The findings, based on extensive research conducted by comScore ARS, show that creative quality drives more than half of the sales changes for brands analyzed, four times higher than the impact of the specific media plan involved.
Creative Strategy An Important Driver of Strong Creative Execution
Additional comScore ARS research demonstrates just how important it is to get the creative strategy right from the start. For a variety of campaigns, comScore ARS scored the campaign’s upfront creative strategy, using the campaign’s basic value proposition as a proxy. The research categorized the results of each campaign into below-average, average and above-average relative to the comScore ARS Fair Share Benchmark [see definition at bottom], which averages the ARS Persuasion Score resulting from copy-tests for a variety of campaigns to provide industry norms. The actual campaign execution was then scored, using the comScore ARS standard copy-testing methodology, again categorizing each campaign into below-average, average and above-average relative rankings.
An evaluation of the impact of the creative strategy’s score on the resulting execution helps to shed light on the value of a strong, upfront creative strategy. Study findings showed that among campaigns with an above-average creative strategy, 70 percent resulted in an above-average execution. Similarly, among campaigns with a below-average creative strategy, 65 percent resulted in a below-average creative execution. Zero campaigns with a below-average creative strategy score performed above-average on creative execution.
