The shift in focus from Creative Excellence to Creative Excellence & Effectiveness has been well-documented in our industry. And it’s music to my marketing ears to hear that so many companies are now acknowledging the link between great creative and performance (Thanks Les Binet & Peter Feld!).
To measure effectiveness, you need a universal language for what effective creative means for your organization and audience. This should be a mix of both long-term/brand metrics and short-term/campaign metrics, tied to business goals and benchmarks of creative excellence.
But it’s easy to get so caught up in the measurement and optimization loop of the creative process, that we forget one of the most powerful, and often overlooked, drivers of creative effectiveness: A strong Brand Strategy discipline. Brands winning the Creative Effectiveness game are not only investing in great creative partners and campaigns, but also in a robust brand strategy culture that fuels them.
In this article, we’ll dive into 3 pillars of brand strategy that lead to a successful creative effectiveness effort, including:
- Creative & Cultural Inspiration
- Brand Strategy Foundations
- Comms Planning
Creative & Cultural Inspiration
Creative is inherently subjective, influenced by the cultural moment we’re in and our pre-existing beliefs about brands. Effective brands are continuously monitoring and curating culture and new ways to connect with it, through communities, partnerships and resources that make creative more relevant, and therefore more effective.
Brand Strategy Foundations
Like a builder without a blueprint, a flimsy brand foundation can lead to a resource-intensive creative process, affecting your ROI. But when creative efforts spring from a consistent Brand Playbook, they are more ownable and differentiated, aka effective. So it’s no surprise that best-in-class creative brands work to be experts in their brand’s purpose, pillars, persona and people.
Comms Plans
Effective creative efforts hinge on much more than the strength of an idea, but also how, when, and where the idea is delivered. That’s why it’s key to have a communications planning process that takes into account the customer’s journey, the brand’s role, and channel best practices.
Ready to foolproof your creative effectiveness efforts?
Coconspirator helps global, national, and regional companies build, train and maintain a strong brand strategy discipline, so your creative has the best shot of meeting effectiveness goals.
See how we’ve supported creative excellence and effectiveness efforts for McDonald’s, named Most Effective Brand in 2024.
