One of the things that really bugs me about adland is their definition of ‘effectiveness’.
It appears that when things go well, we happily take all credit for success, but when things go wrong, it’s laid firmly at the feet of the client.
The other thing that bothers me is how a lot of the success in effectiveness awards is down to the skill/writing of the submission rather than the actual results. I’m not saying someone who hasn’t got good results can win an award simply because it’s well written – but I do find it annoying that campaigns that have followed a generic approach can still get credited when the award is supposedly about clever thinking and approaches.
Let’s look at AKQA’s campaign for Fiat’s ‘eco drive’ campaign from a year or two ago.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful and clearly articulates the product and it’s benefit – but in my mind any ‘effectiveness’ credit should be at the very least shared with FIAT, rather than given purely to AKQA … and yet when it was up for submission, FIAT’s role in developing the product [a product that genuinely made a difference to owners and differentiated the brand from the category] was hardly given a whiff of attention.
For an industry that likes to say how they’re media neutral and focused on business solving ideas – it never fails to amaze me how time after time after time they just focus on what they know or – worse – try and claim something traditional is new.
Are you listening Dove and your ‘Evolution’ TV ad, repositioned as an effective digital strategy campaign?
If we want to get back in business good books, it might help if we started celebrating effectiveness with an open mind rather than a delusional one … but to be honest, if we really want to get back in their good books, we should focus on tackling their real problems which are very, very, very rarely [just] about making [better] advertising.