Hive Health

The reason most of us are involved in the healthcare communications industry is not for the heady rush you get from a reading a bloody good clinical paper, or for that unmistakable quickening of the pulse you can only get from being briefed on the next tabbed detail aid.  The real reason most of us haul our asses into work on a daily basis (other than pay and contractual obligation), is for the opportunity to develop relevant and strategically sound cool stuff!

The challenges we often face are:

1. How to get to a strategically correct, genuinely creative product in what is often quite a dry, data driven and cautious environment
2. How to bring the creative product to life without the idea being eroded to the point of impotence

Number 1 is very much down to the briefing process, the talent and teamwork within agencies and companies and is something we always strive to improve.  Number 2 however, is more about how we manage the creative process with our clients and how to ensure that what we are selling (the creative product) remains true to the idea whilst remaining grounded in the realities of the business objectives of the brand.

I don’t profess to have any magic solutions to these challenges (sorry!), but having read “The link between creativity and effectiveness – More findings from The Gunn Report and the IPA Databank” (available here), it seems there must be some parallels we can draw which will help us with challenge No. 2 above.

The Gunn Report itself “combines the winners’ lists from the top advertising awards contests in the world in order to establish the annual worldwide league tables for the advertising industry”.  In 2010 The Gunn Report merged its awards data with the IPA effectiveness data (data source of the IPA Effectiveness Awards) to produce “The link between creativity and effectiveness”.  Now in its second edition with an expanded data set (435 case studies over a 16 year period), the study examines both effectiveness and the efficiency of creatively awarded and non-awarded campaigns. It seeks to provide a rational basis for enhancing creativity in our industry and it’s this “rational basis” which can help us ground our conversations and underpin the rationale behind a creative idea.

If you’ve had a chance to read the report, a glaringly obvious fact you will have noticed is that this paper was looking at the consumer advertising world, and within that mostly TV advertising (77%) but also print and online .  Clearly a different territory to where we operate, however, the facts and figures are robust and the principles sound and in the absence of a similar report on healthcare communications, it is these principles (backed up by the data) which can help to guide the language we use with our clients to ensure our creative work pushes boundaries and remains true to the original idea.

The overall findings of the report are:

• Creatively awarded campaigns are more effective than non-awarded  ones despite lower levels of Extra Share of Voice or ESOV (share of voice minus share of market)
• Over the entire 16 years of campaigns examined in this study, creatively awarded campaigns were 7 times more efficient than non-awarded ones in terms of the level of market share growth they drive per point of ESOV
• Creatively awarded campaigns appear to achieve their greater effectiveness levels with greater certainty than the non-awarded campaigns: they are more reliable investments
• For equivalent levels of investment, creatively-awarded campaigns achieve broader levels of success across greater numbers of business metrics beyond share growth and the greater the level of creativity, the greater the level of effectiveness.

In addition, the link between creativity and effectiveness appears to be driven by two important factors

• The preponderance of emotional communication models amongst creatively awarded campaigns
• The much greater buzz effects of creatively awarded campaigns

It’s probably important to say at this stage that it’s not all about awards.  “The link between creativity and effectiveness” paper uses case studies from a list of awarded campaigns but the point is that if your strategy is right and you have the talent to push the levels of creativity of your campaigns, then statistics support that the campaign will be more effective.

Whilst admittedly, the world of healthcare presents many different challenges to those faced in the consumer world, believe it or not, our customers are people too and successful brands find ways of tapping into the emotions and engaging with audiences in a way that cold hard data can never hope to achieve.  Whilst the data is critical, underpinning our offer with scientifically proven reasons to believe, what our brands offer over and above this is what we hope to communicate with insight driven, strategically sound creative work.  This study provides guidance for us to link creativity not just with the hunt for awards and recognition but with the effectiveness and efficiency which our clients are striving to achieve.  It’s potentially great ammunition for convincing clients to push the boundaries.  All we need now is a healthcare focussed version….Anyone?

Frequently in our industry, images define campaigns. They sometimes capture, in a few million pixels, what even the greatest of copywriters can’t muster in words. At their zenith, they can even define wars.

When Tim wrote on the death of former AP Photographer, Horst Faas, a few weeks back, I took some time out to remind myself of the power of this man’s talents and abilities. During the decade between 1962 and 1972, Faas directed the Associated Press’ Vietnam operations out of Saigon. Both taking and editing some of the most iconic and opinion-shaping images of the war. Indeed despite his own denials, Haas, it has been argued, contributed considerably to the changing shape of the war – particularly in terms of U.S. public opinion. One particular shot stands out from all others.

