I've been thinking about assigning each ad being reviewed some kind of score for quite some time now, and after evaluating various options, I have landed at a simple solution.
The first option contemplated was a 1 to 10 point scale, with 10 being the maximum and 1 the minimum score. Something didn't feel right about it though. Another option was the U.S. five letter grading system that most of us know from high-school or college, with the A+ being the top score, and the F the bottom score.
While both options were pretty similar, both would assign scores on the positive side of the spectrum. While I think this is fine in high-school and college, where you can be lazy and pass each school-year with a 'below-your-capabilities-performance', without any fear of retribution, and the opportunity to make up for it by going full throttle in your senior year, chasing those straight A's, you can't do that as a professional.
Once you're out of school, and you're in the big leagues of advertising, you need to be: professional. Competition is tough, keeping an account is not a given, there is constant pressure from shareholders (if you're publicly listed like IPG), or stakeholders, clients, society, consumers... you name it. The stakes are simply too high to fail, to put out bad work. Yet it happens so often.
Seeing so much bad advertising out there, I've come to realize that a simple 'D minus' or an 'F' doesn't do it justice. The range needs to be spun wider as bad advertising hurts your organization, not just financially, as the money spent on it is gone (think: sunken cost), but much more so economically in a wider sense.
Once the message is out there, it is unclear what kind of damage it can do to your brand. What you think it will do is not always what it is going to do. The consumer is a mysterious species, and the 'homo economicus' simply an illusion.
So here it is: Introducing 'THE MAD AD SCORE', or for matters of simplification, 'THE MAD SCORES':
-5 / Minus Five = The Worst. So bad it hurts.
-4 / Minus Four = Second to worst. Close to imperfection.
-3 / Minus Three = Medium bad. No reason to be proud.
-2 / Minus Two = Bad, but not as bad as it can be.
-1 / Minus One = Causing just a little damage.
0 / Zero = The neutral zone. You'll go unnoticed.
+1 / Plus One = You must have done something right..
+2 / Plus Two = Batting .269 while you think you're a .300 hitter.
+3 / Plus Three = Not many make it here. Big leagues. Clearly.
+4 / Plus Four = You can pat yourself on the shoulder. Great job.
+5 / Plus Five = The few. The proud. The Wizards of Ads. Bravo!
Notes:
When assigning scores to ads, the following criteria are taken into consideration:
1 - THE MESSAGE
Is it clear? Is it concise? Is it contextual? Is it fresh? Or does it confuse? Is it too complicated perhaps? Is it trying too much?
2 - THE CREATIVE EXECUTION
This includes aesthetics, casting of characters, use of celebrity endorsement, use of voice over, symbols, icons, logos, colors, camera movement, on-screen-display etc.
3 - THE CONTEXT
Is the medium well chosen? Is it wise to put ads for certain products on public garbage cans or in public restrooms? Are $3M spent on :30 sec during the Superbowl well spent?
4 - IMPACT ON BUSINESS
Does it help the brand? Does it positively or negatively impact sales? Is it merely neutral?
5 - THE INTANGIBLES
That certain something that cannot be foreseen in a creative brief. The great idea, the one ingredient that sets you apart. Like Sealy's line 'Whatever you do in Bed - Sealy's supports it'.
Each of these five criteria gets a score of either -1 / 0 / or +1. They are being added up, and all combined make up the MAD SCORE.
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