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Archive

Month: April 2013

The Power of Disruptive Creative

Posted on by Brian Bennett

The notion of Disruptive Creative is quite simple – how can a brand be special if it’s not different? To stand out in the world of clutter, there must be something different, something unique and special to attract the consumer’s attention.

To get noticed, you must stand out; to stand out you must disrupt.

Disruption doesn’t have to be negative. In fact, if done properly, it’s quite positive. Let’s not confuse the word “disruptive” with “destructive.” The fact is, it’s quite the contrary.

Disruption can take many forms: it can be silence in a wall of sound; it can be a white dot in a field of black; laughter in a sea of sadness; beauty in a world of ugliness. It can be radical or somewhat subtle. But it must have the power to engage people, to have them take notice. It’s so incredibly good, that it stops you in your tracks and makes you want to take a picture of it to share with your friends. It can defy a single execution, and even have the power to make the news.

Disruptive Creative gives people credit for being smart. It taps into insights and intelligence. We, as humans, strive to understand the “why” factor. Disruptive Creativity poses a problem to solve. What’s different? What’s New? What’s attractive? Why do I care?

It entertains us and makes the mundane magical. It triggers emotion.

It’s creative that makes us think.

Relevant Disruptive Creative can pay dividends for any brand (relevant being the key word) when it comes to awareness. I’m not suggesting frivolous disruption – that wouldn’t make sense – but disrupting to make a point, as part of your messaging strategy, is powerful.

Take for instance Whopper Detour campaign, which recently won at Cannes. The idea was to get people to download and use their app. In return, you’d get a whopper for a penny. The kicker was you had to go to a McDonald’s to download the app (they literally geo-fenced 600 locations). The idea was so strong and the execution was flawlessly integrated that (all awards aside) the campaign made the news.

Disruptive Creative is simply one way to do it – a powerful way to do it. For us, we use that creative power to help organizations like The United Performing Arts Fund raise (record) fund year-over-year. Our solution to get people to donate was to remind them that the arts don’t happen without contributions. We showcased iconic theatrical characters with no bodies to fill in the costume. Our message was simple and clear – Without you, its just an empty stage.

Gauge your own messaging accordingly. Trust your gut. Create work that moves the needle. Make your client and agency proud. It should excite and have the legs to extend for you.

It’s Time to Redefine Integrated Marketing

Posted on by Brian Bennett

Integrated Marketing has tremendous power. It can cause the fortune of brands and companies to rise or fall dramatically.

Most agencies and corporate professionals practice integrated marketing to some degree. The majority of them misunderstand and underutilize the more refined and powerful aspects it offers. This is likely because of true Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) – performed at the highest levels – is not something that can be delegated. It takes broad knowledge sets, vision and the ability to control many specialized aspects of marketing, and there are very few people in these positions in the traditional agency environment.

A fallacy held by many professionals in our industry is that integrated marketing is simply about the generation of consistency of message and presentation of the brand. Business Week defines it in basic terms as “communicating a consistent identity from message to message, and medium to medium, and (more importantly) delivering consistently on that identity.”

BusinessDictionary.com offers a definition that encompasses complementary elements reinforcing marketing impact and states that integrated marketing is a “strategy aimed at unifying different marketing methods such as mass marketing, one-to-one marketing, and direct marketing. Its objective is to complement and reinforce the market impact of each method…”

But each of these definitions fails to provide the full scope of what integrated marketing truly entails.

True IMC is the development of marketing strategies and creative campaigns that weave together multiple marketing disciplines (paid advertising, earned media/PR, promotion, owned assets and social media) that are executed across a variety of media, and selected to suit the particular goals of the brand. IMC is designed to leverage the intrinsic strengths of each discipline to achieve greater impact in concert than can be achieved individually. It inherently provides multiplied benefits that include a synchronized brand voice and experience, cost efficiencies generated through creative and production, opportunities for added value and bonus which cumulatively produce extraordinary brand equity and ROI.

The distinction between our definition for  IMC and the others is like the difference between addition and multiplication. Where others seek to combine marketing methods or to simply speak with consistency, we recognize the ability of each marketing method to perform better when integrated with all the rest.

In other words, the difference is leverage.

While it might appear that only experienced marketing pros with mighty brands and ample budgets can effectively practice and benefit from IMC, this is not the case. IMC can benefit small- and medium-sized operations as well as big guys. It can work equally well in a business environment or a consumer market.

Practicing IMC requires a feel for marketing. That feel can be learned, but it’s not quite like learning to ride a bike. It’s more like learning to fly a plane because in addition to feel, it requires knowledge of systems, atmosphere, conditions, situational awareness, and cause and effect.

We’ve written our blog entries, e-books and videos with this in mind.  By consuming them you can gain and understanding of the principles. You may still require the help of an agency to reap the benefits of IMC, but you will be an educated client. Marketing is very much a participation sport, with the client in a position to push the campaign to new heights or to limit its potential based on their level of imagination, resourcefulness, enthusiasm and involvement.