Stop Worrying About “Wearing Out” Creative That Hasn’t Been Worn in: Andrew Howie, Paul Sinkinson

Gallant founder and ex-Taco Bell CMO Andrew Howie believes investing in bold, distinctive work -- and continuing to run it -- frees marketers to develop ownable brand assets for the long-term.

Speaking at SXSW Sydney, Andrew said a marketer’s aspiration should be to leave a business or brand “better than you found it”.

“Brands are built over many years,” he said. “When you align that with the average tenure of a CMO, around two years, the desire to invest in the really long-term is not necessarily rewarded.

“A long-term business will start to have the short-term returns to talk about [with the] numbers-based people.

“No one ever asked the ROI of the finance department, so you've got to come with a defence mechanism against people who are very numbers-oriented, and you need to give them trends. So, rather than looking at this quarter… look at where we are year-on-year.”

In a separate SXSW Sydney session on Tuesday, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia managing director Toby Aldred added marketing is often the first department to feel budget pressures.

“It would be foolish to overlook the importance and the need for data,” he said.

“We absolutely understand the need to demonstrate and prove the growth … but with so many channels and touch-points, how do you keep the brand cohesive but also culturally relevant or meaningful to audiences?

“You've got to talk to clients about the importance of having ambitions to build brand kingdoms. You've got to be remarkably consistent in every touch-point you're delivering.

“It's not just about the consistency of a TV ad or one channel … it’s every single engagement-point, whether that's in service delivery, in the business, or the product design.”

Toby argued making decisions purely on data, “you’re going to miss out on some of those human imaginative leaps we know can deliver for a creative impact.” But he knows the importance of proving effectiveness.

“It's really important we are demonstrating the work we do with the real growth, because it often falls first when times are a bit tough … it’s really important that we are able to demonstrate beyond just brand metrics [that we’re] driving work through that funnel.”

Analytic Partners senior director Jo-Ann Foo, who spoke alongside Gallant’s Andrew, added, “investing in brand” comes with often-overlooked budget benefits.

“Brand is a big opportunity, and I think particularly when times are tough, if you've got creative that's working, it's actually a money saver because you can agree on that again,” Jo-Ann said.

“It's one of those things that lasts a long time. It helps lift everything up as well from a performance perspective. From a long-term perspective, [it’s] 2.5 times more than some of those short-term around times.”

Earlier, Analytic Partners’ Australia and Asia managing director Paul Sinkinson said marketers generally replace their creative work too early.

Paul recalled an instance during the pandemic era, when a brand found reusing an ad from the previous year not only didn’t impede its results, but actually improved them. He attributed this to the creative finally having time to “wear-in” and said reusing creative led to significant financial savings.

“Really, leaning and focusing on creative across all the channels … there's a huge opportunity sitting there for you,” Paul said.

“It's consistency that's important, because brand messaging outperforms performance messaging 80% of the time.”

Running creative for longer doesn’t “wear it out”, but rather builds on established mental structures and associations audiences already have.

“You're reminding people … rather than having to build the memory structures that are there. The more consistency … the higher the ROI.”

Andrew added that there is a “huge ROI on bravery”.

“It's hard to measure, but the reality is -- boring stuff is 40% less effective, so don't be boring.

“You’re straight away 40% less effective out of the gate. So be bold, be great. Build your own strategy. It's actually not a bigger risk if it's strategic … and the worst of what's going to happen is people are going to talk about you.”