Creativity pays off. Quite literally.
Is it hard to get the money managers to agree to spend marketing money on creativity? Don't despair! There are arguments that even the most die-hard NHH CFO can understand.
In 2019, marketing and advertising expert Peter Field delved into the datasets of System1Group's advertising effectiveness metrics. When he resurfaced, he concluded, among other things, that:
- Good creativity contributes to profit and growth
What's in "good", you might ask?
It's a minefield of a topic that we'll come back to later, but for now it's enough to know that System1, which Field used as a data basis, has its own star system for creative quality.
Here's the specific advice you need in your meeting with your CFO:
- The higher an advertisement's star rating, the greater its contribution to market share growth: good creativity = growth
- Advertising that scores high on creative quality is 16 times more profitable than advertising that scores low: good creativity = profit
Paul Dyson from accelero group has defined the ten most important drivers of profitable advertising. And he has set a value for how strongly each driver affects profitability.
At the top of the list is brand size, a factor that multiplies profitability by 20.
In second place is creative quality with a factor of 12.
This means that for every marketing dollar you invest in "good creativity", you get twelve dollars back.
Show me the CFO who says no thanks to these numbers.
As true in B2B as in B2C
"But we're in the business market. It's completely different from groceries, clothes, cars and B2C stuff like that!"
Nope!
Although a lot of B2B advertising is about convincing buyers with rational arguments, it is rarely the most profitable strategy (The Product Delusion, The B2B Institute calls the phenomenon).
Over time, the really big money often lies in longer, brand-building campaigns and initiatives.
The reason: 95-5 rule.
When Australia's Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and The B2B Institute went through B2B marketing data from the period 2010-2021, they discovered a lot of exciting things.
Among other things:
- Only 5 percent of your potential customers are in buying mode at any given time.
- 95 percent of the people who might buy what you're selling aren't going to buy it now.
Maybe they'll do it in four weeks. Maybe in four months. And maybe in four years.
The most important thing, then, is that they remember you and what you're selling when they're in buying mode. You are dependent on building mental availability, as it is so nicely called.
The best way to do this is through long-term, brand-building marketing. And what contributes most to brand building? Yes, creativity!
- Interesting? Then you can also read that there are too few tears in B2B marketing, and that your marketing budget should be distributed 55/45 percent short-term and long-term.
Good, effective creativity? Easy-peasy!
Leslie Wood concluded in 2009 that "powerful creativity can be 10 to 20 times more sales effective than mediocre creativity."
But what is "powerful", "effective" or "good" creativity?
In this context, creativity is "powerful", "effective" and "good" when it builds mental accessibility - i.e. that people remember you in an actual buying situation.
According to The B2B Institute, there are three main factors for building mental accessibility through advertising:
- Emotions: We remember better when we feel strongly. Do you want to be remembered? Wake up emotions! And humor is one of the strongest and most effective emotions.
Here, creativity is the most powerful tool you have. - Fluency / clear branding: It doesn't help that advertising evokes emotions if people don't remember who the sender is. Clear branding through distinct brand markers such as logos, colors, slogans, music and characters is important. But be mindful of the balance - too clear branding can spoil the emotion.
Here too, creativity is a powerful and necessary tool. - Duration: Emotional advertising with clear branding should run for a long time. The longer it runs, the greater the effect.
This point is mostly about patience and budgets.
So simple, but so difficult!
Sources: The B2B Institute (2021): "Cashing In On Creativity - How Better Ads Deliver Bigger Profits", Leslie Wood (2009): "Short-Term Effect of Advertising: Some Well-Established Empirical Law-like Patterns", John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute: "Advertising effectiveness and the 95-5 rule: most buyers are not in the market right now", Peter Field (2019): "The crisis in creative effectiveness", Paul Dyson (2023): "Top 10 Drivers of Advertising Profitability 2023", Mimi Turner, The B2B Institute: "The Product Delusion"