Item #13: On Research

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.
David Ogilvy

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
David Ogilvy

I support research. I am also passionate about creative. And I don’t think these two statements are in opposition to each other.

We are living in an Age of Analytics. But we are also living in an Era of Creativity. And I believe that Creativity and Analytics must learn to work together – even better, they must learn how to help each other.

Here’s why research is important:

- We create for consumers – products, services, ideas, and communications. Therefore we must realize that as the masters we answer to, their input is important, and we can gather that input through research. There is no suitable proxy for the voice of the consumer (not yet at least).
- Research can help us understand what we need to create for our audience of consumers in order to deliver products, services, ideas and communications that bring value to their lives, versus piss them off or just accomplish nothing.
- Research can help us create better products, services, ideas and communications – that meet the needs or wants of our audience AND that we can feel proud of as the creators.

Here are the imperatives for research:

- Research must be done well. Research must be customized, to achieve a specific goal for a specific task with a specific audience. With research, more than ever before: ‘garbage in is garbage out’; ‘ask a bad question in a bad way and you’ll get a bad answer’;
- Research must be used well…and this does NOT mean to direct decisions. It is not smart to use research as a proxy for decision-making: strategic or creative. Research is only one of many inputs into the process of strategic and creative development. Research is a source of information and, if done well, insight which aids decision-making.

And here’s the research concern:

- The concern is that the advertising industry has traditionally held research, particularly creative research, in great doubt. While not necessarily without good reason, this has created a divide between agencies and clients around the issue of research. And because of this, over time, clients have turned to building strong direct relationships with research companies, which runs the risk of hindering the collaborative pursuit – by client, agency and research company together - of ultimately ‘creating’ products, services, ideas and communications that bring real value to consumers.

Way Forward:

- Embrace the role for research, when executed and used well, to support the development of strategies and creative solutions that will bring value to consumers. Work collectively and collaboratively as a team – client, agency and research company – to be innovative and progressive with research methods. In the interest of continuous improvement.