Effective marketing thinking
We want to make marketing effectiveness feel easy. That’s why the 3F’s are so useful. But if you want to see under the hood, here’s an overview - with full links below.
So what is marketing effectiveness? It’s really just understanding why people buy from you.
While society has changed, human brains are the same as they were millions of years ago. They make decisions fast - so they don’t get eaten by Sabre-toothed tigers. And they make them while burning as little energy as they can - because there’s no chocolate yet. In short, brains evolved to focus on fast choices, not best choices. This means they choose things that they recognise and like, NOT what’s most logical. Effective marketing works with the brains’ ways - making it up to 12 times more likely audiences’ brains choose your company.
Honestly, marketing can get overly complex, fast. That’s why, at Creative Commerce, we look at the really big points - and focus on the 3Fs. These three; Fame, Fluency and Feeling encompass, overarch and rule the rest (These three heuristics explain market share across categories and regions with an average correlation of +0.9.” -Andrew Tindall at System1 Group).
Three keys to marketing success
AKA the Availability Heuristic
(mental availability).
Coke = Cola. Cadbury’s = chocolate. Compare The Market = price comparisons. They all got deep in their audiences’ memory network for the category. The proven way to do this is to make famously creative showman-like, brand-advertising.
How Fame works:
We build an attention-grabbing creative idea / character (Compare the Meerkats, Snicker’s You’re Not You When You’re Hungry, Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot). This creative gets linked to your audience’s memory nodes around your company - so it comes to mind quicker when they’re in ‘buying mode’ - and you’re more likely to be chosen.
How Fame helps:
You can’t be chosen if people don’t know about you. Fame’s an essential, and its level reflects where you stand in the market, today.
Fame
AKA the Processing Fluency Heuristic
(brand distinctiveness)
84% of advertising is wrongly attributed to other brands because it’s not well branded. That means only 16% of budgets are working for the companies intended! What does well branded mean? It’s simple. It means it really, really, really looks and sounds like you… every time.
How Fluency works:
It’s easy, if you use the same distinctive brand look and feel consistently, your audiences’ brains recognise you quicker and like you for not making the grey cells work hard… and they choose you.
How Fluency helps:
Because brains like things that are familiar and trusted, they’re willing to pay more for them (price insensitivity); so, you can be more expensive and still get bought.
Fluency
AKA the Affect Heuristic
(feel-good factor)
90% of the brains decisions are made by System 1 thinking (Daniel Kahneman, won a Nobel Prize for unpicking this). And this system makes decisions based on what it likes and feels safe with. It’s emotion based!
How Feeling works:
Likeability is found in the right-hand side of the brain – this side likes creative lateral things like stories, characters, music and old fashioned feel-good. So, that’s what we use. We entertain… for commercial gain.
How Feeling helps:
This is a doozy. Feeling predicts your company’s future growth. That is; the more people feel good about you, the more successful you’ll be. It’s crazy but true.
Feeling
Below, are all the things you don’t have to worry about when you use our approach…
because everything just fits under our simple three-part effectiveness framework.
It covers:
Mental availability
Brand awareness
Top-of-mind awareness / recall
Spontaneous recall
Unaided brand recall
Salience
Reach/ Impressions/ Broadbeam
Share of voice/ Talkability / Share of conversation
ESOV
Word of mouth
PR amplification
Buzz / Virality
Cultural imprint
Search Volume / SEO Visibility
Cultural Penetration
Fame
Get your brand famous
so it comes to mind fast.
It covers:
Distinctive brand assets (DBAs)
Physical availability
Brand codes (e.g. colours, logos, shapes)
Add attribution
Brand system
Executional fluency
Recognition fluency
Processing fluency
Logo/sound/jingle recognition
Brand consistency
Design coherence
Fluent devices (e.g. characters, mnemonics)
Asset / Brand linkage (ad-to-brand attribution)
Familiarity via repetition
Fluency
Get distinctive
so people recognise you easily.
It covers:
Emotional response
Brand sentiment
Brand affinity
Brand warmth / love
Emotional storytelling
Brand trust
Surplus Feeling
Right-brain broadbeam engagement
Authenticity and humanity
Happiness metric / Happiness Index
Creative effectiveness via emotional priming
Cultural resonance
Brand purpose
Social Proof / Belonging
Empathy/ humanity
Feeling
Get your audience to react emotionally, so the System 1 brain likes you.
When it’s simplified everyone in your company knows the goals and how they can help.
Who we stole from
Thanks to brain boxes at Ehrenberg Bass Institute (including Byron Sharp, and Jenni Romaniuk), System1 Group (including Orlando Woods, Jon Evans, Andrew Tindal), Peter Field and Les Binet, Mark Ritson, Kantar, IPA, WARC, Daniel Kahneman, and others whose research and genius we have learned from – unofficially.
Links to a 13-part breakdown of the evidence, thinkers, and data that power this approach.
1. Why Fame, Fluency & Feeling?
System1Group boiled it down to three proven factors. Why? Because these three predict long-term business success.
This claim is based on empirical analysis of over 50,000 ads tested globally in System1’s database, where the heuristics of Fame, Fluency, and Feeling were shown to predict long-term market share outcomes with a high degree of accuracy — specifically, a correlation coefficient of +0.9.
