Trust and shared ambition the bedrock of creative effectiveness in Perth
This week’s WAMA breakfast panel confirmed that creative effectiveness is attainable—across any industry. The message was brought to life by an outstanding lineup, led by Josh Edge from Anthologie, and featuring Amber Martin from Hypnosis, David Jobson from the WA Police Union (WAPU), and Jo Thomas from ARTRAGE.
Edge opened his talk with the announcement that, having already decided creative effectiveness is attainable, decided to change the title of the event at 4.45am to “how do we prove creativity pays off”. Hosts these days…
Edge set the stage by unpacking creative effectiveness, describing it as the intersection between communication and consequence. He talked about its ability to change the narrative and solve problems.
Martin built on this by encouraging the audience to use fault lines to their advantage creatively. “Any moments, any attitudes that you sense in a community will spark conversation – use it,” she said. Hypnosis’ work for Lightning Minds was an excellent example of this. “I think there’s an appetite in WA for creatives to move the needle on problems to solve – and use distinctive brand assets in the process to build efficacy.”
Jobson agreed that a big measure of effectiveness for WAPU was the emotional connection a piece of creative was capable of building. Their “Cop Enough” campaign did exactly this – “We got the conversation rolling, and that was a KPI achieved,” he explained. “We rely on this, because without a big media budget to play with, we need to make as much noise as possible, so that the media come to us.”
On Fringe Festival’s effectiveness metrics, Thomas used the example of their reviews, where audience members rate shows in a very non-traditional way. “We want to avoid any sort of negativity, so our system is both an effectiveness metric and effective in itself.” She acknowledged however that measuring the impact of creative can be difficult, as quantifying their contribution to mental health, wellness, and the liveability of Perth overall are hard to measure.
WAMA Chair, Rene LeMerle, concluded the event, saying: “Creative has faced some hefty headwinds over the last few years, so it was reassuring to see so many people keen to explore the idea that effectiveness and creativity don’t need to be mutually exclusive.
“Built on the bedrock of trust and shared ambition, marketers and creative partners are best placed to deliver impact, which is the ultimate measure.”
The next breakfast will be announced in the coming weeks.
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Writen by Ashley Broadway.
