The World: Asia switches from creativity to effectiveness.

Tim Broadbent reveals how the marketers' call for an improvement in measuring campaign effectiveness has been answered.

British advertising had a problem - it was too creative. For five consecutive years in the 70s, British agencies won more awards at Cannes than any other country. Why was that a problem? Because, to quote Jeremy Bullmore, they were 'doing work designed just to win awards, not to sell products'.

There are parallels between the British agency scene then and the Asian scene now. Asian creativity is often world class. The most awarded commercials directors in the world are Thai, according to The Gunn Report.

Ogilvy Singapore was one of the three most creative offices in the world in the 2007 Cannes Lions ranking, after Saatchi & Saatchi New York and DDB London.

Steve Henry, one of the outstanding UK creatives of his generation, came to Asia in 2007 to judge the Spikes, Asia's own creative awards, and commented: 'The quality of creativity here is stunning.' But then added waspishly: 'Though I'd like to see it done with clients that we're working on every day.'

He was referring to work designed just to win awards. But, to be fair, Asia has not had to worry about effectiveness as much as the West Asia's economic miracle is well known. For instance, the Chinese economy has grown in real terms by 9 per cent a year since reforms began in 1979. On current trends, it will overtake the US some time in the early 2030s to become the largest economy in the world.

Its advertising market has grown even faster. Chinese adspend grew by 1,200 per cent from 1997 to 2006. China is likely to overtake Japan this year, becoming the second-largest ad market in the world, and will overtake the US market in the 2020s - a seismic shift in the balance of global advertising power.