Tim Mottau.
Tim Mottau, Head of Strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi Australia.
We often hear strategy referred to as something that sits behind the work - guiding or inspiring it. But while judging AWARD's Creative Effectiveness category this year, I noticed the strongest entries challenged that idea entirely. Strategic thinking didn't bow out at the point of execution; it lived inside the idea.
The strategy was showing in all the right ways, making the work impossible to imagine without it, and inseparable from the creative and commercial ambition.
The work in the room came from different categories, had different challenges and used different creative approaches. Yet there were some remarkable consistencies that stood out.
It all starts with a genuinely compelling insight.
Among our finalists, there were no broad observations about today’s consumers, and not a generic trend in sight. Every idea grew from a deeper, richer, and sometimes uncomfortable, human truth that gave everything around it a sense of inevitability. You didn’t just understand why the work made sense, you felt why it was important it was made in the first place.
Ideas that weren’t based on trying to say everything, but knowing exactly what they sought to change. The strongest examples had remarkable clarity of intent.
From there, emotion changes everything.
The work that rose to the top wasn't just understood. It was felt. Not simply well-reasoned and argued, it moved people. This emotional response wasn’t separate from the results, more often than not, it was the reason for it.
Because of this, we found ourselves constantly going back and forward between what was on the page and what we could see in the work in our discussions.
We’d be talking about a sentence in the paper one minute, then an executional decision the next. We’d interrogate an insight, sense-check an objective, review the results, while always referring to the work.
A well-written paper can explain an idea, but only the work can make you believe it. The strongest entries were the ones where the strategy, creative and commercial objectives reinforced each other. None of them seemed possible without the other.
Given the scale of many of the challenges they were tackling, I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
There were some genuinely difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, problems to solve.
Many of the strongest entries aspired to change culture and behaviour, not simply shift perceptions. The teams behind them weren't searching for better answers so much as asking bigger questions.
This meant some of the work touched a real nerve, requiring some deft handling of some complex, but critical issues.
Ideas that were born out of culture, treated with respect and brought to life with restraint. Important strategic decisions would have been made throughout their development, and it showed. The ambition in the work was relentless, as was the craft in every thought to successfully bring it to life.
Ideas that continue to grow in power, over time.
As we neared the pointy end of the day, we found ourselves asking a pertinent question: “is this something we’ll be talking about in the years to come?” Both in terms of the work’s impact, but also its staying power.
Some of the ideas we saw were brand new, some had been in market for years. In both cases, we were looking for the enduring value of what we were judging.
Long-term effectiveness had some remarkably strong brand platforms as finalists. The teams behind them had continued to find fresh, timely and relevant ways to continually infuse them with power. They were a nice reminder that when a platform is potent, it doesn’t wear out, it compounds.
Judging the AWARD Creative Effectiveness category, amongst a group of such clever, considered people, generously debating some of our market’s best work, was a great reminder of how good this industry is when opinion, curiosity and challenge are shared with kindness around a table.
Through everything: the finalists in the room and the discussions around the table, it was clear how intrinsically linked creative and strategy are in driving effectiveness.
All in all, I was left with one lingering thought from the day: the best creative strategy doesn't simply inform effective creative work. It inhabits it.