How research should be used.

Advertising is a delicate business.

It's creative.

But the creativity is for business.

And so a balance must be found:

You need a good idea, but it needs to be the right kind of good idea.

It needs a focus.

Advertising needs to accomplish something.

Leave even the greatest creatives alone with a pen and paper, and they won't create the greatest advertising.

They need guiding: pointing in the right direction.

That's where research comes in:

Research tells you what the advert needs to do.

Finds the problem with a brand.

But research won't solve the problem.

That's what creativity is for.

Of course research is more appealing: you can measure it.

That's where it can stifle.

Especially in the digital age.

The prospect of a shiny website pulling big numbers can be tempting over a new idea which may or may not work.

But just because something is popular, it does not mean it is doing what you want it to.

Fill a website with women in bikini's and you might get a lot of hits, but you haven't accomplished anything.

Numbers will never tell the full story.

It is unlikely that anybody will sum up the situation better than advertising's hero Ogilvy: too many people 'use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.'