Chapter Concepting What’s the Big Idea? 6The word concepting usually trips up spell checkers. Usually they try to replace it with conception. We suppose in many ways it’s similar to creating new life. Another way to say it is “ideation” and “the creative process.” In this book, we’ll define concepting as the development of the Big Idea. If you have a central thought, that One Thing you can say about the product, how do you say it, and how do you show it? Concepting is the bridge between strategy and tactics, taking you from gathering facts and getting organized to creating words and pictures. At this stage in your career, you don’t have to be a great writer or an accomplished art director. But you should start working on becoming a great idea person. How to Be Creative (Concepting Strategies) You can find many theories and recommendations on how to be creative. Words of However, it’s not a nice, neat, linear process. That killer idea may pop up in the Wisdom shower. On the drive into work. When you’re watching TV. Or in a dream. No one can tell you when and how to think it. Concepting a single ad or a whole “Too many young campaign is like making sausage. The end result can be delicious, but the outside world doesn’t want to see how it’s done. creative teams today . While there is no single process that works for everyone, most people rely look at pedestrian on two basic methods: television and print and say, ‘Hey, I could do that 1. Adapt the strategy to the creative. crap.’ Then they get into 2. Make the creative fit the strategy. the business and they do that crap.”1 Working Backward: There’s Got to Helayne Spivak, CEO, HRS Be a Strategy in There Somewhere Consulting, and former global creative director for JWT We’ve all done it. In a sudden fit of inspiration, you come up with a great headline or find a really cool photo. Now, how can you use it? There’s got to be 110 some client this will work for. Maybe it’s so great it doesn’t matter if it solves the client’s problem. Any of that annoying problem-solving stuff can be handled in the body copy. Heck, you can throw in a subhead to explain it. After it’s done, you can always go back and rationalize a strategy. Who knows? It might even be on target when you work backwards. This approach is usually used in the following scenarios: • Pitching new business: “We don’t know much about your product, but we can do wacky stuff.” • Portfolio padding: “The ad looks great, and no one will know if it really didn’t sell anything.” This ad from China’s top refrigerator brand, running in New Zealand, would appeal to most guys anywhere in the world. Awards competition: See above. • It’s a fresh approach to the old “stylish but affordable” story. • Advertising class work: “This was the only decent picture I could find, so I had to build my ad around it.” Concepting by the Book Great concepts begin with great strategy and great research. Garbage in, garbage out. Before you start scribbling, make sure you have the answers to the Words of following questions: Wisdom • What is the client’s real problem? “Good advertising • Can I solve the problem creatively with marketing communications? achieves whatever Do I know the target audience? • objectives are • Do I understand and respect the particular cultural nuances of the target? established at the outset. • Do I know how they feel about my product? Some campaigns do this through sheer weight • Do I know the product features/benefits? and repetition. Others do What is the One Thing I can say or show about this product? • it by speaking to the • How much do I need to say or show? Do I even need a headline? consumer in an • Where is this product positioned? Where do we want to be positioned? intelligent manner, as an equal, opting for the • Do I know the competition’s strengths and weaknesses? highest common What should the tone be? • denominator rather than 2 Depending on the product and target audience, some of the answers to the the lowest.” above questions may be “not applicable.” For a mature packaged good, such as Jeff Goodby, founding partner, deodorant, you really don’t need an in-depth analysis. But you do need to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners understand the target audience and find the right tone to reach them. Chapter 6 Concepting 111 War Story personal life experience instead.” We place. I’m saying they’re not hefty came back with a rush of enough to sit at the core—feeding tens, melodramatic, gauzy, tear-jerking maybe hundreds, of related stories linked to loans and interest executions—of a brand. There’s got to rates. They were bad. But his point— be a story. There’s got to be shared and it was brilliant, even courageous, human experience. There’s got to be an at the time—was to demonstrate that observation about existence that— creative selling could and should be whether witty or serious—gives life and rooted in what I’ll call the deepest impetus to ongoing, open-ended common denominator: story. Shortly communication. And “story” doesn’t after, John Hancock rocked the necessarily mean “words.” It means advertising world. Wieden + Kennedy narrative in the abstract sense and/or wrote “Just do it.” The dam had been framework for viewing existence. So it blessedly smashed to smithereens. can drive both visual and verbal And I’d been set free. content, both work of duration (film) and In Service of Story Lots of brand work still functions in the occasional, necessary one-off. When I went to advertising school, the old way, muscling toward impact Further, compelling stories have everyone was in search of the brilliant with sheer wit and graphic strength. been addicting us since the beginning play between words and pictures. The And art school portfolios are full of this of the written word. (This is where Minneapolis “school” had defined fare, often in threes (the assumption Shakespeare and the Bible should creativity in the annuals with clever being that three ideas that hang ring a bell.) Technologies and headline-visual combinations such as together make a campaign). Wrong. It’s executional styles will inevitably and this ad concept for an Alfred Hitchcock not deep and/or wide enough for the relentlessly evolve, but they will never film festival: visual—birds on a needs of brands today to attract and provide, in and of themselves, telephone wire; headline—something engage audiences over a wide range of sustaining ideas any more than the about “cast of thousands.” Obviously, media, most notably social media. puns of yesterday did. The trick is to my recall is spotty, but it was clever, “Social,” after all, means just what it learn to use them in the service of and I distinctly remember thinking: My says: having to do with the emotional story—the human story—because that mind doesn’t work like that. How am I transactions that take place between will never fade away.3 going to have a career in this business? human beings at all levels of society Enter Ron Seichrist, then head of and quotidian activity. A pun, or three, the school I attended, with the following isn’t going to cut it. Charlotte Moore, creative director/ assignment: “Do a bank campaign. But I’m not saying that well-crafted communications consultant, Milan, Italy, no puns. Base your executions on a language and visuals don’t have a @ctwitmo Concepting Approaches As we mentioned, developing creative ideas is not a neat, orderly process. Many texts will provide formulas for concepts, which usually work great to describe a completed ad, but don’t help to develop a new one. At the risk of falling into the same trap, we offer several simplified approaches to concepting. 1. Show the product: Establish or reinforce brand identity. Period. 2. Show the benefit: What happens when you use it? What does it do for you? 3. Show the alternative: What happens when you don’t use it—or use the competition? 112 Advertising Creative 4. Comparison: Compare it to other products or present it as a metaphor. 5. Borrowed interest: Introduce something seemingly unrelated. 6. Testimonial/case history: Provide an endorsement or description of what it’s done for someone else. It could be a celebrity or an ordinary person. The benefit? Driving fast makes you feel young. Hyundai’s improvement in quality and styling is reflected in their more sophisticated advertising efforts. They also do a good job of showing the product. Show the Product It sounds boring, but some of the most innovative ads just show the product or logo. The benefit may be buried in the copy, implied in a tagline, or missing entirely. The main purpose is to establish a brand image or reinforce that image. For example, with most packaged goods, it’s probably better to show the package or label rather than describe it in a headline. After all, it’s what the consumer sees on the grocery store shelf. Sometimes you can set up a concept in a modified question-and-answer format, where the question (or problem) is stated and the product/package/logo is the answer (solution). Show the Benefit In many cases this involves a straightforward declarative sentence proclaiming the main benefit.