How effective is Effectiveness? Charlotte Mulley comments in Campaign
As reported in Campaign:
Charlotte Mulley, head of planning at MullenLowe, says: “We do a lot of work for the government, they have strong frameworks that they work with across all of their agencies and put big portions of their budgets aside for evaluation. Equally with other commercial clients such as Unilever, it is always part of the conversation.”
Pre-testing in general can dismiss effective work, because the tools used aren’t tailored to recognise creativity, Mulley says.
Quantitative testing in particular, with specific survey questions, is problematic for picking up on creative elements such as humour. Mulley adds: “We do understand from various effectiveness awards and papers what the key elements of effectiveness are – and humour is one – but a lot of the way that we test at the moment is functional and looks for a formula for how creative ideas work.”
With “something subtle like humour”, when a viewer responds to the ad “a lot of that is going to be on the pause, the tone of voice, the unsaid glances between people”, she says.
