Schubert Publised Articles
 Back to Articles |
 |
Get Those Creative Juices Flowing –
From the Art Room to the Board Room
Published in ADV Magazine, a trade publication for the advertising community
By Lisa Barbadora
Creativity is not just a department in an advertising agency. It’s not one side of the brain. It’s not an artist, photographer, or writer.
Creativity is a state of mind. Creative business-to-business (B2B) marketers look beyond the obvious, take risks, and are open – wholeheartedly – to new ideas. This is why they are so successful.
The Board Room
Art and copy are what we traditionally think of as creative activities. In fact, many B2B marketers think that creativity’s only role is in the art room. Creativity, however, has as much to do with marketing, planning, researching, and analyzing as it does with designing the ads, brochures, and direct mail campaigns.
Consider the following example where marketing paired up with engineering to develop a creative solution to a marketing problem.
A major manufacturer of semiconductor machinery wanted to expand its market share. To do so, the company could have tried to displace its competitors by offering superior equipment that worked faster and cost less, as these were the industry benchmarks. However, the company used creativity to disengage from the race for faster, cheaper semiconductor devices. It developed a better way to help its customers with the invention of a breakthrough machine that did the work of many different semiconductor devices.
The vanguard product operated slower and was three times more expensive than competing products, but it was a spectacular technical and commercial success. It creatively solved a real customer problem. By combining several production operations into a single piece of equipment, the machine reduced the amount of manual handling of the materials being processed, thus reducing contamination and raising yields. Through a single major simplifying R&D effort, the company swiftly swept to market dominance.
Creativity is the starting point of marketing success because it brings unique insights to understanding customers, their problems, and the means to capture their attention. Imaginative, unorthodox thinking should already be thundering along before a designer or copywriter enters the scene.
Think of it another way. Creativity overrides our autopilot. It jerks us out of our routines and forces us to look at things in a different way. In marketing, it causes us to see things through the eyes of our audience and helps us find an imaginative way to break through the clutter and make sense to our prospects.
Creativity is important when you are drafting the annual budget (and I don’t mean when you are talking to the IRS!). Have you scrutinized and questioned every dollar or are you allocating money to the same areas as last year? Creativity is essential when conducting – and evaluating – market research. Have you asked the right questions and made useful comparisons? Creativity must show its face when determining what publications to advertise in. Do you renew advertising media schedules because, "we’ve always advertised there"?
The Art Room
An ad agency creative department is where the rubber hits the road. It’s the pivotal point where all of the planning, strategizing, research, analysis, and conceptualizing come together. Every B2B marketing communications plan comes down to a blank page. It’s staring at you, waiting for the gears of your agency’s idea machine to start cranking with photos flying, colors spinning and words tumbling onto an electronic canvass.
Your audience can’t see your marketing plan. They can only see what you advertise, publish, and mail to them. The images and phrases you choose must hit the right chord to grab the market’s attention. After all, you pay the same for the space whether your ad is a star or a dud. So, you better make sure the ad makes an impact.
Your ads don’t always have to be zany and wacky, but they have to stand out. Start by looking at your competitors’ ads. Then, do something different. For example, a leading producer of specialty chemicals recently ran an ad with real stopping power. It was unlike any other chemical ad in the trade publications. No labs. No chemists. No colored liquid or beakers. Instead, the ad had an attention-grabbing photo of claymation paint cans "suffering" from bad colds complemented by a headline that read, Sartomer Crosslinked Cures For The Common Coating. The ad generated hundreds of leads for the company in just a few months.
Bottom line, a powerful marketing program requires creativity early in the planning stage. But, it must also close strong with images and words that impact the market. The creative mindset must be at work through all stages of marketing. So, climb out of the box, stand on your head, and take a look around. You may see opportunities you had never even noticed before.
Lisa Barbadora is Content Director at Schubert Communications, Inc. in Downingtown, PA. She can be reached at 610-269-2100. Or e-mail her at lbarbadora@schubert.com.
Back to the top
|
|
|
