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Part 3
PRACTICE: DEVELOPING BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
The new century has created a huge challenge for brand communication creatives who
have to develop breakthrough messages that will not get lost in the media explosion of
the 21st century. As Professor Karen Mallia explains, “We are in a second creative
revolution that challenges creative thinkers to reimagine the way they work.”
The Second Creative Revolution: Magical Thinking Meets Bits and Bytes
New brand communication can be anything from sponsored tweets to a
charmingly retro 30 second television spot. Increasingly, campaigns consist of
media channels that are layered and interwoven in clever and complex ways.
The entire process of making brand communication has undergone a massive
shift, the likes of which the industry has never seen before. Digital tools and
emerging platforms disrupt the creative department paradigm, now that creative is
married to technology.
However, the underlying principles behind making brilliant work have not
changed much.
Enduring Creative Truths
Professor Mallia lists nine enduring creative truths in the textbook. The new
creative truth is that great work now takes a village – not just one or two
geniuses. Creating for digital media requires diverse talents of more than just a
writer and art director. The key is collaboration.
Chapter 8
The Creative Side
CHAPTER CONTENT
CHAPTER KEY POINTS
1. How do we explain the art and science of creative strategy as well as the logic and
important parts of a creative brief?
2. What are some key message strategy approaches?
3. How is creative thinking defined, and how does it lead to a Big Idea?
4. What characteristics do creative people have in common, and what is their typical
creative process?
5. What issues affect the management of creative strategy and its implementation?
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CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Effective advertising is both an art in its creativity and a science in its strategy. This
chapter explores how the two of those come together as creative strategy, which is the
logic behind the message. We’ll also examine a planning tool called a creative brief,
which provides direction for the execution of the Big Idea and for the evaluation of the
creative strategy. Next, we explore the characteristics of creative people and the process
of creative thinking, with the aim of showing how you can become a more creative
thinker. We end with a discussion of extension, adaptation, and evaluation as a means of
managing creative strategies.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
SCIENCE OR ART?
Effective marketing communication is a product of both logic and creativity. The
logic is built on fresh insight that comes from research. The message itself translates
the logic of the planning decisions into a creative idea that is original, attention
getting, and memorable.
Effective advertising is successful because the right media delivers the right message
to the right target audience at the right time. Like two hands clapping, media and
message need to work together to create effective advertising. In fact, planning the
message usually happens simultaneously with planning the media. Figure 8.1
diagrams this relationship.
Who Are the Key Players?
All agencies have copywriters and art directors who are responsible for developing
the creative concept and crafting the execution of the advertising idea. They often
work in teams, are sometimes hired and fired as a team, and may work together
successfully for several years.
Broadcast producers can also be part of the team for television commercials.The
creative director manages the creative process, plays an important role in focusing the
strategy of ads, and makes sure the creative concept is strategically on target. Of
course, the account planner originally put the strategy together in the form of a
creative brief, so that person may also be involved in providing both background and
direction to the creative team.
The agency environment is particularly important. Agencies represent the perfect
“think tank” to inspire creativity and infuse research into creative thinking. Sasser’s
research has found that agencies are natural incubators in terms of the 3P’s of
innovation: place, person, and process.
Although agencies offer an environment designed to stimulate creative thinking,
professionals working on their own find that the varied nature of their management
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assignments and projects create their own challenges, as Jennifer Cunningham
describes in this chapter’s A Day in the Life feature.
What is the Role of Creativity?
The art and science of advertising come together in the phrase creative strategy. A
winning marketing communication idea must be bothcreative (original, different,
novel, and unexpected) and strategic (right for the product and target and meeting the
objectives).
Advertising creativity is about coming up with an idea that solves a communication
problem in an original way. Professors Stuhlfaut and Berman remind us that
creativity is directed at achieving objectives. Creative strategy solves problems and
problem solving demands creative thinking – the mental tools used in figuring things
out. Both Big Ideas and Big Plans both call for creative thinking.
Media planners, market researchers, copywriters, and art directors are all searching
for new ideas. Creative people are found in business, science, engineering,
advertising, and many other fields. But in advertising, creativity is both a job
description and a goal. Figure 8.2 contains a mini-test to evaluate your own creative
potential.
The Creative Brief
The creative brief (or creative platform, worksheet, or blueprint)is the document
prepared by the account planner to summarize the basic marketing and advertising
strategy. It gives direction to creative team members as they search for a creative
concept.
Creative strategy, or message strategy, is what the advertisement says. Execution is
how it is said. The following outline summarizes the key points in a typical brief:
A problem that can be solved by communication.
