Advertising Creative – Not a Game of Inches

When you miss...you miss big for the most part with advertising, Developing unique, attending grabbing creative that can affect people in a way that changes their behaviour is a complex process that involves an emotional investment. Most people involved in the process (insert client here) think they know and understand their audience and what motivates them. Unfortunately this is virtually never the case. Most clients are too close to the process of making and selling a product and don’t understand how their product fits into a lifestyle.

And more than that, great creative concepts, appeal to our artistic nature and you usually can’ put your finger on why it works…

it just does.  Try this left brain -right brain test to see what your predisposition is? Right brain people are generally considered to be more creative, yet left brain people of the world seem to control business so it tends to set up a clash of styles. Business decisions makers don’t understand the process can’t qualify it and can’t support the process with trust and patience and so they keep coming up lame creative. Perhaps even more important is, they do not believe in it and as a result they end to suffering the consequences in business.

Art and advertising go together, and when I say art I mean original art not graphic art. Today’s advertising is very forgettable with little thought or patience given to creative inspiration. Take an example of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec who has become famous as the bohemian art of the Moulin Rouge. He captured the spirit and emotion of the belle époque, the "beautiful era" in Paris, through his posters and prints. He painted café art (advertising) in Paris. Do you see any art like this in the malls and on the highways today?

The greatest advertising concepts in history are all based on humour, emotion and insight into the human psyche. For example Gary Gilmore, the infamous spree-killer, uttered the words “Let’s do it” just before being executed by a firing squad in 1977. A few years later the comment became an inspiration for Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. If you really want to understand more about great creative take moment to check out the trailer for this great documentary on advertising creative called Art & Copy .. its a real eye opener.