How To Advertise: An Analysis of Contemporary Advertising (part 32)

Creative Strategy and the Creative Process 

(part C)

by

Charles Lamson

The Creative Process

The creative process is the step-by-step procedure used to discover original ideas and reorganize existing concepts in new ways. By following it, people can improve their ability to unearth possibilities, cross-associate concepts, and select winning ideas.

The new generation of advertising creatives will face a world of ever-growing complexity. They must handle the challenges of integrated marketing communications (IMC) as they help their clients build relationships with highly fragmented target markets. They will need to understand the wide range of technologies affecting advertising (computer, hardware and software, electronic networking, high-definition television, and more). And they will have to learn how to advertise to emerging international markets. To do this, they need a model that handles many situations simply.

Over the years, many notions of the creative process have been proposed. Although most are similar, each format has unique merits. In 1986, Roger von Oech published a four-step creative model used today by many Fortune 100 companies. It offers flexibility for fact-based and value-based thinkers alike. Von Oeche describes four distinct, albeit imaginary, roles (Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior) that every art director and copywriter has to personally take on at some point in the creative process:

1. The Explorer searches for new information, paying attention to unusual patterns.
2. The Artist experiments and plays with a variety of approaches, looking for an original idea.
3. The Judge evaluates the results of experimentation and decides which approach is most practical.
4. The Warrior overcomes excuses, idea killers, setbacks, and obstacles to bring a creative concept to realization.

The Explorer Role: Gathering Information

Copywriters and art directors thrive on the challenge of creating advertising messages---the encoding process. But first they need the raw materials for ideas; facts, experiences, history, knowledge, feelings.

Taking on the role of the Explorer, the creatives examine the information they have. They review the creative brief and the marketing and advertising plan; they study the market, the product, and the competition. They must seek additional input from the agency's account managers and from people on the client side (sales, marketing, product, or research managers).

Develop an Insight Outlook

In advertising, it is important that when creatives play the Explorer role, they get off the beaten path to look in new and uncommon places for information---to discover new ideas and to identify unusual patterns. Vitro and Robertson might have hiked into the wilderness to spark a new idea for Taylor Guitar. Or they could have opened a book on national parks and experienced the same flash of insight.

Von Oech suggests adopting an "insight outlook" (a positive belief that good information is available and that you have the skills to find and use it). This means opening up to the outside world to receive new knowledge. Ideas are everywhere: visit a museum, an art gallery, a hardware store, an airport. The more diverse the sources, the greater your chance of uncovering an original concept.

Know the Objective

If people know what they are looking for, they have a better chance of finding it. Think about the color blue. Now look around you. Note how blue suddenly jumps out at you. If you had not been looking for it, you probably would not have noticed it.

Philosopher John Dewy said, "A problem well stated is a problem half-solved." This is why the creative brief is so important. It helps define what the creatives are looking for. The creatives typically start working on the message strategy during the Explorer stage because it, too, helps them define what they are looking for.

To get their creative juivces flowing, most copywriters and art directors maintain an extensive library of advertising books and trade magazines. Many also keep a tickler (or swipe) file of ads they like that might give them direction.

Brainstorm

As Explorers, the art director and copywriter look first for lots of ideas. One technique is brainstorming, a process (conceived by Alex Osborn, the former head of BBDO) in which two or more people get together to generate new ideas. A brainstorming session of sudden inspirations. To succeed, it must follow a couple of roles; all ideas are above criticism (no idea is "wrong"), and all ideas are written down for later review. The goal is to record any inspiration that comes to mind, a process that psychologists call free association, allowing each new idea an opportunity to stimulate another.

Von Oech suggests other techniques for Explorers: leave your own turf (look in outside fields and industries for ideas that could be transferred); look at the big picture (stand back and see what it all means); do not overlook the obvious (the best ideas are right in front of you); do not be afraid to stray (you might find something you were not looking for); and stake your claim to new territory (write down any new ideas or they will be lost).

The Explorers job is to find new information that they can use when they take on the next role: the Artist, which will be discussed in the next post. To be effective explorers, they must exercise flexibility, courage, and openness.

*SOURCE: CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING 11TH ED., 2008, WILLIAM F. ARENS, MICHAEL F. WEIGOLD, CHRISTIAN ARENS, PGS. 382-384*

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