Third series event: roundup of creative insights

Together with the Creative Communications Group, CIM London held a mini-conference last month to explore the best of marketing creativity. This was our fourth event in the Professional Marketer Series. If you missed out, here are the highlights from this 4-part event. Don’t forget that as a CIM member you can join the Creative Communications Group, and up to three sector interest groups in total, free of charge, just call 01628 427120 to join.

Create a killer brief: insights from Anthony Tasgal

Author and founder, POV, Anthony ‘Tas’ Tasgal, gave an experienced marketer’s perspective on briefing agencies or in-house teams.

• Creatives not number-crunchers: Remember you’re dealing with creative people. Whilst there will be practical considerations to convey, don’t forget that you’re not talking to analysts, you’re talking to creatives, so ensure you brief has a golden thread of storytelling which conveys the core emotion you want to engender. It might be excitement or fear, but make sure the creatives understand clearly the emotion their campaign should instil in customers. Provide simple, meaningful and emotionally led targets.
• Aim for ruthless simplicity: Information overload won’t inspire a great outcome. By all means start with a ‘mind dump’ but then refine this down to the key points remembering to make it clear not just what you want the target audience to think, but also how they should feel and react, having been exposed to the campaign.
• Treat the brief as a story: ensure it has a clear structure, or ‘golden thread’, so it can be readily understood. Provide details of the problem or marketing challenge and also relevant insights. But don’t stray into trying to include a complete proposition. That’s the creative’s territory. Keep it HIP, which stands for: human, individual and personal. A great brief allows creatives to understand human behaviour, how customers think, why people behave as they do and the triggers for changing that behaviour. Because a great brief tells a story and inspires creative people to generate effective ideas that will have emotional resonance with real customers.   

You can follow Tas on twitter @TaswellHill

Or read Eileen Donaghey’s blog on the presentation: Writing a killer brief.

Find the next big idea: debate with Brand Remedy

The team from Brand Remedy took part in panel debate hosted by Graham Wylie, Senior Marketing Director AppNexis Europe Ltd. The discussion explored ways to spark creativity and create big ideas as part of an effective marketing strategy. It referenced innovation and strategy, using disruptive brands such as Uber as examples of how the rules have changed. Brand Remedy fielded Richard Silbermann, Lee Grunnell and Louise Barfield to answer a series of probing questions. 

• Forget differentiation, think how to be distinctive: Lee Grunnell, Insight and Communications, argued that whilst 90% of what a brand does may be similar to its competitors, the creative job is to identify the all-important 10% which makes them completely distinctive.  He advocates asking: 1) What do people know about you? 2) What don’t they know but should know?  It may exist in leadership style, culture, or the customer experience. To be effective the big idea must match up to the criteria of being R.A.D, that is Relevant, Authentic and Distinctive.
• Core truth inform the big idea: Richard Silbermann, Creative Director, emphasised the need to focus creatives on insights, experiences and customer perspectives. Much as an artist chisels at a huge stone to reveal the sculpture within it, he postulated that, “the big idea already exists. Your job is to find it.” In this way hidden gems of ideas can be discovered by stripping out the noise to find the core truth of the brand.
• Customer experience trumps headline ideas: Louise Barfield, Business Development, argued that brand success relies on consistent customer experience. A big idea alone is not enough. She argued that the ‘fine mist’ of customer experience over time is of equal importance to the impact of a big idea at campaign launch. This entails having the agility to respond as events unfold post-launch.

The panel discussion was summarised in a visual sketch.

You can follow Brand Remedy on twitter @brandremedy

Or read their blogs on the subject:

Louise Barfield, What's the big idea?

Richard Silbermann, The “big idea”: Where does it come from?  and Enduring brands

Lee Grunnell, Chartered Institute of Marketing - Now that's what I call creativity

Channel 4’s Humans campaign: case study from OMD

Claire Dean and Chris Evans of OMD shared the case study of the Humans launch for Channel 4. The drama is about a near-future world where human synths (intelligent robots to you and me) become part of the family for normal householders. The big idea was to play upon our fear of automation, a theme within the drama, by staging experiences to suggest that synths were available to buy now. The bold idea was made real with a shop selling synths on Regent Street, synths available to buy on eBay and all backed by a real brand and company website for the producer of the synths, a fictional company, referred to in the drama, called Persona Synthetics.

The launch was targeted with achieving a 2m opening night audience and instead reached 6.1m, making it Channel 4’s biggest home grown drama. Claire and Chris shared OMD’s formula for success:

• Think big: start with a single unifying thought, routed in insight and based on truth.
• Quit the relay: Collaboration is critical for a successful campaign. Work together with the client and other agencies and suppliers from the outset right up to the finish.
• Be a sharer: Share information and research and avoid agency silos.
• Offer ownership: You have to fight to make a big idea happen. It’s a labour of love.
• Welcome criticism: Every idea can be made better. Instil a culture of stretching ideas.
• Be tenacious: To quote Edison, “Genius is 1% inspiration 99% perspiration.”

Take a look at the OMD case study:

Channel 4 brings ‘Persona Synthetics’ brand to life to promote new drama Humans

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: perspectives from Mark Challinor  

Mark Challinor from Media Futures, presented campaigns and brand innovations that reflect the good, bad and even the ugly side of creativity. His presentation provided a reality check of the current environment for today’s marketers. Mark illustrated how mobile and digital media have converged, and demonstrated what this means in terms of what is possible for brands. He gave examples of how products have changed with Barbie dolls now with artificial intelligence and augmented reality impacting brand experiences with Virgin Holidays immersive technology. Digital-mobile convergence has become an enabler making geographical boundaries and time restrictions disappear.

Mark argued that creative success is now all about the customer experience. The traditional 4Ps marketing model has shifted:

Product           →        Experience

Price                →        Exchange

Place               →        Everyplace

Promotion       →        Evangelism

A few examples of excellent creative brand solutions, referenced by Mark, are highlighted in this month’s news for the Creative Communications Group.

• Barclays mobile payment app, Pingit launched with humorous creative ad 
• Meat Pack shoe store uses GPS to ‘hijack’ shoppers from competitor stores 
• Augmented reality for Walkers with Lineker inside a vending machine at bus shelters 

You can follow Mark on twitter @challinor

For more on Mark’s presentation, see Eileen Donaghey’s blog: Being creative with technology to improve the customer experience