In advertising, no word causes more confusion perhaps than the word “creative.”
At one end of the spectrum, we see TV commercials so creative and entertaining that we forget what they are selling! At the other end is the daily onslaught of advertising that seems to be following the chant of cheerleaders for Team Boring: “Same old! Same old! Blah, Blah, Blah!”
Though it’s true, as David Ogilvy said, that “It ain’t creative unless it sells,” it’s also true that “No one ever got bored into buying anything.”
And “creativity”—when it is hooked up to “selling”—can help you get a lot more mileage out of the few marketing dollars you have to spend. It can help you make your message more attractive, more believable, and more compelling.
Creative Strategy in 3 Easy Steps
But to make sure that “creativity” and “selling” are hooked together, you need a clear creative strategy statement which should follow three simple steps.
1. PURPOSE OF THE ADVERTISING: Who are you talking to and what do you want to convince them to think, feel, believe, or do?
2. METHOD: How will you convince them of that?
3. TONE AND MOOD: What will be the tone and mood of your communication?
A couple of examples will help—and I take these from Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. He first describes a creative strategy used for Mother Nature cereal:
“The purpose of Mother Nature cereal advertising will be to convince our target audience, mothers of children twelve years of age and younger, that Mother Nature breakfast cereal is the most nutritious and healthful boxed cereal on the market. This will be accomplished by listing the vitamins and minerals in each serving of the cereal. The mood and tone of the advertising will be upbeat, natural, honest, and warm.”
Simple and clear, right? With a statement like this, the creative department can go crazy as long as they follow this creative strategy. Here’s another example:
“The purpose of Miller Beer advertising will be to convince our target audience, beer-drinking males, that Miller Beer is what macho-type men enjoy after a hard day’s work. This will be accomplished by showing men at work, then after work, enjoying mugs and bottles of Miller Beer. The mood and tone of the advertising will be masculine, joyful, socially oriented, and blue collar.”
Now, do try this at home. Pick a product and write a creative strategy for it following these three steps. It’s good practice. Then do it for your own business, because this statement will help keep your advertising and communications on track.
Bringing Your Communications to Life
So where does the creativity come in? One of the definitions of “creative” is: to give life or bring to life. So you ask yourself, “How can I give more life to this piece of communication? How can I bring it to life for people in the target audience? What can I do to make it a little more interesting, attention-getting, winning, and convincing?”
And again, there doesn’t have to be any big mystery to this. In fact, you probably do something like this on a regular basis.
Let’s say you had a great time visiting Ireland on vacation, and you wanted to convince a friend to go. How would you do it? You would tell the stories, right? You would describe what you saw, what you did. You would provide details. You would try to bring Ireland to life for her, so she could see what it would be like.
That’s what you want to do in your advertising and communications. You want to tell the stories and give the details that will bring your product to life for your target audience—so that they can see and feel what it is like to benefit from your product.
So don’t say you can’t be creative. You can. And a clear creative strategy statement can help you keep “creativity” and “selling” hooked together.
Finally, for a little inspiration, I leave you with these words from the actor Alan Alda. He was talking about how to make the journey to become more creative, and he said, “You can’t get there by bus, but only by hard work and risk and not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful.”
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