“Evidence, as Well as Vision”: Harjot Singh on the Creative Effectiveness Lions

Harjot> The kind of thing that one looks for in effectiveness, in principle, is not going to be very different. It's just a nuance that we're going to look for. It's just a way of proving that what you make matters and what you make does what it claims.  

I still believe, and have spoken about at length, that the rules, standards and knowledge on effectiveness are largely based on a data set and references that are very much based on commercial organisations that are in pursuit of commercial goals. And more and more we're seeing that organisations that are in pursuit of goals that aren't purely commercial have as much to learn and prove in the space of effectiveness. That's the thing that we are seeing and it's the right thing to look at because the understanding of effectiveness should be more broad and expansive. 

It's a bit like any kind of research. We've learned that medical research is based on a data set of largely male physiologies and how symptoms manifest in male physiologies. You have to broaden the research and understand that a heart attack, for example, manifests very differently for women versus men. In some ways, it's not that different because the data sets that have informed understanding of effectiveness to date have been around typically commercial organisations, selling detergent and soap – and rightly so, because they have to – but as the communication landscape has got more nuanced and complex, organisations who aren't just commercial are spending money on advertising and they have to prove that what they do matters and works. That's how you justify the validity and superiority of your creative decisions and choices. It's a much more expansive set of references, so the knowledge base needs to be just as expensive. 

Harjot> We've introduced separate categories because, for a long time, global knowledge in effectiveness was based largely on what worked in the UK. That's not the model now because regions and countries have their own nuances. It used to be that what works in the UK or the US gets exported to the rest of the world. Now we've realised that we should look at markets and regions separately. Then we've talked about cultural context separately. So contextual understanding on effectiveness is a growing space. And I think that's what we will continue to see more of.

  

Harjot> No, I think the jury is very clever, switched on and very informed. In fact, I think Cannes Lions is very progressive. One of the reasons that I'm doing this with them is because they have been thinking about effectiveness from a very expansive viewpoint from the beginning. We've thought about categories, building in space for contextual evidence so that you can evaluate the results within the context of a wider set of knowledge and variables. 

This is work that's already been recognised and awarded. This work that makes it to Creative Effectiveness cannot be entered unless it has least been shortlisted in other categories before. The work has had time to breathe in the market for two years. 

  

It's one of the most progressive and expansive platforms, able to drive the industry's knowledge on how effectiveness should be understood and evaluated. That's why I think it's going to be really, really useful. 

  

And the jury all know this. These are all very accomplished marketers and creative advertising people. So they get it. I'm not worried about that. Also, my personal belief has always been that you can only judge creativity by its impact, because otherwise, why is it creative? Creativity is about reimagining something, doing things differently or doing different things, but that's all relative, that means that it must have an impact. It's a different category. You're working with evidence, as well as vision.

  

From all those perspectives, I feel very secure and comfortable that the work we will curate has the propensity to drive the industry forward in a very expansive way, truly establishing creativity as a superpower. If it is a superpower, it should be able to do really hard things. Those are the kinds of things we're looking to prove, and not just in ways that have been done, looking for new examples that move the dialogue further. For me, the thing has always been, how are we making the learning more expansive?

 

Harjot> 100%. It really sets our understanding and expectations of what we can do with all the flavours, means and opportunities that we have to deliver creativity. It absolutely resets and recalibrates those expectations and, in so many ways, expands our ambition as an industry to be able to deploy all the new means to deliver creativity in ways that are very, very captivating. 

The second thing that I think is very striking about that work is that classical marketing problems don't manifest in classical ways anymore. It's a classical marketing problem, which is very much about reach, a particular occasion and a time where typically people make choices of a certain kind and you want to steer people away from choices that they're very familiar with and ask them to do different things. A classical marketing problem of changing behaviour. But the point is that that classical marketing problem has been approached in a very interesting way. And getting people to change behaviour at a time where tradition is involved - a certain way of doing things and a whole industry built on that - it's a really difficult thing to do. So it's the ability to also do really difficult things in a fun, easy and captivating way. And prove beyond reasonable doubt that it works. 

It's a technology that's available to everyone, but how have you used it? Pens and stationery are available to everyone, but is everyone winning a Pulitzer or the Booker Prize? It's real talent to use what everyone has access to but to apply it against a problem that pretty much everyone faces and achieve a result that only few can. That's when you see real creativity coming to the fore. And to me, that fits with my personal set of beliefs as well, which is that creativity can only be judged by its impact. In so many ways, it has expanded our understanding and expectations of how we can deploy all the means with which we can deliver creativity to people and do that in a very captivating way.

  

I would love to personally see something where someone has done something that we haven't seen before, because so much of it is taking things that we have seen before and joining them up in ways that we haven't seen before. We see a lot of that. The genius of that creativity is reassembling the pieces, but the pieces are all familiar. There's a lot of work like that. I personally would love to see something where in all those pieces, there's at least one thing that we've never seen before. We're looking for that novelty, where the surprise isn't just based on the way things have been arranged and orchestrated, but also in the way new things have been introduced. 

  

Harjot> First and foremost, I always want to meet people I don't get to see all the time. For me it's kind of like a reunion. I won't go and attend talks all day long, as much as I would love to. I want to meet friends. I've worked all over the world. This industry is a bit of an extended family to me. So for many of us who are what now the industry calls 'veterans', who've been in it close to 30 years, I want to reconnect and meet people, congratulate people on what they're doing and just be in a moment where you can actually celebrate the success of this industry together. This is the moment for us all to be able to celebrate each other's success. Because as competitive as we are, we're incredibly collaborative and supportive as well, because our individual futures are only as good as our collective future. This is what sets our industry apart. We only do well as well as the sector does. So it's a moment to also revel in the value that we deliver as an industry. You need to feed yourself enough of that to last another year. You need to walk away with optimism, ambition and love for this industry. Because this industry isn't for those that don't actively want to remain in it.

I'm also looking forward to meeting clients in a setup that's slightly different. And the chance encounters that happen in Cannes that then become friendships that last for years. I have so many friendships in this industry that have started with a chance encounter. You meet at a cocktail party or on a panel or someone says something clever and you talk to them after, and then you end up seeing each other at the Carlton terrace and then at another talk. It's just full of that kind of possibility. It's generally a very exciting time. It reminds us why we love this industry.