References:
Binet & Field, The Long and the Short of It (IPA, 2013)
“Fame increases efficiency ×4” (p.63 summary chart)Orlando Wood, Look Out (System1, 2021) – Fluent Devices build recall and long-term share.
Andrew Tindall, Effectiveness in an Age of Efficiency (System1, 2024) – +0.9 correlation between Fame, Fluency, Feeling and share growth.
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute – DBAs improve salience, choice speed, and ROI.
2. What the Brain Really Responds To
https://marketingscience.info/mental-availability-is-not-awareness-brand-salience-is-not-awareness/
References:
Binet & Field (2013), p.63: “Fame campaigns are most effective.”
Romaniuk & Sharp (2016): “High mental availability = faster growth.”
Romaniuk (2018): “DBAs reduce misattribution.”
Heath (2007): “Emotion builds lasting memory.”
3. Creativity = ROI Superpower
Creative marketing doesn’t just win awards. It wins in the real world.
Hurman (2016): Creative campaigns = 11× more efficient
System1 + LinkedIn (2023): Creative = 5× the ROI
Heath (2007): Emotion drives memory and behaviour
Sources:
The Case for Creativity – Hurman
The Cost of Dull – System1
IPA / Binet & Field – multiple campaigns
4. Effectiveness is Declining
We’re doing marketing more efficiently — but also more ineffectively.
Key Stats:
Effectiveness halved since 2008 (Binet & Field, 2019)
Short-termism is the culprit (LinkedIn B2B, 2021)
Emotionless ads = no growth (System1, 2024)
5. 12× Creative Effect
If you invest in high-quality creative, the upside is enormous.
Insights:
Higher brand metrics, memory, and pricing power
Sources:
WARC (2020), Creative Effectiveness Ladder
IPA (2018), Marketing in the Digital Era
6. We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants
We didn’t invent this. We translated it.
Contributors:
System1: Wood, Evans, Tindall
IPA: Field, Binet
Ehrenberg-Bass: Sharp, Romaniuk
Others: Kahneman, Ritson, Kantar, WARC
7. Brains Don’t Choose “Best”
System 1 chooses fast, emotional, familiar options.
Source: Kahneman (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow
· Daniel Kahneman (2011) showed that System 1 thinking (fast, emotional, intuitive) governs 90% of daily decisions, including brand choices.
· Effective marketing works with this, using familiarity, fluency, and emotion — not logic or detail — to drive decisions.
“People don’t choose the best brand. They choose the most mentally available one that feels good and familiar.”
— Kahneman, 2011
8. How Marketing Works with Brains
Good marketing fits how people actually decide.
Evidence:
Creative + familiar + emotional = long-term success
12× uplift from emotionally engaging creative (Hurman, 2016)
9. The +0.9 Correlation
Tindall’s System1 research shows it’s not opinion — it’s proven.
Stat: +0.9 correlation between Fame, Fluency, Feeling and share growth
Source: Tindall (2024)
10. The 95:5 Rule
Only 5% of buyers are in-market at any time.
Implication:
You must reach the 95% to grow. Memory = sales later.
Source: Dawes (Ehrenberg-Bass), LinkedIn B2B Institute
11. How Fame Works
Fluent devices + fame work = memory building.
Examples: Meerkats, Kevin the Carrot, Honey Monster
Supporting Work:
How Brands Grow – Sharp (2010)
“Marketing works by building mental availability: making the brand come to mind more easily in buying situations.”
— Sharp, How Brands Grow, 2010The Long and the Short of It – Field & Binet (2013)
“Fame campaigns are the most effective type of campaign in terms of long-term business impact.”
— Binet & Field, The Long and the Short of It, 2013
12. Fluency in Action
Be recognisable and consistent — or you’ll be misattributed.
Stats:
84% of ads are wrongly attributed (Romaniuk, 2018)
“Brands without strong distinctive assets waste up to 84% of their advertising. Branding must be both consistent and unique to work.”
— Romaniuk, Building Distinctive Brand Assets, 2018Fluent devices = 27% more share growth (Wood, 2021)
Heuristic:
“Easy = right” – Reber et al. (2004); Kahneman (2011)
“Processing fluency enhances liking, trust and choice. If it looks and sounds familiar, brains believe it’s right.”
— Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011); Reber et al., 2004
13. Feeling Sells
People don’t choose rationally. They choose emotionally.
Evidence:
Affect Heuristic (Slovic, 2002)
Right-brain ads outperform (Wood, 2021)
Reference Library
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Binet, L. & Field, P. (2013). The Long and the Short of It. IPA.
Hurman, J. (2016). The Case for Creativity. Previously Unavailable.
Romaniuk, J. (2018). Building Distinctive Brand Assets. Oxford University Press.
Sharp, B. (2010). How Brands Grow. Oxford University Press.
Wood, O. (2021). Look Out. System1 Group.
Tindall, A. (2024). Effectiveness in an Age of Efficiency. System1 Group.
Slovic, P. et al. (2002). The Affect Heuristic. Cambridge University Press.
LinkedIn B2B Institute (2021). The 95:5 Rule.
WARC (2020). Creative Effectiveness Ladder.