The Win-Win-House approach is about the most optimal setup of your marketing organization, processes, and systems. But here is a clarion call from one marketing professional to another: We come out of a creative industry because we believe in the effect of creativity. So, we must cherish creativity and dare to stand up for it in our organization. As marketing professionals, we are responsible for using budgets properly. And it’s not just a matter of insourcing parts of the marketing tasks as well as ensuring a good relationship with a low-cost offshore production setup. It is also a matter of being able to build brands using strong and persistent creative ideas.

 

Ambitions, please!

You are in the creative business. Remember that. Whether it’s your MarTech tools or your media buying strategy, it all comes down to what you put out there.

With an increased focus on efficiency with fast, measurable results, there is also a strong moving away from brand building and toward short-term sales activation tasks. Although we can almost immediately document our value as marketing professionals with these types of activities, the truth is that we also make less impact on our marketing ventures in the long run. We sprint tired and cannot run the marathon. It goes beyond long-term growth.

The latest report from IPA (The Crisis in Creative Effectiveness, 2021) shows a clear connection between this short-term focus and the lack of business effectiveness.

 

Understimulating your brand with strong idea-driven brand building activities is far more harmful than overstimulating it. This is because it is easier and cheaper to correct overstimulation through quick short-term activities afterward, thereby achieving the right balance in our overall marketing activities rather than going the other way and lifting the brand building from a low level.

 

At the same time, it does not matter whether we are ambitious about our work with strong ideas. Good creativity—strong ideas that move people, attitudes, and behaviors over time—deliver far more significant impact than marketing activities that are not based on good creativity.

 

IPA has even instructed how we should work with balance when it comes to our creative focus. Because, of course, we also need to win the sprints and deliver on short-term sales goals.

 

 

So, it’s a question of balance when it comes to our focus. And a reminder that our success should not be measured by the number of elements we produce and implement and at what price; it’s a question of what our customers notice, remember us for, and reward us for. Both in the short- and long-term.

If we look at creatively-awarded cases and brands, and how they are balanced in the relationship between brand-building activities and short-term activities, it looks like this according to the IPA studies:

 

Believe in creativity

We have often been in situations in which the marketing organizations we have worked with have had tough internal battles when convincing others of these important issues such as underprioritizing long-term brand building. This is understandable as it is intangible initially. It requires faith, and some solid cases, to back up one’s arguments for budget allocations.

 

This is another reason why it can be healthy to work with the Win-Win-House model. Your Win-Win-House can afford to have some distance from the rest of the company, thereby playing the challenger that must both cherish short-term and long-term marketing goals and advise the rest of the company on this. At the same time, your Win-Win-House will often be able to draw upon several external case, as well as creative extras. Therefore, you will be able to use it as a tool to build and lift your overall creative ambitions with the right balance for the company.

 

This is important because you must remember that the main output from your team should be creativity. The goal is to produce better execution and content cheaper and faster—and truly make a difference with what you are doing.

 

 

But what is creativity?

Creativity is the soul of advertising. Creativity is what gives life to otherwise dull or insignificant messages about products and services to the hearts and minds of target customers. Advertisers often turn to advertising agencies to design and develop ad campaigns and take a gamble on what will work best.

 

We’re bombarded by advertising every time we pick up a phone or open a browser, so creative advertisements that can cut through this constant stream of content are essential for success.

Creative advertising requires less media spend because it is more likely to be shared organically—increasing the opportunities for audiences to see the ad. This is particularly true within social media, where a like or a share from a friend is far more valuable than paid promotion due to how algorithms prioritize content in the news feed. However, it is also true within offline channels, where disruptive formats can also get earned coverage online.

 

A 2018 study showed that internet users are now spending an average of two hours and 22 minutes per day on social networking and messaging platforms. If that seems like a lot of time to get through to them, you are wrong. On average, you have 4.2 seconds of that time to grab their attention. If your content doesn’t immediately compel them to hang around, it’s game over!

In 2016, a British market research company, Millward Brown, listed the 10 most significant reasons why ads are shared. What was numero uno? The ads are creative.

It seems that the best way to get noticed amid advertising “noise” is to be compelling. And the most compelling ads are the creative ones. The ones which grab and maintain the audience’s attention. The rest just get lost in the eternal abyss that is the Internet. 

Creative ways of engaging with consumers rather than simply bombarding them with banners and ads are the way of the future. Companies that rely solely on traditional advertising methods will struggle in the digital age. More than ever before, creativity provides lifeblood to an organization.