Creativity and Advertising

What is Creativity?

The ability to be creative is an art. When creating advertising copy, an artist, writer, poet, novelist or playwright will take well-known concepts, words and phrases and relate them in a creative and brilliant way. They blend the features of the product with the concepts, words and phrases in such a way that convinces customers to purchase the product and the brand. This combo exemplifies art or creative expression to a very high degree.

The advertising copywriter writes to achieve the client’s objectives to express the features or attributes of specific products and services. These are presented in terms of the benefits to the consumer, and the advertising copywriter uses language that is most appropriate to the audience that is being targeted. Therefore, the presentation of products in advertising should be done in a way that encourages people to make purchases.

Advertisements in print publications and advertisements broadcast on television present products as solutions to problems or as means of satisfying wants and needs. When writing, a copywriter constructs messages in accordance with certain plans, to accomplish specified goals and he or she ought to follow a disciplined method when developing these messages.

In the words of Alfred Polite, “Advertising creativity has to follow rules which are guided by a well-defined purpose, by an analysis of thoughts supplied by imagination, by a selection of the useful ones which meet the purpose.”

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Importance of Creativity

As competition between companies and brands continues to rise, it has become very clear how important creative thinking is in the field of advertising. One definition of creativity states that it is “the utilisa- tion of imagination or unique ideas in the production of something.”

In the world of advertising, it is what gives brand messaging its sense of purpose. People frequently have the misconception that the technol- ogy itself is the most essential component of the tech industry; yet, in the absence of creativity, there is no way to establish significant relationships with your clientele.

Creative Equals Personalisation

Imagine you have just entered a coffee shop and are making your way up to the counter to place an order. This time, the cashier asks, “Same as usual?” instead of taking an order. You could call that personalisation and good Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Not only do you get to spend less time and effort, but you also stand a better chance of being recalled and forming a lasting bond. The same holds for advertising that uses creativity; when a message is conveyed uniquely and interestingly, it piques the interest of the target audience. It’s as if you were shopping from the comfort of your favourite coffee shop.

Creativity Equals Brand Recognition

Offering something of value to your clientele and establishing rapport with them through clever marketing is a great method to build brand awareness. Advertising that addresses consumer pain points or speaks to their passions is more likely to succeed.

Creativity Equals Storytelling

Emotional resonance should be your top priority when crafting a brand story. A strong emotional response is essential for making a connection with a person. If consumers can identify with your brand, they will be more loyal to it.

Storytelling not only helps you connect with your target audience, but also provides valuable insight into your brand’s development by leading the reader step-by-step through your tale. Building a brand narrative can help you keep clients around. When customers become familiar with your brand and identify with it, they are more likely to recall it when needed. In your marketing strategy, this serves as the framework.

Creativity Equals Engagement

The most successful advertisements are those in which cutting-edge technological and data techniques are used in tandem with very effective forms of creative expression. A significant number of consumers must be reached with advertising; only those who view an advertisement will be impacted by it. If an advertisement’s creativity can make it interesting and relevant to the target audience, the advertisement will have a better chance of being noticed.

Formulating a Creative Strategy

Before creating commercials, the writing team develops a creative concept. This is a campaign topic that will run across all executions and serve as the cornerstone of your message to customers. For example: Nestle India created a campaign to celebrate 25 years in business which captured the imagination of both adults and children. They asked fans to share their stories and as these stories were amusing, moving and relatable, the audience connected with them immediately.

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Advertising Creativity

A group of individuals with creative acumen usually get into the ‘Creative’ team in an advertisement agency, to produce advertising campaigns that can creatively tell the brand story to promote the brand and maximise conversions. It has been demonstrated that creative advertisements are more effective. According to the findings of a study conducted by Author James Hurman and colleagues on advertising efforts spanning three decades, creative advertisements give 11 times higher Return on Investment than non-creative advertisement campaigns.

Creative advertising refers to a strategy that is both effective and creative in advertising a brand or product in such a way that it causes consumers to remember the brand or product. It builds a connection with the customers or prospects, which motivates them to build or change their perceptions about brands. Clever advertising does not feel like an advertisement. Instead, it leaves an impression on the customer’s mind.

Planning a Creative Strategy

The brand or product manager is responsible for putting together the creative brief as the first step in the planning stages of the creative strategy. The creative brief is a document that may be rather challenging to put together because it needs to be concise while yet includes the positioning statement for the brand, as well as the cam- paign’s target audience, as well as the action objectives and communication objectives. In most cases, the brand or product management team is responsible for delivering the creative brief.

The manager does not hear anything further from the agency until in turn, the agency presents the management with the proposed draft commercials or the planned promotion offer for approval. Method of planning, on the other hand, suggests that the brand or product manager or the management team play an active part in determining the creative strategy to be implemented.

If the creative is going to be prepared in-house or for a large number of people who have read this book, an active role is required. Naturally, another key contribution made by the agency is skilled production, which in this day and age typically takes the form of digitally rendered advertisements or promotions.

