Why Rigour is the Best Friend of Risk
I’ve been following the back-and-forth debate around System 1 on LinkedIn and the pages of Campaign with great interest. Mostly because I find it curious how many in the creative community consider research the enemy of great creativity. My experience has often been the exact opposite – especially the many times I’ve partnered with the aforementioned System 1.
I once watched the world’s most celebrated free climber, Alex Honnold, speak about solo-climbing El Capitan. He told us that the day before any gravity-defying free climb, he climbs the same route with safety ropes. When asked why he said he wanted to be a great climber, not a lucky one. He didn’t want to cross his fingers & hope. This doesn’t stop him being an incredibly skilled climber. He’s also still unimaginably brave in his approach and a brilliant maverick. But he’s a great believer in rigour behind risk. Whenever I think of this desire for a degree of practice behind a master practitioner, I think of System 1.
I really do hate traditional ad “testing”. The rightly derided/discredited abomination of sticking ideas through soul-crushing, difference-diluting methodologies that reward anodyne and promote average. This kind of historical decision-abdicating “research” is what has created the understandable culture of contempt around ‘testing’ ideas for most creatives. But like most fear, it tends to largely come from a position of ignorance.
All research is not the same.
Creatives have nothing to fear these days from research when done properly with the right partner. Quite the opposite. System 1, in my experience, are the best friend of creativity. In my career their method has aided me on numerous occasions to help brilliant ideas make the fragile and fraught journey from page to execution. They’ve helped to stop silly interventions rather than encourage them. Their method has helped me birth the brilliant, and then the commercial results have validated the courage. Far from being the killer of great ideas – their method has been the greatest protector and promoter of them.
Any new idea involves risk. You never take a risk with someone you don’t know or trust. After a client-agency relationship has been established great work follows (John Lewis & adam+eve, Ikea & Mother, McDonalds & Leo Burnett) but this doesn’t exist at the start. Trust is established over time. Whenever I think of this need for the fundamental establishment of trust in human relationships, I think of System 1.
I’ve been a client, and working inside a client organisation taught me that your agency are your biggest allies & you are theirs. Most of your colleagues who don’t work in Marketing tend to be sceptical of ponies and meerkats. As a Marketing client you’ll need to hold a few hands in the journey from idea to execution. A little bit of validation in your back pocket also can help you, as a client, to stick to your guns if gobby people on the socials start to come for your work (the same applies to gobby colleagues too) Whenever I think of the sell in journey of bringing great ideas to fruition, I think of System 1.
There are many times when research has proven an invaluable friend to some of the best work I’ve got out into the world – especially when done very early in the development process.
Putting the ‘Pony’ idea for Three at W+K through System 1 early helped to convince a very sceptical new client that we hadn’t gone mad. Putting a (now forgotten) print campaign on the same creative platform through System 1 six months earlier is what smoothed the path for Pony, Kitty and all the other derivatives that followed. This is when research can protect fragile embryonic greatness and give it permission to grow stronger. This wasn’t ‘testing’, it was learning. System 1 were able to predict the business impact of the approach, and then importantly we were able to retrospectively show the positive commercial results of our decision.
Working alongside System 1 on incredibly early iterations of creative thinking on ‘Endless Road’ at mcgarrybowen helped to establish some trust with a new and (by his own admission) less-than-creatively confident Honda client. This idea would have been strangled at birth without it. He was reassured by the validation, happy with the Cannes Lion and a year later was buying the world’s most creatively awarded idea.
My Western Union client was a vigorous supporter for bold creative ideas. But she was isolated in a massive, global organisation. Her adoption of System 1 gave her the sword and shield to fight confidently on behalf of her agency partners. We did some great things because the research was her bodyguard to fight against fear and laziness.
This same validation was invaluable when Branston used System 1 because although our client was British on a British brand, their owners and budget holders were Japanese. System 1 gave our client a degree of confidence to go into bat on our behalf to make some bold & bonkers ideas survive and thrive.
Phones, cars, finance, pickle. All manner of different creative content. Austrian, English, Italian and Japanese clients. The same research partner, helping make great work come to life in the right way.
Most of the issues around the ‘testing’ issue comes from the unneccesary and unhelpful adversarial narrative that exists around clients and agencies. The best creativity (film, TV, etc) comes from collaborations, not conflict – Hollywood writing rooms are a good example. Atul Gawande at TED said that success in the modern world requires “pit-crews, not cowboys”. In these days of financial pressures, increased competition and squeezed budgets clients demand a bit more scrutiny for the ideas that agencies have.
Nothing undermines our credibility faster than expecting big companies to spend millions just because someone at an agency they probably don’t know likes an idea. It makes us look petulant, commercially naïve and therefore, untrustworthy. Over 50% of CEOs of FTSE100 companies have a finance background, and finance folk are not fans of crossing their fingers in hope of a good outcome. I sometimes wonder if some creatives are fearful of rigour, not research. A basic level of scrutiny is good for any industry.
Research is like fireworks: only fatal in the wrong hands. With the right client and right agency attitude, System 1 will be your greatest ally as an agency creative. Their rigour with your risk will make you undeniable; Think Steve Wozniak with Steve Jobs.
Like Honnold, let’s be great creative partners for our clients, not lucky ones. Let’s use the right methodologies in the right way to help our clients make the right work. System 1 is not perfect or infallible and doesn’t claim to be. But it is very useful (and robust) in my experience.
Creativity is about open minds. If people open their minds to how research can be their ally, rather than their enemy, then we can help more, better, braver work get made. I think everyone would give that ambition five stars.
Kevin Chesters, Chief Strategy Officer – former strategy head at Ogilvy, W+K, Saatchi & Saatchi, Dentsu & client-side
Author of “The Creative Nudge”
