Advertising and communications agencies need new processes to liberate their creativity for our changed media world. Of course the big traditional ad holding companies will disagree with me here, but the reality is new processes are critical to address the new world order.
When more and more Americans are doing 'ROBO' (research online/buy offline) before they buy cars and trips, but also toothpaste and food, advertisers shouldn't accept expensive TV commercials, (like the absurd 2-minute kind that costs millions of dollars to produce and millions more to run on TV), as the all-important drop that comes out of the heavy water factory. A change of thinking is needed.
If you don’t change anything when running a marketing company today you will fail. If you change everything you will fail. The advertising world is in constant flux and transition. It's affected by technology. It's affected by the rise of remarkably innovative new marketing cultures such as India and Brazil. And it's affected by the evolution of what we know to be a brand experience. So change is needed. Where do we start?
I have always respected the brief.
I have always believed that the brief is the most important tool in the creation of brilliant and effective communications. If you do a smart brief you will do a great campaign. A bad brief will make or break the campaign. The only way to make money running an advertising agency today is to have smart briefs. I have always been very respectful of the 'advertising brief' the first key tool invented to ensure that the creative resources - the talent of an agency are working efficiently or irrelevantly. When I say creative talent I don't mean it in the traditional agency way, creativity is NOT the domain of only the creative department.
So let's start at the brief.
This was the starting point for StrawberryFrog when we set out to develop our own brief - a new strategic process if you will - to deliver strategic and creative excellence and innovation. The process that we invented at StrawberryFrog is called "Cultural Movements."
StrawberryFrog sparks "Cultural Movements" for brands. It's a mixture of a popular grass roots movement and the science of marketing. It is a simple 3-step process Ready, Set, Leap. It's our process to liberate creativity.
It's the same strategic approach that was implemented by Obama to generate "Obama heat" and lust after him as a candidate. Powerful no?
"Cultural Movements" was invented by StrawberyFrog to maximize investments in marketing in light of all the changes happening around us, such as the fragmented media world, the radical decline of the 30 second TV spot, and the rise of the truly interactive class. And especially in light of brands in transition. When the strategic leaders of StrawberryFrog developed this process, we spent a lot of time thinking about what should be changed and not changed. What was working and what was not.
We believed the following to be true:
- Creativity is the number one resource which will continue to increase in value.
- Execution will decrease in value
- Relevance is more important than awareness (awareness will always rise if you first have relevance).
- Traditional agency strategic processes are flawed because they start with the product then move to the brand and then consumer psychographic and then use a lot of money to break through people's walls of indifference. To "disrupt" their lives so to speak.
We believed after our research that there was a better, smarter, more efficient and more effective way. Cultural Movements was the result.
Cultural Movements starts in the real world. It's an "outside in" approach vs an "inside out" strategic approach.
Cultural Movements starts with a social science study and ethnographic interviews to find an idea on the rise in culture that can define the brand. The reason this is so effective is because it is true. It is not made up or fantasy or advertising - which people increasingly feel to be spam no matter how entertaining it may be. The idea on the rise in culture is then connected back to the culture of the brand - a cultural connection.
The next step is to build communities on and offline among like-minded individuals who populate social networks specifically because the idea on the rise is so relevant to them. Call them brand fans.
Once you have populations of card carrying passionate members, you use mass communications to spread the word to a wider audience. I love brilliant emotional TV spots. I just don't believe you need to make one of those right off the brief to establish a Cultural Movement in a mass market. Without the ground work and the communities of like-minded brand fans, you build through Cultural Movements, you will get a lot of shrugs and so whats from consumers when you show them another big budget TV spot, unless it's truly relevant to them.
Cultural Movements is our way to come up with innovative strategies, it’s the StrawberryFrog's competitive edge, our Frog DNA, it sets the course for all the Frogs and our clients to follow.
If you have a Cultural Movement you can do so many many things. If you have just an ad or a website, you don’t know what to do in all the different channels. But if you first start with the development of a Cultural Movement, you will be able to maximize all disciplines. And in today's world, you can really do anything, once you have established the Cultural Movement. You can manage all the different innovations, segments, channels, disciplines and in the end of the day you are building a highly relevant brand based on that idea on the rise in culture.
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