Emma Wilkie, General Manager of the Gunn Report kicked off at 9:00 AM on the third day at the Ojo. A few hours away from the Effie in Costa Rica, it is interesting to start with a presentation that sustains the undeniable: creativity means effectiveness.

The Gunn Report combines winners from 46 festivals and establishes rankings of the most creative in the main categories.

It began by showing the most winning commercials of 2011, and of course it started with the favorite of many, as it is my favorite too. Here is the commercial that should have been the Grand Prix at Cannes:

Then he continued his reel like this:

Emma Wilkie then reviewed the best of graphics in the world, with works simply from another planet. One ground-breaking idea after another, seasoned with sublime, extraordinary, sophisticated, expensive productions! They are all in Ads of the World and there is nothing but inspiration one after the other.

Now, does the creative sell more? Personally, the Friendship Machine seems to me to be a compelling answer with sales increases that exceed 8 times those of a regular machine. This is a winning case:

Outside of the presentation and in our experience, the case of El Verdugo, the Paganini and the “Tome Chichí” again supports an idea that we all know: creativity is effectiveness. The results are becoming evident and the speed of social transformation has made creativity urgent. Advertising clients can no longer ignore the power of creativity on a daily basis. Neither can agencies.

The Gunn Report did a study on the link between creativity and effectiveness. The data was quite revealing, although I was left out of the explanation of their formulas and assumptions for the precise calculations. The Gunn Report’s study of ESOV bands is compelling.

It showed average increases of 1.3 times in the case of the full universe of campaigns on average. Non-award-winning campaigns achieved just 0.8% times increases, while award-winning ideas managed to increase results by 5.4 times. As we were just starting to dive into the numbers and results, Emma interrupted the presentation and added more commercials. The first in this batch were these.

Then she showed the most awarded commercial in the history of the Gunn Report. how about that?

Then he moved on to the Old Spice case. Undoubtedly a case of results ignited by creativity, more than doubling sales. He reviewed cases of Snickers, Gillette, McDonald’s and more examples with numbers that revisit the idea known to all: creativity sells.

Here I leave you with pictures of some of his slides because they include data that add to the argumentation.