Please watch me*

*says the video (not me, clearly…)

Yesterday was delighted to be involved in an event to kick of the IPA’s Effectiveness Week (a session sponsored by the lovely peeps at ThinkBox and Google)

At the heart of it is a debrief by Peter Field and “Lovely” Les Binet of their latest analysis of the IPA effectiveness database. Of course, this not a review of all campaigns but only of those which were deemed to be effective to a sufficient degree that the authors subjected themselves to the exhausting process of writing them up.

(For those new to this kind of thing, this database is of entries to the world’s largest and toughest peer-reviewed advertising and communications effectiveness. It’s a really big challenge to even get shortlisted – I know I’ve helped people write papers and judged the awards myself).

Have a look at the video of the whole session here (P & L are on after about 30 minutes  or so and my panel at 1hr 3o something).

Big take outs for me:

• Contrary to what you’ve been told TV is still effective at creating large-scale growth (in fact over time it seems it is becoming more effective not less)
• Newer digital forms of video (VOD and online) are also powerful, particularly in combination with broadcast TV advertising.
• However, the latest additions to the database suggest that short-termism in business and in measurement seems to be driving the long-term impact of advertising  DOWN (because the biggest effects are long-term ones not short-term ones)
• Part of this seems to be caught up with an obsession with ROMI (Return On Marketing/Media Investment) at the expense of growing profit over the long term.
• Win customers, don’t just focus on existing ones: there is  little evidence across the entire database that loyalty strategies deliver anything like the impact of penetration ones (Les v/o 1:3)

There’s a host of issues behind this (some of which we discuss in the panel at 1:30) but it’s worth watching Peter and Les a few times here.

Did I mention how much I love Les?

For more events this week go here. We’ve got a fab session IPASocialWorks session on Friday morning at the IPA on the latest work about Social Media and personalisation.