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[During - Session 3] All about how advertising gets made, via The Creative Brief; Julian Cole; MrBeast; Feasibility + Assurance; De-Risking Ideas; and my great surprise
I’ve been asking Midjourney to opine, visually, on the prompt, “the future of advertising.” Just those four words. Midjourney really seems to believe advertising’s future = whipped cream-topped beverages and big screens in public places. It’s not wrong? My rule for each class is I’ll take one of the four initial images suggested; no do-overs. I did tweak the prompt this week to include “--ar 16:9” which leads to a 16x9 aspect ratio image originally, saving me a trip over to Dalle-2 to extend the frame.
Advertising is a Supply Chain
I’ve written before about making things occur in the world. First, a business issue becomes addressable via a marketing strategy. Then a relevant audience is discerned, and an actionable insight gleaned. A brief is written. People develop advertising ideas. Approved ideas are translated into communications plans and tactics. Content gets produced, shipped and optimized. Rinse and repeat, then scale globally. Easy! 😬
Tonight we synthesized all that into a few hours, and we had a guest speaker reveal her career journey and comment on all of the above. Here’s a recap of the key parts of the class.
Part 1: Getting to an idea — the Creative Brief
It’s easily the most important document in the world. Written well, a creative brief can quite literally change markets, upset competition, and elevate the careers of those involved.
It’s the linchpin to the entire supply chain. We could spend eons discussing the brief and its practice. I have. But the course has to keep moving.
Having a great idea is only part of the puzzle. As we’ve acknowledged, it’s not an idea unless it’s produced—and people see it and interact with it.
Next, we have to determine where, when and how that idea will thrive.
Part 2: Getting ideas beyond the finish line
We mentioned Bill Bernbach’s paradigm. The last bit is what matters here: “…you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.” Bill is speaking about two critical stages and one overarching concern in the advertising supply chain.
CRITICAL STAGE = THE COMMS PLAN
There’s no point in reinventing the wheel when Julian Cole has done such an amazing job documenting and supporting the role, outputs and value of Comms Planning through his Strategy Finishing School. I’m midway through his robust curriculum. It’s worth every penny.
To summarize Comms Planning with Julian’s help:
[Philosophically] Comms Planning leverages associations (i.e. your idea in Vogue gets associated differently than your idea on a rural billboard or via a paid social influencer engagement). In other words, which media and moments help our idea thrive most effectively and efficiently?
[Specifically] Comms Planning provides strategic muscle to the implementation process (i.e. Be a detective/salesperson to help clarify why individual media and moments resonate best with the audience and behavior we’re trying to impact).
[Practically] Comms Planning articulates rationale for different messages at different moments in a campaign (i.e. From an all-encompassing “plan on a page” to specific tactical/production briefs,).
Now we’ve got much greater confidence not only in our idea, but in the ways in which it will come to life. And we’ve got keener direction for what, exactly, we need to go make. These are important skills and resources to harness, especially as we begin to evaluate and engage in new technologies, platforms and opportunities.
CRITICAL STAGE = PRODUCTION/TACTICS
I first met our guest speaker, Ellie Moonen, when we both worked at BBDO. Ellie joined our team right as brands were trying to operationalize social. Since then she’s expanded her skills to encompass all manner of production including experiential, broadcast, and virtual/augmented. In its simplest form, “Producers participate in taking a creative idea from conception through execution and into business resolution,” said Ellie. She believes:
Producers champion creative ideas with creative people to put creative ideas into a final form
Producers put the right people in the right place at the right time
Producers manage the money, the time, the resources, and often the culture related to getting things made
Producers are utilized in almost every project that comes into an agency
Sometimes they specialize. There are many ways to produce (events, digital, photo, video/commercials/films, audio, print, post production, logistics, field production, AR/VR, metaverse, etc.)
Ellie mentioned two aspects of production which really resonated:
Feasibility — In the briefing and creative development phases, Producers give teams courage and foresight to pursue ideas.