The date was February 1^st 1968 and the Tet Offensive was but a day old. Civil War was raging on the streets of Saigon and Eddie Adams, one of Faas’ many acclaimed photographers in the field, stood on the corner of a busy intersection in Cholon – the capital’s Chinese quarter. The photograph that Adams captured in that moment, of South Vietnam’s National Police Chief, General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, executing a young Vietcong sympathiser in broad daylight, arguably did more to undermine support for U.S. involvement in Vietnam than any other single event alone.

In the years that preceded 1968, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson had spent considerable time and energy executing a much-needed public relations strategy in support of the war in Vietnam. Yet when this one shot aired on all three U.S. television networks that evening, Johnson’s campaign seemingly imploded in an instant. Its impact, both on viewers across the country, and on various policy-makers in Washington, was enormous. Faas and Adams had contributed significantly to the undermining of Johnson’s Vietnam strategy and ultimately, to the end of the war. In the words of U.S. historian Alan Brinkley, ‘no single event did more to undermine support in the United States for the war’.

Unlike so many of the other iconic photographs that Faas and his team took of the war – often showcasing the initial moments after death – Adams’ shot actually captured the moment of death itself. And despite the fact that the prisoner in question had killed at least eight people in the moments prior to his own execution, the brutality of the photograph is still the only part of the story that truly endures.

The lesson for us here is obvious. In a moment where our industry is moving rapidly towards new media, we should never forget the power of the still image and its ability to shape events. In the late 1960s the colour TV came of age. And yet as John Cory and others have argued, it’s the black and white photograph of that moment that people still remember.

Just spent a very interesting afternoon at an APG event entitled ‘What do you do to win, when you can’t afford to lose’. An excellent panel guided us through (to a greater or lesser degree) their thoughts on strategy and what it takes to devise a plan. Present were General Sir Mike Jackson GCB, CBE, DSO, DL, Dave Droga, from Droga 5, Alastair Campbell, who we all know, and Jeremy Gilley, the founder of Peace One Day.

What was apparent was that all of them had an inert fear of losing, so winning really was the only option available and although it wasn’t really a ‘winner take all’ extravaganza, I thought that on balance the General came out on top, if for no other reason that he taught all their present the excellent expression ‘rot you up’! (As in those dirty rotters trying to trip you up, or at least that was my outtake.)

Evident from all those on the panel was that there really isn’t any magic solution to devising strategy and in fact those long, sometimes lonely hours we spend churning stuff around is all par for the course. It requires passion, energy and the endless questions of why and what if, but there’s no escaping the fact that it can take time – as the General put it, it’s about ‘thinking long and thinking big’.

In my mind it was refreshing to have a few pre-conceived thoughts I had, smashed. Who would have thought that a soldier would have been talking about doing things differently (and embracing Russians!) and a creative director talking about everything we do having to have a purpose (as opposed to just looking good). But I guess this is what has separated them out and allowed them to get to the top of their respective trees – the fact that they don’t just follow the norm and try and find alternative ways to engage – whether that be physically or from an emotional connection point of view.

More from APF Worlds collide here and here.

It’s rare to experience a piece of media that hits you straight between the eyes, providing a level of intimacy that leaves you feeling honoured to have been present. Midst a lonely post wedding journey back from the Peak District this afternoon Radio 4s Omnibus kept me company between the horizontal rain, the storm force winds and the endless M1.

Specifically The Listening Project. A gem of a collaboration between BBC Radio 4, BBC local and national radio stations and the British Library. Tasked with capturing the nation in conversation to build a unique picture of our lives today and preserve it for future generations it’s a brilliantly gentle and real picture of who we are as a nation. If you are ever sat at your desk trying to find a voice for the rich collective of humanity we write for then I could recommend no better time spent than here. For me its  a healthy reminding kick to remember the real people that go through life not distant demographic classifications.

Please excuse my poor editing of the podcast attached I didn’t want the whole podcast only the health related conversation. It was this submission by BBC Radio Ulster that left me attempting to wake my catatonic girlfriend up on the back seat to no avail. After years of dialysis and declining health, Brendan was the recipient of a kidney donated to him by his older brother Kyron. They talk candidly about what this has meant for both their lives. Emotional heartwarming treasure.

One to the kidneys