In one line
Creative quality is how much a campaign gets out of each euro of media: whether people notice it, know which brand it was for, feel something and are given a reason to buy.
What it does
- Nielsen's 2017 study of about 500 consumer-goods campaigns put 47% of the sales lift from advertising down to the creative, more than reach (22%) or the brand itself (15%).
- Branding decides who gets the credit. Ipsos finds only about half the people who remember an ad can name the brand. Countermove starts every ad at 50%; below that, 60% of the shortfall builds memory for the most mentally available rival, usually the leader. That share is Countermove's assumption: research on sponsorship finds people credit prominent brands they never saw (Johar & Pham, 1999), but no study puts a figure on it for ads.
- Emotional brand stories build memory that lasts and lowers price sensitivity over time; rational, offer-led ads sell more this quarter and fade faster (Binet & Field, The Long and the Short of It). Orlando Wood's Lemon argues that the right-brain features now in decline (characters, story, a sense of place) are the ones that build brands best, and that ads crowded with on-screen text and rapid edits work less well.
- Ads wear out with repetition, less than most marketers think (Kantar found no clear link between an ad's age and its performance). In Countermove a rational ad loses about 11% a quarter after its first quarter, an emotional one 4%, and weak ads wear faster than strong ones.
Business and brand
Impact on the businessP&L, cash, share price
- A weak ad needs more media to work as hard as an average ad, and past a point no amount of money gets there.
- A creative budget buys better odds, never a sure thing: Countermove spends 5%, 10% or 16% of a campaign's media on making it.
- Pre-testing costs about 1.5% of a quarter's media and a quarter's delay; it gives a noisy read and the chance to scrap a weak ad before it airs.
- A mix model sees money, not ads: a great campaign makes its channel look better than it is, and a weak one gets the channel blamed.
Impact on the brandMemory, loyalty, pricing power
- Distinctive brand assets (colours, characters, sounds) used consistently make every ad easier to link to you; a new look each time resets them.
- Campaigns that run consistently for years keep getting more effective (Binet & Field).
- Share of voice only counts if the ads work: what matters is quality-adjusted, effective share of voice.
Try it
Score an ad
Set the ad's overall quality, how well it is branded and its approach. See how much memory and in-quarter sales each euro buys against an average ad, how much builds the leader, and how fast it wears out.
Memory per euro−7%vs an average ad
Sales this quarter per euro−5%vs an average ad
Built for the leader0%of the brand media's effect
Share of the ad's first-quarter effect left, by quarter on air
Notice: Each euro builds −7% memory against an average ad; matching an average ad would take 7% more brand media. Sales in the quarter: −5%.
Runs Countermove's market engine: the reference soft-drinks market, three brands, rivals holding their plans so only your change moves the result.
Sources
- Nielsen (2017), When it comes to advertising effectiveness, what is key?
- Kantar and Paul Dyson (2020), The advertising multipliers that matter
- Binet & Field (2013), The Long and the Short of It, IPA
- Orlando Wood (2019), Lemon: how the advertising brain turned sour, IPA
- Romaniuk (2018), Building Distinctive Brand Assets, Oxford University Press
- Johar & Pham (1999), Journal of Marketing Research: relatedness, prominence and constructive sponsor identification