Assurance — Once ideas are in play (i.e. Comms Plans and Tactics), Producers help marketers and agency teams comprehend complexity and chaos.
We live in a wild era of production and tactics. What used to be off-limits in terms of budget, and required specialists-only skills, is now incredibly accessible and democratized. You are likely reading these words on a Hollywood-worthy film production device. You likely work alongside folks who learned their skills via YouTube or Skillshare.
What’s truly exciting about the future of advertising are all the new skills, roles and tasks we all have an opportunity to learn and leverage.
OVERARCHING CONCERN = CRAFT
This course does take place at a college of art and design. I would be remiss to skip over the importance of craft in the supply chain of advertising.
The word “craft” typically meant tasks like typographic kerning, or photo retouching, color correction, spell checking, CMYK plate alignment, etc. The point being: Why go to all the trouble of production and skip details which help bring an idea over the top?
The truth is, craft still matters.
And MrBeast can prove it.
Everyone’s favorite YouTuber has 100+ million subscribers across 19 channels. He has a reason to care about craft. MrBeast’s production team is “obsessed” with thumbnail images; “they strategize at length about the thumbnail.” Occasionally, MrBeast’s team will spend $10k just to recreate a scene from the video by building a physical set. It might seem a minor issue, but MrBeast has clearly determined Craft = Revenue.
Part 3: De-risking ideas and production (i.e. keeping them sold)
We humans are wired to resist change. Anything new is a threat. The brutal truth is, as Robert Grudin wrote in my favorite book, The Grace of Great Things – Creativity and Innovation:
“Creativity is dangerous. We can not open ourselves to new insights without endangering the security of our prior assumptions. We can not propose new ideas without risking disapproval and rejection.”
Let’s be clear, the Supply Chain of Advertising doesn’t exist without approvals and permissions, often from people who are disconnected from strategies, insights and ideas. It is imperative those of us charged with creating and producing ideas know how to mitigate fear of change and de-risk innovation.
Or as B. Bonin Bough put it:
“Inspiration without allocation is meaningless.” - B. Bonin Bough
So a huge part of selling new ideas, selling change, is mitigating risk; more to the point—helping others understand and get comfortable with and accept implied risk. And let’s be clear, as we move into Tactics and production, there are risks not just in ideas, but production methodologies, casting, locations, wardrobe, animation styles, approach to voice over, etc., etc., etc.
Once again, Julian Cole comes to the rescue with the R.I.C.K. James Model, which he suggests works most effectively within the creative briefing phase and when presenting ideas.
😮 But wait. 😳
It turns out NONE of my students knew who the legendary funk impresario Rick James was. I’m glad we were able to engage in some essential education this evening, and repair that massive knowledge deficit.
Okay, back to the R.I.C.K. Model…
ROLE — Each idea has specific, distinct purpose. Define the role an idea fills within the Comms Plan.
IDEA — How can your idea become their idea? Specifically, how can your advertising idea attract earned (journalist) attention, and generate exponential growth beyond paid or owned media?
COST — Or, perhaps, Candor. The earlier agencies and marketers can acknowledge budget constraints, the better. From my own experience, articulating what the money buys as it relates to affecting behavior, the better your chances of keeping ideas sold.
KEY/KPIs — This goes back to Class 1: How will we know marketing works? De-risking ideas begins at the beginning, when we collectively define and agree on performance measures. Then, we sell “risky” ideas by framing their ability to directly impact specific KPIs.
Last but certainly not least we have our very first quiz lined up. It wouldn’t be academia without a quiz. And given our class is focused on Advertising it makes sense to ask the students to research the biggest single day of advertising spending in the U.S. I gave them some pointers, i.e. research the hashtag on TikTok, and read up on various ad trackers like Brand Innovator’s. Will any brands reference a metaverse? How will they integrate social? Who will create their ad with ChatGPT or AI-generative tech? In other words:
Will the future show up at the 2023 Super Bowl?
Tune in next week to find out.
I’ll have a reflective “After” post in your inbox sometime this Wednesday.
Cheers!