The target audience and key insights into their attitudes and behavior.
The brand position and other branding decisions, such as personality and image.
Communication objectives which specify the desired response to the message by
the target audience.
A proposition or selling idea that will motivate the target to respond.
Media considerations about where and when the message should be delivered.
Creative direction that provides suggestions on how to stimulate the desired
consumer response. These aren’t creative ideas but may touch on such execution
or stylistic direction as the ad’s tone of voice.
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Different agencies use different formats, but most combine these basic advertising
strategy decisions. The point is that advertising planning—even planning for the
creative side—involves a structured, logical approach to analysis, which may leave
out the intuitive, emotional message effects.
Message Objectives
What do you want the message to accomplish? What message objectives would you
specify? Below is a review of some of common advertising objectives that relate to
the Facets Model of Effects.
See/hear - Create attention, awareness, interest, recognition
Feel - touch emotions and create feelings
Think/learn/understand - deliver information, aid understanding, and create recall
Connect - establish brand identity and associations, transform a product into
abrand with distinctive personality and image
Believe - change attitudes, create conviction and preference, stimulate trust
Act - stimulate trial, purchase, repurchase or some other form of action, such as
visiting a store or website
Targeting
The target decision is particularly important in planning a message strategy. It is
essential to understand what moves this group.
Branding and Positioning
The demands of the brand are also important considerations. Brand positions and
brand images are created through message strategies and brought to life through
advertising executions. Finding the right position is difficult enough, but figuring out
how to communicate that position in an attention-getting message that is consistent
across multiple executions and various media further heightens the challenge.
The classic “Think Small” campaign that launched the VW Beetle shown in the
textbook is an example of advertising that created a powerful brand name at the same
time as it carved out a unique position in a cluttered auto market.
Advertising and other forms of marketing communication are critical to creating what
brand guru Kevin Keller calls brand salience, that is, the brand is visible and has a
presence in the marketplace, consumers are aware of it, and the brand is important to
its target market.
In addition to brand salience – measured by top-of-mind awareness – another
objective for branding and positioning campaigns is to create trust. We buy familiar
brands because we’ve used them before and we trust them to deliver on their
promises.
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MESSAGE STRATEGIES
Once you have objectives stated, how do you go about translating those goals into
strategies? Remember, there is no one right way to do advertising—in most cases
there are a number of ways to achieve a communication objective.
Planners search for the best message design – the approach that makes the most sense
given the brand’s marketing situation and the target audience’s needs and interests.
Which Strategic Approach to Use?
First, let’s review some simple ways to express a strategic approach—head or heart and
hard or softsell. Then we’ll look at some more complex models that get a little deeper
into the complexities of message strategy.
Head and Heart
In the Facets model the cognitive objectives generally speak to the head and the
affective objectives are more likely to speak to the heart. However, sometimes a
strategy is designed to inform the mind as it touches the emotions.
Another way to refer to head and heart strategies are hard- and soft-sell approaches. A
hard sell is an informational message that is designed to touch the mind and create a
response based on logic. The assumption is that the target audience wants information
and will make a rational product decision.
A soft sell uses emotional appeals or images to create a response based on attitudes,
moods, and feelings. The assumption with soft-sell strategies is that the target
audience has little interest in an information search and will respond more favorably
to a message that touches their emotions or presents an attractive brand image. A
soft-sell strategy can be used for hard products.
However, there are examples of ads designed to stir emotions that did not work
because they were too manipulative or raised inappropriate emotions. It is possible to
manipulate emotions in a way that viewers and listeners resent. But sometimes high
emotion works.
Systems of Strategies
Head or heart, hard sell or soft sell—these terms all refer to some basic, simple ideas
about message strategy, but creative strategy is often more complex. Frazer’s Six
Creative Strategies and Taylor’s Strategy Wheel offer more complex approaches.
Professor Charles Frazer proposed a set of six creative strategies that address various
types of message situations. Although not comprehensive, these terms are useful to
identify some common approaches to strategy. They are preemptive, unique selling
proposition, brand image, positioning, resonance, and affective/anomalous.
A description of each strategy and its uses is detailed in a table in the textbook. The
preemptive strategy shows up in competitive advertising where one competitor tries
to build a position or lay a claim before others enter the market. We saw an example
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of this when the coffee wars between Starbucks and McDonald’s erupted after
McDonald’s introduced its McCafe line of fancy coffees at lower prices.
