How effective is your advertising? Martin Lindstrom and Richard Pinder on the last ad that made them buy.

Which media/platform is going to be the dominant effective medium this year?

ML: Contextual wireless. Contextual branding is when you send the right message to the right audience at the right time. It is where the brand helps you to become the hero. So, the mobile device will be the future because you cannot live without it.

RP: This year? Globally? Sorry to be dull, but it’s still TV. Fast forward a couple of years and it will still be screen-based but I am sure Apple’s iPad and HP’s Slate will have changed dramatically our attitude to receiving commercial messages on personal devices - including all forms of mobile.

Where did you see the last ad that converted you to make a purchase or to participate? What did you buy or do then?

ML: I saw an ad for a brand called Pomodoro, an Italian handmade furniture brand, and that made me buy all my furniture from these guys. But this was nine years ago and it was the last time.

RP: We are all affected strongly by commercial messages. Sometimes - quite often actually - we just don’t know which one precisely. For me, the last time I saw something that made me ‘want one’ was a few months ago for the Fiat 500 Convertible, which is just so cute I had to order one for my girlfriend.

How do you strike the correct balance between creativity and effectiveness?

ML: It is always going to be like a pendulum; always back and forth and I think that is the beauty of the advertising world. Really smart agencies are those that can make that swing happen.

RP: By not seeing any disconnection between the two. This debate is a nonsense. The very idea that an uninteresting piece of communications would change the conversation you are having about a brand? Laughable. Effectiveness requires us to deliver ideas that people want to talk about. Creative ideas. 

Which should come first - the idea or the media?

ML: Absolutely the idea. 100 per cent.

RP: Which should come first, the cart or the horse? Ideas, of course.

Are media agencies starting to become more effective? Or are they still primarily driven by planning and buying?

ML: They are like legal companies. They are treating this as a numbers game but sometimes you have to realise that a creative idea can vary according to what media it is being exposed by. I think we have reached a stage where they have more power than the ad agency and more power than the people making decisions about great concepts, and that is really dangerous.

RP: I think they also know that ideas come first. So a number of them are getting more and more interested in the idea and even hiring creatives. Look at most media awards entries and tell me it ain’t so.

If you had to sell yourself and how effective you are, what would you say?

ML: Selling yourself is to show you have a strong opinion and the courage to stick with it. It is also important that you are creative, that you can think on the fly, that you are not necessarily following the manual. It is such an important skill and is going to be so valuable in the future because we are all addicted to BlackBerry and these devices and there is no time to think creatively.

RP: For sale, one (slightly used) ad man, more radiator than drain, more inspirational leader than detail manager, never gives up and is a poor loser.  
Humble enough to know this is mildly embarrassing to write but smart enough to know that it’s the result that matters most.

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This article was originally published in the 22 April 2010 issue of Media.