CUSTOM HAS IT that a column appearing in the year-end issue will either look ahead to the wonderful times to come or glance back at the dreadful times behind us.
Trite but harmless, I suppose, save for the truth behind the custom. A truth that was driven home for me when I had to look back on close to four years of columns to prepare a talk about Hot Creative for Robinson & Maites, a Chicago marketing communications agency.
In the nearly four years I’ve covered advertising creative I’ve suffered the clatter of clutter cutters clogging my cubicle at work – from branding irons to hula hoops; laughed, if not sighed, at the difference between the response rates agencies told me their creative earned and what they claimed in entries to the Caples and Echoes; and stood corrected by bird watchers when I mistakenly identified a kookaburra bird as a kiwi.
Four years ago the idea of hot creative was, simply, anything that sold. Even David Ogilvy – virtually the patron saint of marketing – said, “Good advertising sells.”
However, that could mean illiterate copy and sloppy, if not ugly, graphics would constitute hot creative if it got a response. A response that might have been earned just as easily with clean copy and graphics, since the genius of the campaign may have been in targeting the right audience for the offer.
No, it needed something more than that: style or imagination on top of earning its keep. Hot creative has to inspire, intrigue, seduce, amuse. I like to encounter a new twist on an old theme, if not something totally different. And I like to see a good use of methods and materials. New technology can be wonderful when it’s used well, but not when it’s used for its own sake. Rock and pop CDs that a computer can read and link to relevant Web sites are a great use of technology that directly reflects the interests of the targeted audience.
In short, what I look for is how the people behind the creative defined and solved the marketing problem. Then I look at the quality of the concept, execution and presentation.
Musts to Avoid I also have a list of no-nos. Five, in fact. Here, in no particular order, are my five don’ts of hot creative:
– Don’t use dimensional clutter cutters. The cardboard toy truck sitting on my desk right now is slated to go to a fellow reporter’s nephew. And he’s too young to drive.
– Don’t bring up issues or references that are tangential to the product or service or that will distract or undermine the credibility of the pitch. I’ve wondered about safe toys that might poke out a child’s eyes and sexist references to women in business.
– Don’t outwit yourself. I remember one campaign in which I was stalked by the nested forms of a matreska doll.
– Don’t be pretentious, self-important or cute. I wish I could say that this only happens in upscale catalogs. Pottery Barn Kids gave several products French names. Part of that audience is still learning English.
– Don’t be dishonest. A classic was an Esquire subscription package that tried to get prospects to subscribe by including pictures of as many women in various states of partial dress as possible. There were more scantily clad females in the package than there are in a given year’s worth of the magazine. Essentially, that’s bait and switch.
Here’s to a new millennium of hot creative.
Network
