I recently read about a study from 1999 where the Israeli research team had studied 200 highly regarded advertisments – ads that were all finalists and winners in top advertising competitions. When analyzing these ads, they realized that most of them (89%) could be categorized into one of 6 different categories or templates (example: “Extreme Consequenses”). THAT is interesting in itself, but it gets worse.
Next they brought in three different groups of novices and gave them each three briefs; for a shampoo, for a diet-food item, and for a sneaker. Now these three groups recieved three different training.
The first group recieved no training at all, but started generating ads immediately, the second group got two hours of standard creativity training (free-association brainstorming and such techniques), and the third group got a two hour brief on the six categories mentioned above.
The ads where screened and sifted by an experienced creative director and put to standard testing.
And the results? The second group performed slightly better than the first, but they were still considered “annoying” and “uncreative” by the test groups. The third group however was an entirely different story. These ads were rated as 50% more creative and produced a 55% more positive attitude towards the products advertised.
And this, my friends, is after a two hour study of these six templates. Berghs SoC advertising school for example will take you two years, and their tagline reads “2 cm From Reality” (or was that just for the kick off-week?).
Maybe you should consider going to the “2 Hours From Reality” copy cat school of communication instead? It’s much cheaper.
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