Chapter 1. The Creative Dividend.
For years, I have been intrigued
with Sabermetrics. As you may know, Sabermetrics is the statistical analysis of
baseball inspired by Bill James. This objective, scientific approach to judging
talent was used by Oakland A’s GM, Billy Beane. Then, Beane’s success was
immortalized in Michael Lewis’s 2003 book “Moneyball,” which was turned into a
2011 hit movie starring Brad Pitt.
The
premise of the book and movie was: in order to compete more efficiently,
sometimes you have to categorically challenge the way you view things. And
while it was a book about baseball, it really could be about anything.
Football. Investments. Life. Maybe even advertising.
I have often wondered what would happen if we applied this
thinking to the advertising creative process. What would we do differently? How
would we judge talent? Who would we want on our team? How could we work more
efficiently? Who should go into
the new business room? How can we remove emotion from something that is
inherently all about emotion?
Now, I realize that merely asking these questions is asking
for trouble. I will come under scorn for these. But, so did Billy Beane. And now every team in baseball follows
his model – and is run by computer whiz kids with a new set of stats.
So, for the last 10 years I have counted, calculated and come
up with some interesting revelations. But, just like Billy Beane, the first
question I had to ask is, what does success look like? (In Moneyball, good
baseball was about not making outs.) How can we judge good advertising in an
objective way?
What is Good?
When I was a teenager and showed my book around, I learned a
valuable lesson: everyone liked different things in the portfolio. There was no
consensus. No definitive good or bad. So began my search for “What is good?”
It’s a tough question. And everyone in
the business has a different answer or opinion. “You know it when you see it.”
“It makes me jealous.” “It is memorable…motivating… disruptive…” Yes, but these
are all subjective.
Everyone basically
agrees that it has to breakthrough, create an emotion and have a compelling brand-building
message. But how can we eliminate personal bias and quantify it? Here are some
standard measurements:
1. Number of
awards? Creatives love advertising awards. Maybe that is why there are so
many of them. But, let’s admit it, these awards are by and for the ad
community. These self-congratulatory shows (with the possible exception of the
Effies) have little to do with sales, or, for that matter, consumers.
2. Test
scores? Clients love test scores. And they are good for disaster checks and
CYA. But, again being honest, we all know that testing exists in an unreal
situation. It tests the familiar. It rewards the tried and true. It punishes
the new and different.
3. Great
sales? Let’s face it, this is what we are in business to do. But I am not
sure sales alone are an accurate measurement of great advertising. After all,
so many other variables go into sales: packaging, placement, distribution, price,
competition, and the product itself just to name a few. Historically, great ads
have been known to put bad products out of business. Conversely, I have
admittedly sold a lot of (great) product with mediocre advertising.
Here’s a new
measurement that we use:
The Creative
Dividend. This is an actual
number that we can use to determine the bang you get for your creative buck.
Face it, we all want the creative to breakthrough and have a life beyond its
media buy. We want our ads to catch the attention of the public, get picked up
in the media, and become part of the culture.
This is the exponential
power of creative. That’s why clients pay agencies. (If they just wanted to
tout their product benefits, they’d put their strategy on air.)
Here’s how to figure
it out. Put a value amount on the “free media” the creative generates. Then, divide
this number by the actual media buy and production budget. This will give you a
number; it could be .01 or 10 or any number. We call this the Creative Dividend.
Most ads have a number
between zero and .1. Any number over 1 is extremely good. A 5 is
outstanding; great. Anything over 10 is a first ballot hall of famer. Think of
the greatest ads of all time. Apple’s “1984.” Coke’s “Mean Joe.” Wendy’s
“Where’s the Beef.” Nike’s “Bo Knows.” Absolute’s print campaign. All would
have a Creative Dividend over 100.
Now, this formula
isn’t perfect. It assumes that the messaging is positive and compelling. Getting
the two numbers may take some help from your media department. And it discounts the effect of the PR
team. But it does objectively begin to quantify how breakthrough your creative
is.
Of course, most of the
examples I’ve cited are TV-related and pre-Internet. And now TV is becoming
less important in the communication mix. What’s more, mainstream media coverage
is becoming less important in measuring what’s popular and talked about. So…how does the Creative Dividend hold
up in the digital, social media environment?
Actually, the Creative
Dividend is even more valuable and relevant in the world of viral. We have
tweaked the formula just a little:
Views (clicks, likes,
shared) divided by production = Creative Dividend.
This provides some
tangible measurement to how successful your creative is working. This doesn’t reward using celebrities
and huge production budgets – it rewards the simple human appeal of your
message.
