A friend from the UCT’s Research and Administration Department mailed me this article which contains some interesting comments from the big leaders of Ad Agency conglomerates.  Written by Ian Burrell the article starts like so…

Advertising is an art form ¬ but as consumers' attention wanders, many of its practitioners fear that it's no longer reaching the heights it was once capable of. So is the industry suffering an ideas crisis?"

The problem with some of the comments in the article is that they do not give an account of how these "good ideas" affected the brand's turnover.
Why was a campaign that ran for 10 years great, other than that they had enough media spend to milk the warm and fuzzy feeling as long as they could? I am sure some campaigns did have a tremendous boost for the bottom line using this technique, but a lot that walked away with awards and creative praise did not.

For me, they keep missing the trick of linking creativity better with the effect on sales and using this data to improve the advertising for all parties concerned. Some agencies may fear linking creativity with sales as this may mean the big media and production spend approach is totally blown out the water when clients perceive they are not getting value anymore.

The media owners are also worried as they stand to lose the most if traditional advertising approach is seen to carry less value. There is also the perception that "creatives" could be stifled by all this data as they are paid to produce ideas, craft work and not to interpret statistics. My feeling is that this is going to have to change as there is no running from measurability.

Sir Frank Lowe mentions something important in the process of brand strategy being discussed by media/ brand strategists and account managers and clients only so that by the time it gets to he creative studio...its already at the "just do this stage"! But creatives have to be there early in the process and most importantly... they need to want to be there from the beginning!

Creatives who can understand the stats/measures, produce the ideas and craft the work to a high quality without being held back by the measures (and this is the tough part) is the "creative of now and the future". Obviously the team around them is also vital in helping them achieve this.