i’ve always considered what is termed “planning” to be my job as a creative. To me that’s the fun part of advertising. The “what the hell should we do” part.
This quote comes from a blog post Vinny Warren wrote a while back about his agency winning a planning award. You can read the full thing (it's short) here. Apparently a lot of student books are missing ads with any semblance of planning or strategy and that's not good because those ads don't do anything. His blog entry inspired me to write this post:
While you're trying to break in a lot of people will tell you it's not enough to be a really good writer or artist. You will blow them off as "idiots" who "don't know anything about anything - least of all becoming a Creative."
You will be wrong. Being really skilled at what you want to do puts you in a better place some other people. Because there are people out there who want to be copywriters who can't write and people who want to be art directors who have no design sense.But if you just rely on those skills you will make, borrowing a phrase from a great book, "ad-like objects".
An ad-like object looks like an ad (it can even be really funny) but doesn't have thought behind it. It doesn't do anything other than show you are clever. And while clever is fine, it's not enough. Believe me on this.
So what do you need to do? You need to be a strategist.*
Rather, a strategically minded creative. You need to be able to pick out the problem and say ok how do we fix this? It could be an ad, it could be a video, it could be a new website. In reality it could be anything.
Once you've really defined the problem and the solution it makes making an ad much easier. and cuts down on you making adlike objects.
The strategy informs the creative. It gives you direction. It gets you to stop thinking in creative, media, and strategy silos. The sum becomes better than it's parts. Because creative, media and strategy can't do anything other than make clutter on their own.
The idea is important. The solution is important. finding the problem is important. Because it's those things that move your ad forward.
This seems like common sense but a lot of people miss it.So the minute you start putting campaigns with real strategy into your book the minute it becomes monumentally better. You'll be able to intelligently talk about your decisions with the creative because there is thought behind the campaign.
So take time to set out a strategy or make a plan. But only if you care about your work.
*becoming a strategist or a planner is very different than becoming a strategic minded creative. If pure strategy sounds good to you you should google other resources. There's tons because those guys love to write.