Professor Ron Taylor developed a model that divides strategies into the transmission
view, which is similar to the more rational “head” strategies, and the ritual view,
which is similar to the more feeling-based “heart” strategies. He then divides each
into three segments: rational, acute need, and routine on the transmission side and
ego, social, and sensory on the ritual side. In the A Matter of Principle feature in this
chapter, Professor Taylor explains his model in detail.
Strategic Formats
Even though advertising is a search for a new and novel way to express some basic truth,
there are also some tried and true approaches that have worked over the years. These
tried and true approaches are outlined below.
Lectures and Dramas
Most advertising messages use a combination of lecture and drama to reach the head
or the heart of the consumer. A lecture is a serious instruction given verbally. The
speaker presents evidence and uses a technique such as an argument to persuade the
audience. Lectures are relatively inexpensive to produce, and are compact and
efficient. The phrase talking head is used to refer to an announcer who delivers a
lecture about a product.
Drama relies on the viewer to make inferences about the brand. Usually the drama is
in the story that the reader has to construct around the cues in the ad. Through
dramas, advertisers tell stories about their products; the characters speak to each
other, not to the audience. Viewers learn from commercial dramas by inferring
lessons from them and by applying those lessons to their everyday lives.
Psychological Appeals
The psychological appeal of the product to the consumer is also used to describe a
message that primarily appeals to the heart. An appeal connects with some emotion
that makes the product particularly attractive or interesting, such as security, esteem,
sex, and sensory pleasure. Although emotion is at the base of most appeals, in some
situations, appeals can also have a logical dimension. Appeals generally pinpoint the
anticipated response of the audience to the product and the message.
Selling Strategies
A selling premise states the logic behind the sales offer. A premise is a proposition on
which an argument is based or a conclusion is drawn. To have a practical effect on
customers, managers must identify the product’s features or attributes in terms of
those that are most important to the target audience. Another type of selling premise is
a claim, which is a product-focused strategy that is based on a prediction about how
the product will perform.
Here is a summary of rational customer-focused selling premises:
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Benefit. The benefit emphasizes what the product can do for the user by
translating the product feature or attribute into something that benefits the
consumer.
Promise. A promise is a benefit statement that looks to the future and predicts
that something good will happen if you use the product.
Reason why. A type of benefit statement that gives you the reason why you
should buy something, although the reason sometimes is implied or assumed.
Unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a benefit statement that is both
unique to the product and important to the user. The USP is a promise that
consumers will get this unique benefit by using this product only.
Most selling premises demand facts, proof, or explanations to support the sales
message. The proof, or substantiation, needed to make a claim believable, is called
support. In many cases, this calls for research findings. With claims, and particularly
with comparisons, the proof is subject to challenge by a competitor as well as
industry review boards.
Other Message Formulas
In addition to the basic categories of selling premises, some common message
formulas emphasize different types of effects. The planner uses these terms as a way
to give direction to the creative team and to shape the executions. Here are some of
them:
A straightforward factual or informational message conveys information
without any gimmicks, emotions, or special effects.
A demonstrationfocuses on how to use the product or what it can do for you.
A comparisoncontrasts two or more products to show the advertiser’s brand
superiority. The comparison can be either direct or indirect.
In a problem solution format, also known as product-as-hero, the message
begins with a problem and the product is the solution. A variation is the
problem avoidancemessage format, in which the product helps avoid a
problem.
Advertisers use humoras a creative strategy because it is attention-getting and
they hope that people will transfer the warm feelings they have as they are
being entertained to the product.
The slice-of-life format is an elaborate version of a problem solution staged in
the form of a drama in which “typical people” talk about a common problem
and resolve it.
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In the spokesperson or endorser format, the ad features celebrities, created
characters, experts we respect, or someone “just like us” whose advice we
might seek out to speak on behalf of the product to build credibility. A recent
FTC rule makes endorsers as well as advertisers liable for false or
unsubstantiated claims, so spokespersons have to be very careful about what
they say about products they advertise.
Teasers are mystery ads that don’t identify the product or don’t deliver enough
information to make sense, but they are designed to arouse curiosity. These
are often used to launch a new product.
The use of celebrities as spokespersons, endorsers, or brand symbols is an
important strategy because it associates the brand positively – or negatively – with
a famous person and qualities that make that person a celebrity. In the past,
celebrities were often reluctant to appear for a brand because they feared it might
tarnish their image. More recently, advertisers have worried about celebrities they
have signed who tarnish the brand’s image.
There are a number of ways to measure a celebrity’s appeal or influence, such as
the E score, the Q score, and the Davie Brown Index. These scores are not just
related to conventional celebrities. In social media, anyone who attracts a lot of
followers can be identified as an ‘influencer.’ Klout and PeerIndex are rating
services for social media.
