Short term or long term effects from advertising?

We pride ourselves in learning something new every day. Often they are little things coming from our fanatical focus on the results we drive for clients. We are incredibly lucky - we have both a short term lens of daily results and a long term lens of ten years of longitudinal results data for clients. And that, together with our culture, enables us to deliver on our promise of creating growth for clients. But every so often one learns a big lesson. And thus it was last Wednesday. We tipped up at Bafta to participate in Thinkbox’s latest contribution to the insights we have on what makes advertising effective. It was a long morning - four hours of learning from 996 case studies with over 30 years of data - beautifully synthesised by Les Binet and Peter Field into clear and concise guidance for advertisers. In a nutshell: if you want income this month there are a set of clear behaviours to follow. BUT if you want more income over the next three years, then consider a different (but not exclusive) set of behaviours. Their work is worth more than two lines and I recommend you have a look here: http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.2211 We were flattered to be asked to validate their academic learning with our practitioner dataset. And we were equally surprised at how good a fit we found between theory and real world. It brought home a lesson that we all learned a long time ago, but don’t focus on enough. One can generate good and profitable short term response from promotional strategies. Enough focus on message and media and anyone can make the tills ring tomorrow. The trick is to generate short term response from a brand centric proposition. Then three things happen. The tills ring short term. BUT the campaign can also sustain investment in media vehicles that generate medium and long term response as well as immediate sales. AND, as a result, one starts to build long term brand equity. And that ensures a long term competitive advantage, especially via a sustained price premium. It’s a lesson we all learned a long time ago. It’s one we see illustrated every day in the best brands we work with. But it’s one that is easy to forget in the muck and bullets when the December sales target is just out of reach. But we have a very specific view of that lesson, and that’s this: Campaigns that are effective in the long term are ALWAYS effective in the short term as well. The foundations for long term growth are based on solid short term success. And that means we may sacrifice a little short term growth to ensure better, more sustainable long term growth, but it doesn’t provide an excuse for short term failure. Mike Colling, Managing Director