Don’t Speak to Creatives About Effectiveness

How do you speak to creatives about effectiveness? Martin Weigel, chief strategy officer at AMV BBDO doesn’t. And he’s quite comfortable admitting that because he knows how it would go. “For many people ‘effectiveness’ is something that you think about and evaluate at the end of the process,” he says. “Often (though not always) in the pursuit of some effectiveness award or to plump up a case study with a suitably impressive ‘ROI’ number.” 

None of that is what he wants his agency’s creatives to be thinking about. And don’t take it the wrong way. He’s not trying to ‘protect’ them. “I don’t believe in the infantilisation of creatives and keeping them away from the reality of our clients’ business and marketing challenges. And really great creatives don’t want to be kept away from that reality. They’re as passionately interested in solving clients’ business issues as the next person. Work that runs isn’t enough for them.” 

In Martin’s experience, really great creatives want to get into the roots of the problem or opportunity. They want context. “They want to know what problem they’re solving, not merely what proposition they’re being asked to create work from.”

In short, great creatives already keep effectiveness as a priority, without strategists patronising them about it. “They want to create change in the world. They want to know what that change looks like in reality. They want to know what that change looks like in thought and behaviour out there in the real world. And they want a robust and inspiring hypothesis of how the advertising needs to work,” he says.

“All of which is to say that thinking about how to create strategic effect and consequence in the world is an input into the development of advertising, not merely some post-event audit process for data jockeys. And if we’re not feeding the creative process with well thought through, imaginatively framed problems, then we’re failing creativity.” 

So if strategists like Martin are speaking to great creatives, then both sides are already talking about effectiveness, even if they dance around that specific word. 

As well as words, Martin is cautious of frameworks or models that oversimplify effectiveness, unless truly necessary. “They’re a container for thinking, not a substitute for it,” he says. “When it comes to creating and evaluating strategic effect, it helps to remember that we’re in the haute couture, not pret-a-porter business. Our specific creative solutions are designed for the specific context, specific challenges and specific opportunities that a specific brand and specific business with all its specific history, specific associations, specific business model, specific culture, specific strengths, weaknesses, and so on…

“So any effectiveness model or framework must, by its very nature, be designed with that client in mind.” 

As for inspiring creatives, Martin believes that’s best done through conversation. Not slides with frameworks and diagrams on them. 

Before starting at AMV in 2023, Martin had worked at agencies as varied as Leo Burnett London, J. Walter Thompson São Paulo and Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. And has witnessed the different ways these shops have built in processes to consider and evaluate effectiveness. 

“Any agency worth its salt understands that creative solutions derive their value in direct proportion to the extent that they solve a client's business problem,” he says. “And it understands too, that effectiveness is first and foremost an input into the development of creative solutions, not only ever a process of evaluating them.”

But those inputs must inspire creativity to flourish. “Getting fired up isn’t an edge case. It can’t be an edge case,” says Martin. “Our task is change and transformation. Getting excited and fired up about that is the job. Everyone’s job. For the simple reason that marketing communications is at heart about the transfer of enthusiasm.” 

He rattles off some AMV examples:

“With Macmillan we’re fired up about fighting the injustices cancer inflicts on its sufferers.

“With Guinness 0.0 we’re fired up about dismantling the idea that alcohol moderation can only ever involve compromise.

“With Curry’s we’re fired up about offering a better option than unassisted (and therefore uninformed) selling.

“With [can’t say it’s pitch] we’re fired up about [can’t say but it’s exciting].

 

“The fact is that at its best ours is a hopeful, optimistic, future-facing industry. And it’s beholden on all of us to create the conditions where ambition and possibility can thrive.”

If creatives don’t get involved in what will bring about these changes for clients, then Martin doesn’t blame them for their lack of excitement. “It’s probably because we make it boring, rather than useful and inspiring.”

As CSO, there’s a responsibility to build an ‘effectiveness culture’, possibly without using the ‘e’ word. “I could point to all the very many effectiveness awards we’ve won over the very many years. But I think that would obscure the more important truth that we don’t live for effectiveness awards, but to create change, advantage, and value for our clients’ businesses,” says Martin.

“That responsibility lies at the heart of the agency’s culture. And it’s only made possible by the intimate, co-dependent relationship that exists between the strategic and creative functions. As CSO, my contribution is to help protect, stimulate, and nurture that culture. By championing bold thinking, champing bold ideas, and championing bold thinkers.”