In the agency world, I’m an oddball. Many would say that I’m an oddball in general, but that’s beside the point. Ever since that first assignment in my sophomore year copywriting class at Florida Southern College, I wanted to be a copywriter. I knew I had a gift—at least people told me I did. All I dreamed about was seeing something I wrote in print or on the air. I finally got my chance when I joined the creative team at the Lipphardt Agency in Tampa.

Within a month, I had written my first national TV spot for SunJet Airlines (which shortly thereafter filed for bankruptcy—no fault of mine, I might add). Over the next four years, my fellow right brainers and I brainstormed and concepted our way to win over one hundred awards for creative excellence. We basked in our quirkiness. We celebrated our zaniness. We turned “the pit” into anything but the pits.

But then one day, all of that changed.

You see while my right brain was busy being all creative and stuff, my left brain secretly somehow had been playing its own little game. During client pitches, my left brain was paying attention to the research and the numbers and the statistics—all those things that made my right brain want to turn in to Jell-O. My left brain somehow taught itself how to connect those numbers to reason. My right lobe discovered my left lobe’s betrayal and they’ve been at war ever since.

My former creative partners insist that I have gone to the dark side.

But how can they? How can they not see the beauty in what true research tells you? Whether it’s a focus group or a mall intercept or a trend article or a fully blown-out quantitative target segment analysis or segmentation study (OMG, I’m drooling!), research tells a marketer so much. Not just about who your target is, but also about their media consumption, their interests, behavioral patterns—even the messaging that they’re most likely to respond to.

The right side of the brain, aside from tuning out all things numeric or analytic, doesn’t like that. Research brings out its defensive side, and the two sides argue.

RB: Well that takes all the creativity away.

LB: How so?

RB: I wanted to use a talking baby.

LB: The research shows that most women in our target demo expect to start a family within the next two years. Why can’t you use a baby?

RB: Well… because… because… well, it’s just not as much fun if it makes sense!

LB: Besides I think a TV spot like that would be great based on our media schedule. Our research tells us that we should be placing spots on networks like WE, Oxygen, HGTV, Food Network, Lifetime. They’ll LOVE your talking baby.

RB: Well that media plan isn’t very creative.

LB: Whattya mean?

RB: Well you didn’t really create it, did you? That ‘research’ of yours did all the work for you.

LB: I did plenty of work! I mean all those data fields didn’t cross-tabulate on their own!

RB: Ooh! Big word man!

LB: Look, why don’t we float the idea past a focus group to see if you’re on the right track?

RB: NO!

LB: Why not?

RB: Remember that last focus group when that one lady said she didn’t like the creative?

LB: Yes.

RB: I didn’t like her.

LB: Yeah, well, we ran the campaign anyway because you wouldn’t stop whining and it was a flop.

RB: When did you become… such a… such a… boobie-head?

LB: Boobie-head? Is that the best you can do, word boy?

And so on.

So anyway, when you’re trying to figure out your next campaign, take some time and do some research. It can make everything from your creative to your media planning and public relations strategies much more successful and on-target. Doing it right isn’t free—but if you take the time to work with someone who understands how to structure a research project effectively, the return on investment can be staggering.