|
|
'In the hall of bright carvings'&a reply by Anna Hutson, Deputy Planning Director, WCRS In the last issue of Sharp Stick, Paul Feldwick deftly summed up the IPA/APG debate on the IPA Effectiveness Awards and why Planners seem increasingly reluctant to 'play'. He likened the writing of IPA entries to the toiling of the peasants of Gormenghast. 'All year the wretched peasants outside the castle toil at their works of art, then on the day prescribed by ritual, the Earl of Groan solemnly chooses the best. The winning carver receives a prize, all the remaining carvings are ceremoniously burnt - and the chosen piece is installed in a locked room at the top of the castle, where it is never seen again except by the curator'. As one of the 'wretched peasants' who has now quite frequently toiled away in Gormenghast fashion on writing these awards, I'd like to put a different interpretation on why so many Planners no longer 'want to play'. It's not the hard work, or even the horrible ignominy of a 2 star award, it's the fact that we no longer know what it is we have to prove to win, or to whom we are proving it. We don't brief creative teams simply by saying 'do an effective ad for brand 'x''' (although I suspect many of them wish we did). We tell them what effect is required and whom we are trying to effect. Originally (at least this is my understanding), the awards were set up to prove to sceptical finance directors that investing in advertising produces large financial returns. Ergo the awards go to those who can produce the biggest ROI and the most robust evidence that it 'wos them ads that did it'. Those were the simple days. Now, despite the fact that financial directors are, for the most part, as doubtful as ever to the measurable effects of advertising, we appear to have got bored of that simple set of criteria. Now it seems the absolute ROI, as long as there is one, is of no great importance. The important things seem to be either the invention of a previously unthought about means of measuring the effects, or indeed the clever discovery of beneficial but unsought effects. The great irony of this, is that this is happening just as Professor Tim Ambler exhorts us in the inaugural IPA 6 course, to put clear measurable objectives on advertising briefs and get those agreed at client board level; and, just as he pleaded on the advertising industry's behalf to financial directors in Financial News last month, to only judge advertising by the agreed objectives set, the advertising industry starts to award people for achieving things they never set out to do. The equivalent of awarding a gymnastics medal to a 100 meters runner who happened to have a spectacular tumble, or the gold medal to the runner who came in third but took a more interesting route to get there. I suspect FDs don't really care how we determine our effectiveness just that we do so in a robust way. So perhaps we have moved on from convincing FDs and are actually trying to generate a bank of learning for the industry on the many ways that advertising can effect a brand's profitability? A perfectly reasonable objective, and therefore if a case has clear levels of effectiveness but doesn't add to that learning, then it is probably not worth entering. That's fine but let's make that clear and rename them the 'New learning about the effects of advertising awards', So, to return to the Gormenghast analogy, if you tell the wretched Planning peasants what it is that they are meant to be carving outside the IPA castle, we'll sharpen our chisels and toil away, even at the risk of having our offerings ceremoniously burnt with a 'highly commended' at the end of it. Anna Hutson is Deputy Planning Director at WCRS. (c) Account Planning Group 1995-2002
|
 |