The lessons of creative patience from one carrot’s Christmas miracle
Marketers shouldn’t stress about reinventing the ‘creative’ wheel for every campaign. Quality creative and consistency can be more powerful than the ‘new’ and ‘shiny’, argues Paul Sinkinson, managing director (Australia) of Analytic Partners.
It’s that time of year where the weather’s getting warmer and Christmas ads have begun to drop on the daily. While most can enjoy these heartwarming clips just as they are, for marketers, this can be the most anxiety-inducing time of the year.
Every year, marketers wrack their brains to come up with original and unique Christmas ideas.
And every year, marketers’ fingernails are under attack in the hope that their shiny new Christmas TV ads win the retailer arms race.
But in an industry obsessed by shiny and new, are brands missing a trick trying to reinvent the ‘creative’ wheel each year?
A quick glance over to the UK shows there is often a more effective route to creating standout advertising that cuts through with families and consumers, over and over again.
Hint: It’s not John Lewis.
Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot has left more established rivals in its ‘effectiveness’ wake for the past few years. Its lovable Christmas mascot launched in 2016 and has evolved into a CGI masterpiece, being rated by UK-based creative analytics firm System1 as the third most effective global Christmas ad of all time, beaten only by long-running ads from Coca-Cola (which invented the modern day depiction of Santa Claus) and Macy’s.
Each year, Kevin’s story arc has evolved, from witnessing a gingerbread murder (a nod to Murder on the Orient Express) to the enthralling Ebanana Scrooge spoof, taking the mickey out of a Christmas football World Cup (Qatar 2023), and its new parody of the Willy Wonka movie starring William Conker.
Aldi has been using the same creative concept but refreshing the narrative to make it relevant and effective for today – and every year, it works.
The humble Carrot outperformed John Lewis’ Edgar the Dragon, the Stranger Things-esque ‘unexpected guest’, and is on track to get one over Snapper the Venus Flytrap, yet again. What Kevin the Carrot illustrates – which is backed up by Analytic Partners’ research – is that it is not only killer ‘content’ that is king; but that other ‘c’ word is just as important.
It turns out that ‘consistency’ can be just as impactful, and underlines an important lesson for brands: good ideas – whether it’s the same creative or iterations of a brilliant creative concept – do not wear out as quickly as we are led to believe.
I’m very much in the camp that it is time we championed quality advertising ‘wear in’.
‘Wear in’ trumps ‘wear out’
There are five considerations for greater business impact out of advertising: the volume of ad spend; creative quality; halo impact of a parent brand; media mix; and optimisation within a platform, according to our Analytic Partners ROI Genome report, which analyses $450bn of ad spend across thousands of global brands, and is one of the most definitive sources of advertising intelligence.
Our data shows that 60% of brands that increased media investment during the last recession saw lifts in ROI, including a 17% growth in incremental sales.
It’s common convention that maintaining ad spend during downturns eventually pays off, but it’s also important to think about where in the funnel you are investing.
One of the key takeaways of our Genome ROI research is that investing in brand messaging outperforms performance messaging 80% of the time.
We’ve all heard about the Binet & Field 60:40 rule, and Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome data backs this up. It shows that two-thirds of the impact of a video impression is driven by quality creative vs performance elements like targeting, placement and timing. Quality is king.
Advertising luminary David Ogilvy perhaps summed it up best when he said: “What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.”
Also, half of the impact of marketing can be attributed to the halo effect of brand marketing and 30% of search clicks are driven by other marketing channels. The key is spreading that investment in creative across multiple channels and making sure executions are fit for format. Layering different media channels for a campaign can deliver a 40% improvement over relying on one channel.
Paul Sinkinson is managing director (Australia) of Analytic Partners.
