Using Analytics To Build Better Advertising Agencies

MONEYBALL FOR ADVERTISING

Eyes Always on the Prize

Awards are the best, right? They're tangible proof that we're great at our jobs. We can pop them on shelves next to our desks and glance over to affirm that our mothers were right: we are so clever. In our hearts, though, we know that the fifty award shows we're always submitting for are... kind of silly. More than “kind of.” They're incredibly silly. They don't take into account the actual process of advertising. They don't acknowledge the sausage getting made. And yet, we base so many of our hiring decisions on those same awards. Why?

What if there was a better way to staff your agencies so you don't just win more awards, but more business? What if you could create a team of superstars that don't just make one campaign and coast on that for the next two decades? What if there was a dynamic new way to look at prospective hires that can take your agency to the next level and position yourself well into the future? There is. And the sports world discovered it twenty years ago. 

The Art of Moneyball

First, let me start by saying I am not really a “Sports” person. I don’t know much about baseball at all. I'm familiar with all the normal stuff: home runs, bunts, goalies, etc., but I'm woefully uninformed when it comes to the nuances of the game. I am, however, a huge movie buff. And one of my favorite movies of the last decade is based on baseball: Moneyball.

If you haven't seen it, Moneyball is based on Michael Lewis’s 2003 book of the same name, an account of the Oakland A's 2002 season as their general manager Billy Beane attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane (cast generously as Brad Pitt) and Assistant General Manager Peter Brand (cast not so generously as Jonah Hill) overcome the franchise's limited budget for players by building a team of undervalued talent using a sophisticated approach to scouting and analyzing players called SABERmetrics.

SABERmetrics is simply a collection of relevant data from in-game activity (Hits, Runs, Steals, walks, bunts, etc.). SABER (The Society for American Baseball Research) had been collecting this data since 1971 but the entire game of baseball changed forever when writer/historian/ statistician Bill James came along and used that data in a whole new way to scientifically evaluate and determine why teams win and lose.

The 2002 Oakland A’s, a small market team with a fraction of the budget of larger names like the Yankees and Dodgers, used SABERmetrics to re-evaluate how they recruited players to build their team. They ended up being one of the greatest teams of all time with a fraction of the payroll. They didn’t focus on Hits and Home Runs. They instead focused on OPS+ (On Base Percentage), BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play), wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average), and a host of other completely overlooked stats. They found hyper-specific data that equated to more runs scored, which translated to more overall wins. In short: they got nerdier than the other teams and the nerds finally beat the jocks.

Crafting Your All-Star Squad

Somewhere between the 10th and 25th time I watched the film, it dawned on me: “Could SABERmetrics be used to hire creative leaders?” Notice I said, “Creative LEADERS” not creative talent. Is there a formula for evaluating advertising “star players” you want to hire to lead your organization and build a championship team. I mean, what is an ad agency if not a competitive team working together to win as often as possible? 

Like baseball, advertising has superstar talent – game-changing creatives that knock it out of the park and win all the awards and grace the pages of our trade mags. Young ad students act like starstruck fans; looking up to all these superstars, learning all their work, and putting their posters up on their wall. Okay maybe not posters but certainly their ads. I know I did. We may not be chasing the greats like DiMaggio and Ruth, but you know there's an ECD with Leo Burnett's face tattooed on his lower back somewhere out there.

So how does our industry find that superstar creative talent? We look at awards and press: Cannes Lions, Effie Awards, ONE Show awards, AdAge, Adweek, Archive, etc. It's the equivalent of evaluating players solely on hits and home runs. Every year recruiters (internal and external) scout all the award shows, furiously jotting down the names of the big winners who they hope to sign because they truly believe this superstar creative is finally going to make the agency a championship team.

The superstar creatives know that winning awards means big opportunities: more money, better agency, bigger title — so they start working with their agents and start promoting their work and the awards they won across all their social media platforms. Less of a #humblebrag and more of a #grotesqueselfaggrandizingbrag, but that doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Take a cue from Bill James, though, and you'll realize that big budgets and star talent don't necessarily mean winning teams. Advertising is like alchemy. You need to right ingredients to create that legendary campaign and sometimes, too many stars is a recipe for disaster. How many times have we seen our star players/creatives going to bigger agencies with bigger budgets and striking out? It happens all the time. But why is that? Why doesn’t it work out? Is it possible that it’s not who you hired but how you are hiring? It's more than possible. It's reality.