Matching Messages to Objectives
What types of messages deliver which objectives? The Facets Model can be helpful in
thinking through objectives and their related strategies.
Messages that get attention. To be effective, an advertisement needs to get
exposure through the media buy and get attention through the message. Getting
consumers’ attention requires stopping power. Creative advertising breaks through
the old patterns of seeing and saying things—the unexpectedness of the new idea
creates stopping power. Intrusiveness is particularly important in cluttered
markets, and curiosity is particularly important for teaser strategies.
Messages that create interest.Keeping attention reflects the ad’s pulling
power.An interesting thought keeps reader or viewer attention and pulls them
through to the end of the message. Ads that open with questions or dubious
statements are designed to create curiosity.
Messages that resonate. Ads that amplify the emotional impact of a message by
engaging a consumer in a personal connection with a brand are said to resonate
with the target audience.
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Messages that create believability. Advertising sometimes uses a credibility
strategy to intensify the believability of a message. Using data to support or prove
a claim is critical.
Messages that are remembered.Not only do messages have to stop (get attention)
and pull (create interest), they also have to stick (in memory), which is another
important part of the perceptual process. Most advertisements are carefully
designed to ensure that these memory traces are easy to recall.
Principle: A message needs to stop (get attention) and pull (create interest. It also
has to stick (be memorable).
Repetition is used in both media and message strategy to ensure memorability.
Jingles are valuable memorability devices because the music allows the advertiser
to repeat a phrase or product name without boring the audience. Clever phrases
are useful not only because they grab attention, but also because they can be
repeated to intensify memorability.
Brand communication uses slogans for brands and campaigns, such as “Get Met.
It Pays” (MetLife) or Nike’s slogan “Just Do It.” Taglines are used at the end of
an ad to summarize the point of the ad’s message in a highly memorable way.
Many print and interactive ads and most television commercials feature a key
visual, a vivid image that the advertiser hopes will linger in the viewer’s mind.
Color may be a memory cue, as with Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum.
Messages that touch emotions.Emotional appeals create feeling-based responses
such as love, fear, anxiety, envy, sexual attraction, happiness and joy, sorrow,
safety and security, pride, pleasure, embarrassment, and nostalgia. Appetite
appeal uses mouth-watering food shots to elicit feelings of hunger and craving,
like the photo in the Quaker Trail Mix Bar print ad. A more general emotional
goal is to deliver a message that people like in order to create liking for the brand.
Messages that inform. Companies often use news announcements to provide
information about new products, to tout reformulated products, or even let
consumers know about new uses for old products. The news angle, which is often
delivered by publicity stories, is information focused. Comparison ads are often
heavy on information and used to explain a product’s point of difference and
competitive advantage.
Messages that teach. People learn through instruction so some advertisements are
designed to teach, such as demonstrations that show how something works or how
to solve a problem. Educational messages are sometimes designed to explain
something. Learning is also strengthened through repetition, which is why
repetition is such an important media objective.
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Messages that persuade. Persuasive messages are designed to affect attitudes and
create belief. Endorsements by celebrities or experts are used to intensify
conviction. Conviction is often built on strong, rational arguments that use such
techniques as test results, before-and-after visuals, testimonials by users and
experts, and demonstrations to prove something. Celebrities, product placements,
and other credibility techniques are used to give the consumer permission to
believe a claim or selling premise.
Principle:When advertising gives consumers permission to believe in a product, it
establishes the platform for conviction.
Messages that create brand associations.The transformative power of branding,
where the brand takes on a distinctive character and meaning, is one of marketing
communication’s most important functions. Image advertising is used to create a
representation of a brand, an image in a consumer’s mind through symbolism.
Advertising’s role is to provide the cues that make these meanings and
experiences come together in a coherent brand image.
Messages that drive action.Even harder to accomplish than conviction is a change
in behavior. It often happens that people believe one thing and do another. Sales
promotion, for example, works in tandem with advertising to stimulate immediate
action using sampling, coupons, and free gifts as incentives for action.
Most ads end with a signature of some kind that serves to identify the company or
brand, but it also serves as a call to action and gives direction to the consumer
about how to respond, such as a toll-free number, a website URL, or an e-mail
address.
Ultimately, advertisers want loyal customers who purchase and repurchase the
product as a matter of habit or preference. Reminder advertising, as well as
distributing coupons or introducing a continuity program, is designed to keep the
brand name in front of customers to encourage their repeat business.
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