"There is an unofficial reason why pre-testing is so popular, and that's that clients work in very complex organisations with lots of stakeholders," says Martin Beverley, former chief strategy officer at Adam & Eve/DDB.

Beverley joins the Campaign team on the podcast to discuss the efficacy of pre-testing and its contentiousness in adland: some say data can stifle creativity while others argue it’s a sure method to improve advertising effectiveness.

Marketing professor Mark Ritson said it wasn’t divisive but actually a "no-brainer", that it’s essentially infallible, and we now live in a different age of pre-testing. Beverley discusses this argument alongside Campaign editor Maisie McCabe and deputy creativity and culture editor Charlotte Rawlings, hosted by tech editor Lucy Shelley. The team consider how creatives and strategists should look at the bigger picture, what certainty does for creativity and if pre-testing denies originality.

Plus, at the end of the episode, Campaign tests the pre-testing, with Rawlings and Shelley testing their own ad ideas for Liquid Death using Kantar's Link AI early stage testing tool.

Further reading:

How do you solve a problem like… pre-testing?

The Year Ahead for Campaign

Is big data driving a short-term view?

Troy Ruhanen: 'I wouldn't have taken OAG job if it was all about efficiency and smashing things'

Former Amazon CCO Simon Morris appointed chair of new audience insight platform

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