2 in 6 – the most important rule when planning advertising

In a 2008 research study, a group of radiologists were presented with photos of their patients as they analyzed x-rays, while another group reviewed the scans with only the patient’s name as normal. The study showed that the radiologists who were shown the photos were more meticulous and caring in their analysis, meaning they did a better job, because they had more empathy towards their patients.

It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine the same is true in advertising. If you know and empathise with the people you're trying to reach, you're more likely to create richer, more insightful and effective work. It feels that the industries increasing obsession with seeing people as little more than numbers on a spreadsheet is moving us further away from this. The people we're trying to reach are increasingly dehumanised.

Empathy is something that's rarely talked about or aspired to in advertising. As Kevin Chesters from Ogilvy recently pointed out, less than 2% of creative briefs are currently informed by primary research. A shocking statistic, but it used to all be very different. In his paper "How I started account planning" Stanley Pollitt estimates that in the 1960s BMP was running 1,200 focus groups a year – that’s roughly 25 groups a week.

Obviously, the 60s were a long time ago, today it’s all too easy to feel like we don't have time to bother with all that. But we really need to find the time, or we risk becoming ever more disconnected from the real world.

User design can teach advertising a lot in this respect. Over at Stanford University their planning process for design thinking doesn’t start with the objective but with the user – their first step is to empathise with the user, to better understand what they want and only then do they bring in the objective from the client, as a lens over what the user wants, so they always work towards a solution that works for both.

Best practice for those designing products is to spend at least 2 hours every 6 weeks with the people they’re designing for. I’d guess most people working in agencies haven’t spent 2 minutes in the last 6 months with their target audience, never mind 2 hours in 6 weeks.

It’s time to change that, time to really understand people by physically going out and spending time with them. The entire marketing industry could benefit from taking on 2 in 6.

At MEC the strategy team are doing just that, we're taking this best practice on as a requirement. Every strategist will need to spend 2 in 6. That’s 2 hours every 6 weeks meeting the people our clients want to speak to, whether through working in a shop, listening in at a call centre or sitting in their living rooms. It’s all going to help us better understand the people we’re trying to talk to, boosting our empathy and hopefully like the radiologists, helping us to create more effective marketing for our clients and their customers.

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