I think my primary point in all that babbling was that in my opinion, CP+B is all about BUZZ. And I’m always skeptical of agencies that define themselves that way. Simply because I strongly suspect that when an agency’s comfort zone/area of “success” is buzz and buzz only, it’s because that agency can’t stand up to real measurement.

If you can’t show me any work that has real, quantifiable numbers — concrete rather than abstract success — numbers/metrics/dollars instead of warm fuzzies — then I have to assume you’ve got a little bit of an Emperor’s New Clothes thing going on.

I agree with your point about creativity, and as I say, I love experimenting with new, fresh, interesting, and even lunatic ways of doing a very old job, but when you define success as “anything that makes the client more famous,” you really have lost me.

I mean, unless your client is Paris Hilton, that theory is so very flawed.

Also, you are absolutely correct about metrics and results. I like to preach transparency and ROI. So, I believe that metrics are of the utmost importance in illustrating to your clients that a campaign is working.

While I admit that this post was a little premature given that the campaign was in its early stages of deployment, I still believe that they were successful in creating an emotional attachment to something that most take for granted. A hamburger.

Remember the circus campaign for BK? I would like to forget that one. As much as I hate to admit, I have been part of some campaign “misses” as well. However, I think that it is important to have feedback like this so long as that we learn from the mistakes and continue to get more creative with advertising.

Also for the record, while CP+B has had a few BK successes (and as much as I loved the idea of Whopper Sacrifice, I’d love to see some metrics, because I just can’t see that having had a very strong return), they’ve been outnumbered by some profound failures.

No one remembers CockRock because BK’s legal dept. ordered it pulled from the web less than half an hour after it rolled live. I know that because I was the one who was tasked with pulling it.

That campaign cost a fortune, had zero return, and got CPB sued by Slipknot.

Remember Chickenfight? Neither does anyone else.

I could name plenty more.

The rebranding effort CP+B led in 2003 (? maybe 04?) was strong and has had excellent results. They also convinced BK to tighten their focus, as well, going after their strongest target, 18-25 yr old blue-collar males, and that’s had good results, too. But bottom line, BK is still a way-behind #2 (and barely holding on to that; in fact, they may have slipped to #3 behind Subway by now), and their stock recently received the dreaded two-star rating from Motley Fool.

I don’t know that that kind of performance rates any kudos.

I love change, and I love that advertising is taking some new and fresh directions, but most of this stuff is in shakedown cruise mode.

I’m going to be very hesitant to call anything a success until I see that it is actually resulting in $$$ for the client.

Success must be measurable.

This was a great idea that everyone liked.