When the best campaign still flops

The most expensive mistake I've seen in twenty years never happens in media buying. It happens earlier, in the agreement on how success gets measured at all.

You're coming from short-term advertising. Search, social, optimised down to the detail for years. At some point a campaign gets commissioned that's mainly meant to make the brand better known. What often still gets expected is the feel of the old advertising: fast reaction, clear cause and effect, results visible within a few weeks.

The problem isn't that brand advertising is inherently slower. It can work in the short term too. The problem is that nobody agreed beforehand what you'd actually look at to judge it, and what result would have counted as a win.

That's why we agree upfront on which early signal speaks for the campaign, and what finding would make us change course. Does the brand stick better in people's minds. Is it searched for more often, and can that really be credited to the campaign or to something else. Only once these questions are answered beforehand can you say afterward whether a campaign worked.

That's not a pitch line. That's the basic condition for a good campaign to actually be recognised as one.