“Effectiveness and Growth” – the lost words in today’s world of communication

Posted on October 9th, 2017 Tags :

Chrishantha Jayasinghe

“creative”
“awards”
“festivals”
These are the words I hear bandied around in the advertising circles which I move around in.
But very rarely do I hear words such as “effectiveness” “growth” or “response”
Why is this?
Most of us in the industry come from arts backgrounds, you are either a writer, a painter, a musician or creator of content. Advertising seems the logical progression to one’s career as it too is an expression of one’s creativity to promote an idea. However, this is far from the truth.
An artist displays his canvas for the public in galleries with blank walls with no distractions so people can admire and appreciate his work. The public visit the gallery because they want to see what is on display. This can be said of the written word – after it is published, those who want to access it can do so and read it at their own pace.
Advertising is a different ballgame. When was the last time someone told you “I’m looking forward to seeing an advertisement?” In today’s crowded landscape, we fight for people’s attention. There are no blank walls or lights focused on our canvases which highlight our work.
In fact the average person has to decide between watching our ad or going to the bathroom.
John wanabayer once said “the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”.
This still holds true today but how do we do this?
The first step is to realize that we are in the business of using our talent to sell on behalf of our clients. We are NOT in the business of making works of art which might sell.
The second step is to help the creative teams to understand the business perspective. Sadly this is not as easy as it sounds. Creatives tend to use the right side of their brain and business strategists use the left side and these two approaches are As different as chalk and cheese. The trick is to find someone who has business sense who can also speak and guide creatives in a language they can understand. They are indeed a rare commodity. So if you do find someone like that treasure them like gold.