Introducing GABORmetrics

So, what should agencies and recruiters be looking for? What is the SABERmetrics equivalent for advertising? Announcing GABORmetrics. I could tell you that it's based on some big acronym like General Advertising Ballistics Observation Report, but I'd be lying. I named it after myself because I'm all about leaving my legacy on this planet and it's not coming in the form of corn coupons.

GABORmetrics is the new data formula all agencies should be using to evaluate and sign their next big “Superstar Creative” leaders. Ignore the awards. These are focused, meaningful stats that give you insight into true leadership potential.

Here are the new stats (in order of Importance):

(NBW) – New Business Wins

(YAA) – Years at Agency

(CC) – Campaigns Created

(FC) – Famous Campaigns

(RNN) – Robust Networking Network

(YL) – Years Leading

(CE) – Category Experience

(TR) – Total References (clients, creatives and collaborators)

(WVP) – Written Vision Plan

If you want to build a championship advertising agency, you need to find “players” who fit these criteria and try not to get distracted by advertising awards. This is about superstar creative LEADERS and not superstar creative talent.

The most important stat is New Business (NBW). If you can find a player with a high NBW you have someone special. NBWs say a lot about a leader. It says they are creative. It says they can lead a winning team. It says they are collaborative. It says they can present. It says they are liked by clients. It says they know how to walk up to a wall filled with hundreds of ideas and pick the 2-3 that are going to get a client to spend millions of dollars. And the more NBW’s a creative has… WOW. That is a superstar leader. Forget the French Riviera, recruiters should scour the press to see who is winning the accounts in review and find out the teams who were on it. Who just got the agency named AOR for a huge new client? That's the real superstar.

The second most important GABORmetric stat is Years At Agency (YAA). YAA will tell you a lot about the players attitude and mental toughness. Are they a builder? Do they have what it takes to help an agency grow? Have they helped build a culture? Have they changed agencies every year? NOT GOOD. That is a Me Me Me Culture builder. Stay away. Have they worked somewhere 5+ years? That is a We culture builder. Hire immediately.  Look to the right of the agency name and focus on the years there. It is more telling than you may know.

Campaigns Created (CC) and Famous Campaigns (FC) are two great GABORmetric stats for finding ECDs and CDs. You want to know that this creative leader can COME UP with big ideas and sell them to clients. They might not be CCO level yet but they have the creative chops to recognize a killer campaign and bring it to life. If it is awarded, great, but the main thing is it needs to be their own original idea. You want the team that came up with the campaign, not the team that did the 800th spot 6 years after.

When searching for a superstar creative leader, you are going to want one that has a Robust Networking Network (RNN’s). If this leader has been around and has led clients, led teams, done great work, and produced great campaigns, they should have an amazing RNN average. That means they have people who want to work for them and with them. That means that clients are willing to move their million dollars budget because this leader is worth it. The right network can be the difference between belt-tightening next year or a seafood tower at the holiday party.

I know it’s obvious, but this one is universally overlooked: Years Leading (YL). The best way to know if you have a superstar creative leader is to see if they have actually lead before. If so, see above. Did they win business? Did they do breakthrough campaigns? Do they have clients and creatives who would move their family to rural Pennsylvania to work for them? Or were they fired and publicly humiliated six months after the creative cross-armed Agency rag cover story? It might not have been the superstar creative's fault but you should know that stat going in.

(CE) Category Experience, (TR) Total References and their (WVP) – Written Vision Plan are icing on the cake. If you are a large, networked agency you have to look past that first PR announcement and imagine this leader going on a meet-and-greet with all the clients. They need the experience; they need a plan and you need to know that they are going to deliver.

The Stunning Conclusion

“Wait, so awards don’t factor in?” Nope. Not at all. Award-winning creatives don’t always make award-winning creative leaders and you want a leader, not just a creative brain. Awards are great for evaluating creative talent. If you want creative leaders, though, then GABORmetrics is for you. Build your team with the future in mind, because agencies succeed by winning business – not by winning awards. Happy hiring.

For my next article I will be using Paw Patrol to describe future of famous work by creating unique combinations of talent teams. Don’t worry. Chase is on the case.