The new IPA ‘Lemon’ report - what’s it all about?

How left-brain thinking is undermining creativity and making advertising less effective.

Lemon? What are you talking about?

Last week, as part of their Effweek programme, the IPA released their latest effectiveness report - Lemon, by Orlando Wood of System1.

What’s the central argument of the report?

That left-brain type thinking is taking over marketing and advertising, resulting in a loss of effectiveness. The author suggests that we should begin resisting our instincts to over-analyse and devitalise creative work in order to improve the performance of communications. Quoting philosopher Susan Sontag, Wood sums up by saying “What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.”

Ok, I’ve seen the evidence on the loss of effectiveness, but left-brain / right-brain? I thought that turned out to be nonsense?

Well, yes and no. As far as I’m aware, the whole left-brain equals logic, right-brain equals creative fell out of fashion a long time ago. However, Wood bases the central thesis of this report on the work of Dr Iain McGilchrist, particularly his book The Master and His Emissary. In this, McGilchrist provides evidence that although both the left and right sides of the brain are involved in all thinking, the way they approach it is different. The left-brain “has a narrower and more goal-oriented focus. Its tendency is to isolate parts from the whole and to see them in the abstract.” The right-brain on the other hand, “sees the whole rather than the parts. Its attention is broad.” Optimum results are from whole-brain thinking rather than one or the other.

Brilliant, so we can expect another deluge of those horrible split-brain presentation images then. But, what’s this got to do with advertising?

Slow down there friend, there’s a bit more to wrap your head around first. The second half of The Master and His Emissary argues that culture over the years has fluctuated between left-brain thinking and whole-brain thinking. For example; the Renaissance was whole-brain, art from this period “takes on a new realism, portrays human betweenness and references antiquity”, which in less erudite terms means that it focused on representing a real scene (fictional or not) rather than abstract concepts. However, the following period, the Reformation, was typified by left-brain type thinking, and art became “flatter, more abstract, conceptual and self-conscious, and words and symbols take on a new importance.” One of the main conclusions of the book is that we are currently in a left-brain focused period of culture.

Sounds all a bit too convenient to be true to me.

Well, some people have said similar things. But McGilchrist’s book seems to have been well received by the scientific community, so whether it’s 100% accurate or not, it certainly brings a very compelling and robust lens to our current situation.

Fair enough. But you still haven’t told me anything about advertising.

Sorry. Wood’s report essentially uses the lens of McGilchrist’s argument, combines it with all the work the IPA has done over recent years on the gradual reduction in effectiveness in communications and throws in some primary System1 data for good measure. Wood takes the argument further in several ways:

First, he finds plenty of evidence for his argument in the combined output of our top creative houses at the moment. He argues that left-brain advertising would be flat, abstract, verbal and repetitive, and finds plenty of recent examples.

Secondly, he provides some interesting analysis on both the type of people who work in advertising in the UK (spoiler: we’re quite different to the UK mainstream), plus the effect of industry specialisms, short-termism and ad-globalisation on making us think in a particularly left-brained way.

Fine, left-brained, right-brained, whatever. As long as it works.

But that’s the main point Wood makes; it isn’t working. Combined with the numbers from the IPA showing the overall reduction in effectiveness, Wood uses plenty of proprietary research data from his agency System1 to show that left-brain ads are less effective than whole-brain ads.

Great, so I just use my whole brain, and everything gets better?

Well, yes, a bit. Yes, there’s an uplift from whole-brain ads, but it’s not massive and there are still plenty of poor-performing whole-brain ads. So it’s not a silver bullet. But, upon reading the full report it’s hard to deny that Wood makes a very compelling overall argument and some great recommendations on improving things.

Ok, I’ll bite - what should I do?

The report is littered with insights on how to change how we produce communications, but overall Wood emphasises reconnecting with advertising’s ability to entertain and make people feel more rather than shock or disrupt. He prioritises focusing on craft (rather than only the abstract ‘idea’), getting under the skin of the mainstream, and creating memorable characters and situations. Maybe controversially, he also strongly suggests protecting creatives from some of the worse sides of our fast-paced world, allowing them to form lasting partnerships with each other and their clients rather than have them jump through hoops via sprint and enforced integration across large multi-disciplined teams.

Seems do-able. Great, I’m off to use my whole-brain. Should I bother reading the whole report?

Definitely. It’s great, very readable, and provides some really interesting insights and data about modern ads and advertising. You can buy it here.

Image above by aytuguluturk from Pixabay.