The best marketers are conservative – with a small ‘c’.
After reading Mark Ritson’s article “Consistency is the top-class marketers secret weapon”it reminded me of something I’d written a while ago. Except this time, my long-held belief in consistency and building brands through the ongoing use of distinctive assets, has now entered the hallowed halls of evidence based marketing.
It’s being validated by a remarkable report from Andrew Tindall of System1 and data from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) entitled “The Magic of Compound Creativity – How consistency leads to creative quality, stronger brands and greater profits”. It’s a 5 year study, across 56 brands, with over 4,000 ads and more the £3.3bn on TV spend. And it uses a new brand metric Creativity Consistency Score (CCS) to debunk an industry obsessed with change at the expense of effectiveness.
“Although the world keeps changing – as does most organization’s CMO – change for the sake of change can be a huge mistake. The default position of most new marketers, at almost any level, is to say “out with the old, in with the new.”Conversely – and rather more conservatively – consistency and continuity are vital to building long-term “mental availability” in consumer’s minds.
Naive busy work should not be confused with the process of carefully understanding what works and nurturing that over time. Yes, you have to live in the here and now, which requires a short-term plan of performance marketing. But, it is the long-term “Performance Branding” – built on a foundation of strategic and executional consistency and continuity – that will ultimately deliver greater value and growth.”
So, at this heated political time that’s dividing a nation, there’s now fact-based reason to believe we can all come together and do better marketing by being more conservative. As Ellen Glasgow said: “All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.”
#Marketing #BrandStrategy #ConsistencyConsistencyConsistency