|
|
"It was them naughty researchers that made me do those bad ads" (A response to "Researched to death on advertising"); by Lee Taylor, Director Special Projects, Ogilvy It's the wrong kind of research, done by the wrong people, in the wrong way, based on the wrong assumptions, and interpreted badly. Oh, and the crisps aren't up to much and the white wine hasn't been chilled properly. I exaggerate but that was what I took from Rupert Howell's piece on advertising research in the recent Sharp Stick. My first response on reading it was that the debate hasn't progressed very far in the last thirty years. It's still about finding someone or something to blame for killing "great" advertising. I started life as a qualitative researcher and worked on a lot of pre-tests. I killed advertising ideas, some of them pretty good ideas. I was that researcher. In fact I still remember administering a lethal injection to one of David Abbott's commercials in the early seventies. The reason I recall it is because I still remember the sound track almost thirty years later, having heard it only five or six times at most. Maybe not my best contribution. Creating good, effective advertising is not an easy process. Deciding what to do is fraught with difficulty and riddled with subjectivity. No one involved has a monopoly on wisdom. No one gets it right all of the time. Difficulties arise because those involved have quite different motivations and priorities. When all parties are of one mind, which occurs only when there is agreement that advertising being developed is supremely good or supremely bad, there are no arguments. It's either "back to the drawing board", or "how big is the budget?" In many cases, however, there is no unanimity and then there is conflict. Advertising research functions in an environment that is subjective, labyrinthine and partisan. While there is undoubtedly much that researchers could do to improve the quality of their work, to suggest, as I believe Rupert seems to do, that research and researchers must accept the lion's share of responsibility for the loss of much great advertising, is both unreasonable and divisive. Developing advertising is a collaborative process and conflict is an inevitable part of it. Rupert says that unless it gets its house in order the research industry is going to lose the faith of advertising agencies and clients. I don't know whether this is the case but I can't see that setting researchers adrift in an open boat will resolve anything. Also simply exhorting researchers and research companies to "Do better research!" doesn't help. Given the very different motivations of the parties involved, each would undoubtedly give quite different definitions of what "better research" was. I am no apologist for the research industry. There is undoubtedly some bad advertising research out there, some bad decisions made on the basis of research and there are times when better decisions would be made if those involved, including researchers, had the wit to throw findings out of the window. There is no argument that better research could be done and ought to be done. All I am arguing is that research and researchers alone cannot be blamed for all the ills that beset creative development. There seems an implicit assumption in the piece that if researchers and research were removed from the process the quality of advertising would improve. I find this hard to believe. My guess would be that a few more good creative ideas might escape the cull, but I would be prepared to bet that we would see a similar increase in the number of turkeys. Left to their own devices I do not see a tendency for agencies to produce uniformly great work. Like anyone else, creative people in advertising agencies produce a range of ideas that are good, bad and somewhere in between. For me that doesn't seem likely to change. So what is the answer? I don't think there is a simple solution. The issues are too complex to allow one. However, I am certain that the answer does not lie in seeking to blame one part of the process for all the problems that bedevil creative development. As to what would make a difference, I'd love to see a meeting in which client, agency and researcher gave honest answers to the question: "So, what do you really think?" Lee Taylor (c) Account Planning Group 1995-2002 |
 |