Global market research company Ipsos has launched a specialist area to help optimise the creative development process and help marketers get the best creative for advertising campaigns.
Creative Excellence will be headed by Mark Hutchinson who has more than 25 years experience in brand and communications research.
Hutchinson has developed and delivered advertising research programs for both local and international companies in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, China and Indonesia.
He says Creative Excellence’s early research approach will help create “bold” advertising.
“We're all about helping advertisers and ad agencies in ensuring that they’re advertising their communications are as creatively excellent as possible,” Hutchinson told AdNews.
“That matters because as we all know it's getting harder and harder to get the attention of people out there with an ad campaign.”
A study from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) found that creatively awarded campaigns gained 11 times more market share than those not awarded.
Companies named Creative Marketer of the Year at the Cannes Lions have, on average, outperformed the stock market by more than three times as well.
“We know creativity is important because creativity equates directly to business results,” Hutchinson says.
He uses the Snickers "You’re not yourself when you’re hungry" campaign as an example of a simple insight helped make a hugely successful global campaign.
“Brilliant ad but you know the reason why it is particularly successful? Because it taps into an insight or a human truth that everyone - no matter their nationality or whatever the case may be - everyone can relate to,” he says.
“That is, you're not yourself when you're hungry - or when you're hangry.”
Hutchinson admits that in the past research and creative haven’t always seen eye to eye but Ipsos is hoping to change that with Creative Excellence.
“In the past, I think it was fair to say, market research had this reputation of coming along and killing the creative side by giving that bad score and not really understanding the context of things,” he says.
“That's something that we really wanted to dispel. Research should be viewed more as a creative enabler or nurturing creative.”
The new service line is made of two components, Creative Labs and Connect Digital.
Creative Labs comprises a combination of quantitative and qualitative research with the advertiser and their agency involved in a ‘hothouse’ environment.
Hutchinson says they usually test the ads on approximately 50 people for the quantitative session.
Based on their responses, six to eight of these people are then invited to be part of focus groups for the qualitative session straight after.
The process happens all in one day, rather than the weeks or months it market research may have taken in the past.
“If you think of a real hothouse where you grow tomatoes or vegetables or other flowers, the whole theory behind that is you're elevating the temperature so that growth can happen quicker,” he says.
“You're accelerating growth. So, it's the same idea.
“We're trying to grow ideas or grow an understanding of which ad might have more potential than another by putting all of the stakeholders in one room for the day and seeing the results come through in real time.”
Connect Digital evaluates digital ads in-context and in live platforms to quickly understand the potential of ads and where to optimise.
This process is tested on 120 to 150 people.
“It helps us understand not only how likely are people to notice the activity but also how likely it is to have an impact a positive impact for the brand in terms of imagery or purchase intention,” Hutchinson says.
Simon Wake, Ipsos ANZ CEO, says the new service line’s early research process is helping brands come up with “best-in-class creative advertising” which drives overall business performance.
“We know today more than ever that the power of creativity has a direct relationship to business performance,” Wake says.
“Mark brings a perfect combination of passion, skills and experience to work with advertisers and agencies to achieve creative excellence.”
Ipsos Creative Excellence offers a full suite of services including creative development, creative assessment and creative in-market.
Globally, Ipsos’ Creative Excellence teams work to create a learning ecosystem that adds value to clients' businesses through great creative.
Ipsos has already worked with global advertisers including ABI, Libresse, Carrefour and Carling Black Label.
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