I'm currently embroiled in an increasingly heated discussion with Millward Brown over the details of a recent LINK test. I won't go into full details, but there are two aspects of the methodology which struck me as baffling (at best) or utterly pointless (at worst).

Firstly, LINK gives your ad an "active engagement" score (which is a key component of the all-important AI score). To measure the engagement of your ad, the respondent is simply asked which one of the following words applies most to it: Interesting, Irritating, Pleasant, Boring, Distinctive, Unpleasant, Soothing, Ordinary, Involving, Disturbing, Gentle, Weak.

While MB go to the trouble of dividing these words into four quadrants along active/passive & positive/negative axes, it is only the active/passive which contributes to the "engagement" metric. So having someone respond with "soothing" or "pleasant" (passive, +ve) is just as bad (in terms of your engagement score) as having them respond with "weak" or "boring" (passive, -ve). Equally, this methodology would have us believe a respondent who describes an ad as "involving" is just as engaged as the person who describes it as "unpleasant".

Now, is it just me, or is this just a bit ridiculous as a meaningful measure of engagement?

Elsewhere in the LINK test, they conduct an "interest trace" (ie a worm), which you'd think would be quite a good measure of engagement (ie if the line is largely above zero, people are interested). But no. "Interest" apparently has no bearing on "engagement", and the worm is only used to tell you which scenes you should keep and which you should cut. (Because that's how consumers actually respond to TV advertising, right? With a second-by-second analysis of whether each shot is interesting or not).

Further on in the test, MB measure for "Feel Good Factor", based on claimed emotional response to the ad. While this is useful data, it is apparently not a component of "engagement", which is limited to rational response only. Given what we know about the role of emotion in creating engagement, this seems somewhat bizarre.

Even more bizarre is the second score I'd like to discuss: the "Link Persuasion Score". MB tell us that this is a measure of "advertising effectiveness in terms of persuasion".

While this a truly noble goal, I can't help but wonder at the methodology employed: simply asking respondents whether the ad would affect their use of the product being advertised.

That's it. That's how Millward Brown measure how persuasive your ad is going to be. By asking people who've just watched the ad. Again, this seems to display a ridiculously simplistic and naive view of how advertising works.

Anyway, rant over. Next week, I am sitting down with a senior chap from the MB "Global Solutions" team to discuss all of this and more. I must say I'm curious as to what his reponses may be.

If any of my loyal readers have any questions for him, by all means fire away.

(photo credit here)

I've been reading a collection of essays by the late (and really rather brilliant) David Foster Wallace recently, and he made this aside on the relationship between advertising and art:

"The reason why even a beautiful, ingenious, powerful ad (of which there are a lot) can never be any kind of real art: an ad has no status as a gift, i.e. it's never really for the person it's directed at"

Even given the current vogue for "participation" (flashmobs, crowd-sourcing, social media campaigns etc), I still think he has a point: while our industry is better at making people feel engaged and involved with our campaigns and brands, and is increasingly focussed on creating cultural capital (not just mental spam), we are still ultimately doing it for our client, not the public (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that).

PS -if you haven't read "Infinite Jest", I suggest you take a couple of weeks off and do so

Snoop, Daft Punk, Beckham and Darth Vader -oh yes! Make sure you clock the shots of the sky ("that's no moon...")

Always interesting, that process of trying to distil down all of your thinking into one thought, or even one word. For some, this is the Holy Grail of what we do, whether it is a planner's strategically complete yet creatively fertile proposition or the creative's perfectly apposite endline.The 'gold standards' are always discussed, from BMW's "The Ultimate Driving Machine" to Apple's "Think Different".

But the one that everyone seems to lionise is Nike with "Just Do It". Now, there is a certainly a clear insight and a leap of strategic brilliance to "If you have a body, you're an athlete". But have a look at Dan Wieden telling a story about the birth of what is probably the most famous tagline of all time:

Probably not the most plannerly argument on earth, but, hey, it's Friday...

from via

from icanread via ffffound

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." -Plutarch 

Don't bombard your creative teams with dense piles of facts and large uncut logs of research reports, especially at the initial brief.

Rather, give them some highly flammable insights and then work with them to gently fan the flames.

See also

image credit: notoriousJEN

As a Kiwi, I find it bloody hard to lavish praise upon anything that comes from 'The West Island', but this VB spot from Droga5 is a cracker.

The endline is just on the right side of the "fine line between clever and stupid" (D. St. Hubbins). It fulfills the dictum that 'great ads transcend target markets'. It doesn't hold with all that beautiful-cold-frosted-glass hero shot nonsense. And it feels like the start of something much bigger (go take a look at the website).

But what really does it for me is the lack of artifice and bullshit advertising pretence. It feels real, authentic and inclusive, and, to this planner at least, this has never been more important. Not just "perceived authenticity" (ie well-acted spots with a patina of realness to them) but real, genuine authenticity. Real insights into real people delivered with real (non-addy) humour.

From my own experience, we have seen the benefits that "Dance" and "Singalong" have had on the T-Mobile brand, transforming it from a.n.other purveyor of vibrating air into a brand which consumers have a genuine affinity for, a brand that doesn't just advertise its brand promise ('Life's for sharing') but which actually lives and breathes it by bringing it to life for people in the real world.

We need to be in the business of forming relationships between brands and consumers. And how much easier is to form a relationship with a brand that across as human and real and honest and understanding? While many brand owners still believe that "their" brand belongs to be up on a pedestal, their more successful colleagues have figured out that a) it isn't "their" brand at all, and b) it is far, far better to be down rubbing shoulders with your customers.

from Flo Heiss via ffffound

Thanks to Lee for the heads-up

A superb quote for planners (or, indeed, creatives) from someone who always managed to find something new and unusual.

We are never going to find fresh, new, exciting & original ways of doing things if we keep doing the same old routine.

So mix it up. Take a new route home. Listen to music that is outside your current taste. Don't just visit museums and galleries to see exhibitions that you know you'll like -wander aimlessly and allow yourself to explore and discover. Stumble across some of your unknown unknowns.

image via i can read

In the chair today we have the new Virgin Trains offering (awfully titled "Success Express") from MCBD:



Now, there is much that we could say about this ad. That it simply isn't very funny. That it is an over-earnest pastiche of those pastiche ads that Mother used to do (usually with Traktor, who shot this ad). That it is shouty and patronising, and makes zero attempt to engage the potential customer in anything resembling a meaningful conversation. That I feel sorry for my former colleagues at RKCR, who lost this account in a pitch only to see the client buy this bollocks... (do feel free to add your own).

But the gravest sin of all is that the thieving bastards knicked the idea wholesale from an infinitely superior  US Starbucks spot from several years back:



Shame on you.