It's Time for Creative Confidence

It’s at a moment like this you can choose your negative stat to define a narrative of doom and gloom.

UK consumer confidence is at an all time low with an overall index score from GFK of -44, the lowest since 1974.

Recent ONS statistics show that UK GDP grew by 0.2% in three months to June resulting in the UK being the only country in the G7 with a smaller economy than before Covid.

The Bank of England said earlier this month that the UK is already in a recession as it forecasted a fall in GDP of 0.1% in the third quarter.

YouGov research found Liz Truss has a net rating of minus 59 that is even lower than Boris’s at his lowest ebb of -53.

And closer to home in our industry, the post Covid bump is rescinding with Agency appointments down 31% in H1 2022 versus H1 in 2021 according to the AAR July New Business Pulse.

It’s also at a moment like this, that after the Conservative party conference put Truss up for her speech against a blue-backdrop, culture captures the spirit of our nation with a plentiful choice of burning meme after meme after meme.

And if we look back to the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, where according to the IPA & Thinkbox, the effectiveness of our industry’s most creatively awarded campaigns at increasing a brand's market share fell rapidly, versus non-awarded ones, with a drop from being twelve times more effective to just four times effective.   

What the narrative coming from both commerce and culture shows is one of a harsh winter ahead, and aligned with the historical perspective on the output of our industry above, it feels that as a collective, both marketeers and ourselves have a tendency to retreat from our core promise of creativity being the driver of real market share change in a moment like this.

And that's simply not what our industry needs.

For now, more than ever, as our CMO’s (and CEO’s) are being pressured on all sides by cost challenges we need to be the confident creative partner providing insight and innovation to drive high rates of impact and change.

A study by the HBR in the last economic crisis in 2008 would provide two key supports to this fact.

Research has shown that companies have twice the opportunity to change their relative position in an industry during a recession compared to growth times.

Most companies who gain ground during recessions keep it later, and most who lose ground do not regain it later.

With the learning from this perspective being that more creativity, not less, is the single driver that can define how our brands can win in this moment.

So, instead of imitating the battered posture of our government right now we should be  looking at 2023 way more optimistically and confidently.  

Especially, if we look back into some of the award winning output of the 2008 and 2009 crisis that birthed seminal creative moments in our industry, from the CP&B Domino's Pizza Tracker, to Fallon Cadbury Gorilla, to The Best Job in the World for Tourism Queensland, Trillion Dollar Campaign by TBWA Hunt Lascaris, and the Great Schlep by Droga.

These were all immense business, brand, and even country shaping ideas that show this should actually be a renaissance time for creativity and its power.  A moment in time to face this challenge with a deep confidence in our opinion, product, and capability, to create real change in the businesses and brands we work with to deepen the value of what we do.