Advertising not art business

Recently when reviewing some concept work for a client, a colleague remarked “We are in the advertising not art business”. We are been discussing edits to the concepts and requests to include more details, the old chestnut from the client – I love it but can you change xyz and add in abc. The statement stuck with me and it really is a principle that more marketers and also creatives need to be aware of.

Creatives can get sensitive when their concepts are tweaked and changed, sometimes beyond recognition, but in essence the ad/campaign has to deliver on its objectives (which are usually measured by sales) or else we are all on the side of the street. The statement is particularly true when thinking about the recent Gorilla campaign for Cadburys. Apparently it had greater recall then Galaxy’s advertising, however it lost market share to Galaxy despite investing nearly £200m in advertising Dairy Milk over the last 18 month.