Efficiency can’t equal effectiveness without creativity: DDB

Josie Tutty

DDB managing director, strategy and innovation Leif Stromnes and chief creative officer Ben Welsh explain how an over-reliance on rationality is endangering creativity in marketing.

In the 1960s, television advertising pioneer Rosser Reeves invented the term ‘unique selling proposition’ (USP). It refers to the unique benefit a brand uses to help it stand out from its competitors, and it has become one of the most well-known terms in marketing.

The USP, along with other dominant terms such as differentiation, reasons to buy, propositions and positioning make up what DDB’s Leif Stromnes dubs the ‘rational persuasion model’.

During his talk at Mumbrella’s MSIX conference, Stromnes explained how the rational persuasion model has become one of the dominant theories about how advertising works. Marketers use terms like...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands