1 in 2 organizations measure creative value by its impact on key business metrics.

On March 13, 2018 InSource and inMotionNow released the 2018 In-House Creative Management Report, which compiled survey results from over 400 marketers and creatives, as well as insights from industry thought leaders.

The report distills the survey results into 5 key findings. The first key finding of the report is that businesses and internal clients measure the success of creative work by the impact that work has on business objectives. More specifically, 55% of respondents stated that the organization’s primary valuation of creative is based on business impact, followed by customer/audience feedback and client satisfaction. When it came to how individuals value creative work, those top three priorities were reversed. 78% of respondents said that individuals measure the value of creative by client satisfaction. 71% ranked customer/audience feedback as the most important, while 62% ranked business impact a the most important measure of creative success.

There are two important takeaways here. The first is that individuals on the creative teams and the organization as a whole tend to be aligned on the most important ways to measure creative success, choosing the same top three measures. However, organizations tend to be more focused on business outcomes, while creatives themselves put a heavy emphasis on client satisfaction and audience feedback. In short, businesses want to make creative that works, and creatives want to make content that their internal clients and target audiences love.

While this may seem on the surface to be a misalignment between the goals of individual creatives and the organization as a whole, in reality marketing and creative leaders can use this information to increase alignment between their teams in two ways:

1. Loop the creative team in earlier during project intake. By bringing the creative team in earlier, they will have a better understanding of the campaign as whole, how their work fits into it, and the goals of the campaign. This allows them to make better content than if all they receive is a narrow brief.

2. Provide review in context. When the creative team sends their proofs out for review and approval, give them more feedback than “don’t like this color”. Explain why you think that creative choice doesn’t mesh with the goal of the content, and what you want the creative to accomplish. This allows the designer to use their expertise to make content that is more closely aligned with the goal of the piece.

By aligning more closely on the goal of creative content, creatives and the organizations they work within can become more closely aligned on measuring the value of creative.

You can read the entire 2018 In-House Creative Management Report here.

Read a summary of the second key finding from the report here.