in particular caught my eye. It's always been debated that the creative, award winning advertisements got attention, but didn't make the cash register ring (kids, in covered wagon times cash register had bells inside them). I remember writing and producing spots when I worked in radio and fighting the battle of wanting to be creative or just piling on the price and item scripts.

A report from the IPA (the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), a trade organization in the UK, says that their studies indicate that creative, award-winning campaigns actually drive business and profits higher.

According to the report mentioned in the Ad Age magazine online article:

"Creatively awarded campaigns are a more reliable investment -- they achieve greater effectiveness levels," said Peter Field, the marketing consultant who authored the report, which looked at a number of business metrics in the study to determine effectiveness, including market-share growth, sales, profits, return on investment, likability and emotional appeal.

The report concludes that the link between creativity and effectiveness is driven by two important factors: the emotional communication model favored by the most creative campaigns, and the much greater "buzz" effect that creativity engenders.

"Creativity and effectiveness are inseparable. This is a good first step, but there's still a lot of work to do to show the exponential value of great creative ideas," said Bert Moore, chief strategy officer of Lowe Worldwide. "It's bizarre to believe that there's a creative answer and a business answer. In other creative industries, like architecture, film and music, the creative solution is always the answer to the problem."

Maybe this is a sign that we in the audio production and voice talent agency world will see more requests for character voices and comedic approaches to spots? That's a simple assumption...a funny voice does not a creative spot make...but it's a start.