There are four steps involved in the process of planning a creative strategy:

Firstly, the most important benefit claim for the brand has to be meticulously constructed out of the many different options that are available.

Second, the imaginative concept that will be used to emphasise this claim needs to be conceived of and chosen; in the most essential sense, the imaginative concept is the advertisement.

Third, to achieve the two universal campaign communication goals of brand awareness and brand attitude, the appropriate communication strategies for use in advertisements need to be selected.

Last but not least is the selection of in-ad attention strategies that will have the highest probability of gaining the attention of the target customers and maintaining interest in the processing of their message. If an advertising agency was hired to construct the advertisements or promotions, the management team will use ratings of the creative ideas and a checklist of in-ad tactics to decide which advertisements or promotions to approve for the campaign. If an advertising agency was not hired, the management team will decide which advertisements or promotions to approve for the campaign.

Creative Process

Advertising creativity is not isolated. Originality and imagination are useful in all areas, including advertising department planning and control settings. Advertising creativity often starts with research and analysis.

The second phase is idea development and the third is the idea.

• Preparation: As part of the preparation process, you will do research and analysis to collect the necessary background knowledge to solve the issue.
• Incubation: It is the second step which entails stepping away from the problem and allowing ideas to develop.
• Illumination: It is also known as seeing the light or the solution.
• Verification: This step involves exploring the idea’s viability through honing and polishing it.

Steps in Young’s Creative Model

James Webb Young, a former Creative Vice President at the J. Walter Thompson’s firm devised one of the most widely used methods for fostering innovation in advertising.

Young’s model of the creative process contains five steps:

• Immersion: This step involves amassing information by conducting background research and fully immersing oneself in the issue at hand.
  
  
• Digestion: This step includes taking in information, processing it and arguing with it in one’s head.
  
  
• Incubation: It involves removing difficulties from one’s conscious awareness and giving control of solving problems to one’s subconscious so that the subconscious can operate. Illumination: At this step, an idea is conceived.
  
  
• Verification of reality: Analysing the concept to determine whether it still has potential or whether it addresses the issue at hand, followed by modifying it to make it more practically applicable.

Creative Strategy Development

Immersion Digestion Incubation Verification of Reality Illumination NMIMS One of the first things you do when starting a new project is to make an outline, which is a crucial part of developing a creative strategy. This plan is crucial to the success of any new venture. However, there is often a glaring omission.

Developing a creative strategy involves more than just using fancy language, making interesting designs and using tried and true sales techniques. These are just the beginning of what makes up a creative plan. Let’s begin with a definition of creative strategy, and then we’ll go over the procedures necessary to formulate and put into action an effective creative plan.

The process of developing and implementing a creative strategy is made up of 4 main parts: planning, developing, implementing and measuring.

A. Planning and Development

• Identify and set realistic goals: First, set goals that match your company’s beliefs and long-term aspirations. Goals can include growing social media engagement, funnel leads, sales, etc. Successfully achieving these goals requires proper planning. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
  
  
• Identify your audience’s problems: What’s your audience’s problem? What hurts? When considering these questions, dig further. When thinking about your benefits, consider how they tackle their broader problems. If you sell a solution to improve team management, you make manager-team interaction easier. You also assist them to organise their initiatives. When you examine deeper pain points, you create a product that solves broader problems. All from one tool, managers can recoup time, track progress easily and meet deadlines. Identify your audience’s pain points and show how you can heal them.
  
  
• Brainstorm and choose your creative strategy: Diverse teams help generate creative strategies. Diversity broadens viewpoints and improves idea selection. Diverse perspectives increase collaboration, leading to more refined ideas and a more personal strategy. Work backwards from your aims to plan your creative strategy. This will help you construct a well-structured project plan with a timeline.
  
  
• Create your unique selling proposition: Your USP explains why you’re the best. This establishes you as an industry expert and builds customer trust. Before positioning yourself as the greatest in the field, you must know your target customer. You can do this by researching your audience. Knowing your audience helps you design a targeted, personable plan. You’ll connect with your audience more deeply than your competitors.

B. Implementing and measuring

• Pre-Test: Any new marketing effort must be pre-tested in smaller pools. This will help you assess your creative strategy’s potential. This allows you to uncover faults or weaknesses in your plan and improve it. A/B testing is an excellent approach to compare campaigns during pre-testing. You may then use the data from each to develop your final campaign. After pre-testing, execute your final product and release it to your audience.
  
  
• Campaign evaluation: Check the success of your ultimate product at various stages. You may then track its progress and adjust as needed. Use your milestones to measure the possibility of meeting your goals on schedule. Compare historical creative strategy data to current strategy data to evaluate your campaign. This shows growth over time and lets you measure achievement on a bigger scale. This allows you to “bring back” the components of a successful creative strategy.
  
  
• Optimise: If you don’t accomplish your goals, consider testing new marketing strategies (if time allows), while retaining the project’s fundamental elements. Use creative failures as learning opportunities. Why didn’t your creative strategy work? Examine your USP, tone guide and audience research to see if anything was missed or needs to be changed.