Dealing with Roadblocks

Last week was absolutely mad – no less than three projects hit major roadblocks. In this case all brand managers on client side were switched and replaced with new ones that were out of the loop on previous approvals and had their own (very different) opinions on art direction. Needless to say, after innumerable rounds of revisions we’re pretty much starting from scratch. At any rate I took this as an opportunity to get into a discussion with my executive director and a few of my account executive friends about how best to handle a problem like this, more to the point, how to handle endless rounds of revisions.

Firstly, all of them separately suggested changing up the creatives dealing with the project. Sometimes a fresh creative approach just won’t cut it. Sometimes, you need to start with a team that’s unfamiliar with the project at hand, and ideally - hasn’t seen any of the previous creative.

This actually works to highlight one of the key strengths the agency model holds against smaller and more focused digital studios. Agencies typically work in groups, with 2 or 3 creatives per group (copy, art, and possibly motion/online). Each group generally deals with 2 or 3 different accounts. So shuffling which creative team is handling a given project can be a smooth(er) operation or, at the very least, one that is possible. In comparison, smaller digital shops are generally more limited by their numbers and might not have the capacity to shuffle creatives - possibly burning out creative stamina while re-visiting the same project for the same brand over and over. I think every freelancer knows how soul destroying that process can be.

Secondly, as my ED put it, problems in the approvals process can be a symptom of a bigger issue below the surface. I would imagine this second solution would be to change the creative AND account teams, as well as getting the ED personally involved with the project – depending on the severity of the situation.

Anyway, will try to post more, but int he meantime if anyone has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them!

A Rant

This past week I was asked to put together a writeup of sorts - explaining my points of view on creativity, design and advertising, and the agency model. Not trying to preach just thought it would make for an interesting post…

I think that historically, the measure of our success as advertisers lay in our ability to reach big audiences with big creative ideas. To an extent it still is. However, I see advertising evolving into something where those big ideas are used to not just reach, but entertain, communicate with, and benefit audiences. This requires being able to adapt and tell the creative idea or brand story in new forms, at many different points of the purchase path – to potentially smaller audiences. This, as far as I’m concerned, is the real ‘seismic shift’ currently changing advertising that has so many within agencies frantic.

The main part of what we do in advertising, the creative idea, is and always will be inherently present. Great creative will always entertain as it seeks to get attention for the brand. However, with every brand vying for consumer attention even great creative gets lost in the noise. As such, the stronger ad shops are looking beyond the traditional sell line in a 30 second spot or clever slogan in a full page media buy. In other words, as a result of all the clutter some of the most creatively daring advertising now involves gorilla or viral marketing, and is targeted at a very niche market. Beyond that, some of the most brilliant and effective advertising isn’t even advertising as much as it is entertainment – as in the end, nobody really wants to be marketed to, but they do want to be entertained.

But what happens after a message entertains? In my opinion, great creative doesn’t just talk about a brand, it also communicates. The difference, communication is a two way process; it’s a dialogue instead of monologue, it’s inclusion marketing instead of intrusion marketing, and it’s a big change of thinking for a creative agency. Nontheless, I think companies are increasingly looking for agencies to no longer produce creative that simply sings the praises of a brand to anyone who will listen. They’re looking for them to create dialogues with consumers that motivate and activate them to interact with a brand through feedback, social networking, and word of mouth.

Finally, I think one of the largest shifts currently happening in advertising is that it has switched from talking about the size of the media buy to reaching people along the purchase path. In other words, it doesn’t matter how many people see your ad, it’s about when they see your brand and how it can benefit them. The simple example is this; buying a camera isn’t anyone’s final interaction with that brand, taking photos, downloading, editing, and uploading or printing them is. The argument can then be, why should advertising work only in it’s traditional form in pursuing awareness or sales. It could evolve and be used to create a real added value for the user – after the purchase. For a camera purchase, it could mean downloadable widgets to help with photo editing and down/uploading, sponsored photo competitions, or branded podcasts about photography.

30 Different Varieties of the Landing Page

So I found myself on the TED site recently watching a number of, ok most of, the video downloads they have of some of the remarkable presenters over the years.

One speech in particular, that of Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell, caught my attention. It dealt with the development of ‘varieties’ of food products, that is, the reasons why we have 30 flavours of Ketchup and the like. That reasons, as stated by Gladwell, is that we can never create one focus group verified ‘perfect’ version of a cola, or tomato sauce, or coffee – we all have our own personal tastes and preferences of what we think is ‘perfect’.

What struck me as really interesting is how easily the history of that best practice relates to online best practices today. I’m specifically thinking in the area of ‘after the click’ marketing. That idea states that a site's landing/entry page should adapt or change to the search parameters input in searching for it (or if available, a user’s cookies). So the landing page for HP laptops for example, should change based on what the user has searched for, whether it’s consumer gaming laptops, or consumer business laptops, or base priced laptops. It all comes down to being able to cater to the many different preferences and varieties of users - and that’s so much easier to do online than any other media.