French data science firm Ekimetrics has partnered with tech giant Meta to explore the correlation between creative execution and marketing effectiveness.
Using machine learning, Ekimterics has developed a technical Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) methodology to help brands better understand which creative elements have the most impact on marketing effectiveness.
The study analysed brands across four sectors; automotive, cosmetics, insurance and hospitality, involving close to 23,000 creatives from 2,300 campaigns across three and a half years, with a total spend of US$8.9m.
Key findings were that ‘Brand Cue, ‘Logo’, ‘Product’ and ‘Person’ were the most efficient features in driving ROI across all sectors, and were especially important in combination. For intangible products such as insurance however, personal or human attributes such as smiling or a visible face were key.
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“Developing our understanding of creative performance is the last frontier in marketing effectiveness. As brands add more creatives targeted to increasingly tightly defined audiences into their mix, making sense of what does and doesn’t work becomes an exponentially complex challenge,” Ekimetrics UK general manager and partner, Matt Andrew said.
“We use data science in many ways in marketing, but the reality is that people engage most with the creative. And there is often a disconnect between brand and performance marketing, with brand playing second fiddle to other metrics.
He added: “While you can test creative via third parties, the link between their metrics and sales performance isn’t strongly established. Nor has MMM typically evolved to capture creative well. This study and resultant methodology seek to bridge that gap. Good design and creative magic are of course essential ingredients in great advertising.
“But understanding the role of creative better will help brands to develop not just efficiencies in execution but in the creative process itself –whether across advertising or for specific applications such as product placement or sponsorship.”
