Testing In The Lions’ Den Preview
We’re putting the final touches on our presentation for the LBB and Friends Beach at Cannes Lions – Testing In The Lions’ Den. From 11AM-12PM on the beach (and with some drinks after).
There’ll be the results of our latest testing project – see below. There’ll be a panel exploring effectiveness and creativity with John Kearon, business and marketing expert Fran Cassidy, ex-Lucozade and Brewdog CMO Jon Evans, and LBB editor Laura Swinton. There will be a game show where if you can predict which ads scored well you’ll win free drinks. And there will be our hot-off-the-presses reveals of how this year’s Cannes favourites have tested.
What’s the project all about? Here’s a teaser:
We wanted to do a bit of research into the old idea that testing kills creativity. Now, if you google “kills creativity” you’ll find that testing is no longer the number one suspect. These days it’s probably “programmatic” or “data” with its prints all over the scene.
What’s our view? We sell ad testing, so you can probably guess. But you might be surprised at how much sympathy we also have with the anti-testing view. If you’d made a brilliant ad, bursting with emotion, and got it nixed because it didn’t meet the action standards on message recall… well, you’d hate testing too.
It matters what you measure, in other words. We can see with our own eyes that the work that wins Gold Lions at Cannes is a lot better than the baseline ad.
But how much better? Which are the best of the best – the ads which not only won over the juries but proved their effectiveness with a real audience too? And is there a gulf between the ads that move consumers and the ads that delight juries?
That’s what we decided to find out. Testing In The Lions Den takes 75 ads – Gold Lion and Grand Prix winners from the 2010s in the film category – and tests them just as we would any other ad.
Epic Split. Thank You, Mom. Blood Normal. Parenthood. It’s A Tide Ad. Shoplifters. Meet The Superhumans. The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. The Talk. The Force. Like A Girl…. It’s been a decade of truly memorable ads. But only some were effectiveness hits with the public too. Join us on the beach, and we’ll reveal the real Cannes Lions winners.
