Ipsos launches ‘Creative Excellence’ specialist division in Australia + New Zealand to nurture advertising creativity and drive business results
Ipsos ANZ has announced the launch of a new specialist business capability for the market research company in Australia and New Zealand, called Creative Excellence, headed by Mark Hutchinson.
Ipsos Creative Excellence will provide a proven research process that helps optimise the creative development process and assists marketers achieve the best creative for their advertising campaigns.
Ipsos Creative Excellence includes two new, key solutions: Creative Labs that comprises a combination of quantitative and qualitative research with the advertiser and their agency involved a ‘hothouse’ environment in which ideas and creative are nurtured and advanced with accelerated learnings and action steps; and Connect Digital that evaluates digital ads in-context and in live platforms to quickly understand the potential of ads and where to optimise.
Hutchinson (pictured above) has more than 25 years experience in brand and communications research, developing and delivering advertising research programs for a range of local and international companies in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, China and Indonesia.
Hutchinson began his ad research career in Melbourne in the early 1990s working closely with Dr Max Sutherland, author of the successful book ‘Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer (What works, What doesn’t and Why)’ and co-founder of Sutherland-Smith, global pioneers of ad tracking methodologies and software. He has worked on ad tracking for clients including Gillette, ANZ Bank, Merck, Kodak, McDonalds, Miller, Qantas, Nestle and Pfizer. In 1999, Hutchinson was appointed regional director of tracking research (Asia Pacific) for TNS. In 2005, Hutchinson relocated to the UK with TNS in a global research and development role and then moved to China as regional director, brand equity (Asia Pacific) before joining Ipsos in 2010.
Says Hutchinson: “Numerous studies have proven that creativity and effectiveness go hand in hand. For example, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) proved that creatively awarded campaigns gain 11 times more market share than those not awarded; and companies named ‘Creative Marketer of the Year’ at the Cannes Lions have, on average, outperformed the stock market by more than three times.
“Creativity in advertising communications is no longer simply a ‘nice to have’, it is essential for brands in order to stand out in today’s fragmented world and to move people. Creativity is business and this is why brands and their agencies care more and more about creative excellence and want to invest time and effort ‘early’ in the creative development process.
“Ipsos Creative Excellence combines art, science and technology to help advertisers achieve their business goals through creative excellence. We see ourselves as creative enablers. Research does not only become an excellence catalyst, it’s an accelerator of creative development to nurture and fuel creativity.”
Ipsos Creative Excellence offers a full suite of services including ‘Creative Development’ (to help in the formation of campaign strategy and early executions), ‘Creative Assessment’ (assessment of creative quality) and ‘Creative In-market’ (involving the monitoring, learning and reacting to optimise in-market activities).
Says Simon Wake, CEO, Ipsos ANZ: “The launch of Creative Excellence is the result of our strong belief in leveraging the power of research early to come up with best-in-class creative advertising that will help drive overall business performance. We know today more than ever that the power of creativity has a direct relationship to business performance. Mark brings a perfect combination of passion, skills and experience to work with advertisers and agencies to achieve creative excellence.”
Globally, Ipsos’ Creative Excellence teams work to create a learning ecosystem that adds value to clients’ businesses through great creative. Ipsos has already worked with global advertisers including ABI, Libresse, Carrefour and Carling Black Label.
3 Comments
More Marketing Heroin that inserts irrelevant research companies even earlier into the creative process. I can’t wait for more production budget to be swallowed up by these companies. I fear Ipsos will make a bunch of money while good ideas get harpooned.
Having sat through numerous IPSOS results presentations, pondering the idiocy of the recommendations, and frankly wanting to climb the walls while dribbling and screaming incoherently about what the industry has become, all I can say is good on you, IPSOS.
It’s a genius control move…a pincer movement designed to crush the life out of the creative spirit. Gotta admire their business strategy and focus.
The thought of being involved in a ‘hothouse’ environment with IPSOS or their ilk is terrifying.
Good luck to those of you whose agency masters or clients pretend they are convinced by this drivel.