Lecture for CM 417, BU, College of Communication: Why we advertise and the role of creativity

1. Let’s talk about advertising
and creativity
Edward Boches, Professor of Advertising

2. House cleaning
Today:
Quick review: 10—15 min
Teams:
Lecture
Next:
Due: Good and bad ads
Read Felton: Ch. 1 - 3

3. #COMcreative
(when you find good stuff, post it)

4. Teams

5. Teams Sec A
Melanie
Caroline
Nicolas
Ann
Briana
Will
Maya
Karen
Michael
Vanessa
Ayusha
Jaime-Leigh
Rachel
Joseph
Brandon
Kathryn
Seo Yoon
Oliver

6. Teams Sec B
Gretchen
Daniel
Elias
Allie
Cody
Colleen
Edward
Michelle
Andrew
Zoe
Rhea
Petra
Alexa
Samantha
Sofia
John
Elaine
Monique

7. Class 3: As a team: find a great creative ad and a lousy ad (creatively
speaking) large enough to hang on wall and discuss. Prepare to support
your opinion. NO TV or VIDEO — has to be telegraphic.
Read Felton Chapter 1–3.
Always be looking for, looking at, and collecting great work.
Develop your frame of reference, taste and judgment.

10. we begin with the most basic question

11. why do brands advertise?

12. there are a lot of reasons

13. generate awareness

14. generate awareness

15. generate awareness

16. increase consideration

17. build traffic

21. deliver an offer

22. drive sales

23. induce loyalty

24. generate buzz

25. influence behavior

26. engender good will

27. There are a lot of reasons that
brands advertise. It might be to
generate awareness. Increase
consideration. Build traffic.
Deliver an offer. Drive sales.
Induce loyalty. Inspire sharing.
Get liked. Start a conversation.
Put simply, advertisers advertise
to call people to action. Maybe it’s
to get a consumer to buy
something right now. Every brand
wants that. But long-term thinking
also demands that sometimes our
only purpose is to get people to
like us. Or talk about us. Or see
us in a positive light.

28. or actually make a difference

29. patagonia

30. determining what, where, when and why
requires you to think about the brand

31. brand

32. brand

33. brand

34. brand

35. brand

36. brand

37. but perhaps more importantly, the consumer

38. customer journey

39. customer journey

40. customer journey

41. customer journey

42. customer journey

43. customer journey

44. If you think about how a customer
becomes customers, there’s a lot
to be done.
Look at the purchase process
from her perspective. A prospect
customer, let’s call her Emily, first
has to become aware of your
brand and feel good about it. Or
at least be interested.
If Emily is at all diligent, she’ll do
some basic exploration, go
online, visit a website and check
in with friends. If Emily needs your
product or service right away,
she’ll start the consideration
process. If not, you’ll at least want
her to file you away in her
memory (actual or digital) under
“want it some day.”

45. Note you still haven’t secured
Emily as a customer since the
online or in-store shopping
experience can change her mind
or present her with an even better
option.
A friend’s opinion might raise
questions. Emily’s newfound
interest in the category could
open her eyes to someone else’s
advertising. And on an on it
goes. You’ll want to be there
every step of the way. Even if
things work out and Emily
becomes a customer, you’re still
not done. You’ll want her to return,
become loyal and finally
recommend you to her friends.

46. Advertising plays a role at every
point along the journey, which, by
the way, is not necessarily linear.
Emily might learn about you from
a TV commercial, from a friend on
Facebook or even from the sales
clerk who converts her from the
brand she thought she preferred
until she got to the store and was
presented an alternative right at
the moment of truth.
Content, events, social media and
experiential all come into play.

47. so, you have to engineer your presence

48. you have to be everywhere at the right time
with the right content for the right reason

49. look at IBM, for example

50. TV and video

51. print

52. outdoor

53. apps

54. experiential

55. branded entertainment

56. websites

57. social

58. Recap: So, brands advertise for
a lot of reasons, not just to get
you to buy now.
The advertising they create takes
on many forms and runs in all
kinds of different media.
Some of that media is paid media
(TV, print, outdoor.) Some is
owned (websites). Some is
earned (press and blog coverage
and/or online buzz.)

59. And they have to be in the right
place at the right time for the
right reason with the right content,
utility, information.
Depending on what they are
trying to accomplish.

60. In the days when most
advertising was paid media — TV,
print, outdoor — brands and their
agencies would come up with a
single, focused brand campaign
and deliver very consistent work
— ads and messages — across
all the media. There was a desire
to leverage that consistency to
achieve awareness, brand name
recognition and make sure that a
viewer knew what brand she was
looking at.

64. the emphasis was on consistency and
talking to a prospect or customer

65. today, it’s more about cohesiveness

66. Does the work reinforce the
brand? Is it the right content for
the medium, the technology
and the context? No need to
repeat yourself over and over
again in an age when people can
so easily tune you out.
You have to stay fresh, new,
interesting all the time.

67. Dry Mesh

68. Voices NYC

69. Social Impressions

70. Lucky Counter

72. Example: The Guardian The Whole Picture

75. and more often than not it’s about doing,
not just talking

76. nike let users write encouraging messages to cancer victims at the tour

77. ford gave cars to millennials and let them generate content across social

78. equinox’s pursuit, connects spin cyclists to collective data and competition

79. dominos made it easier to order and track pizza

80. prudential built an interactive wall to demonstrate retirement

81. ikea created a social catalog

82. from messages, to utility, experiences, apps,
social experiments, and more

84. but somehow it has to be right for the brand;
it’s purpose, personality, voice, consumer

85. we’ll talk more about brand in upcoming
sessions

86. let’s talk about the role of creative

88. arguably the above ideas are creative

89. they capture your attention, avoid formulaic
approaches, involve the user, entertain,
deliver meaningful utility

90. why do we need ideas to be creative?

91. to get noticed, remembered and shared

92. and to overcome indifference and fatigue

93. Once you decide what you’re
trying to do you have another
challenge. Think it’s easy to get
Emily’s attention? Think again.
We live in an age of information
and content overload. (There are
9,854 tweets, 2,504 Instagrams,
and 106,021 YouTube videos
posted every second.)
From Emily’s perspective that’s a
good thing. She can access and
filter content by email, Twitter,
Snapchat, iMessage, Facebook,
Netflix, Instagram, Periscope
and maybe even linear television.
She can find what she wants
when she wants. And she can
rely on friends and trusted
contacts for recommendations.

94. From an advertiser’s perspective,
it’s not such a good thing. Emily
has AdBlock plug in installed on
her Chrome browser. She scrolls
past paid posts in her Facebook
stream. Skips pre-rolls the
moment the skip button appears.
And even pays for a Spotify
subscription to assure there are
no ads.
Most of the advertising that does
worm its way into her media
arrives uninvited. At best it’s
intrusive; at worst it’s downright
annoying.

95. Which is why all advertisers —
despite the new tendency to
worship at the altar of data —
need to embrace creativity as
the solution. A great creative
idea — be it an ad, an app, an
experience, a digital platform, or
a social initiative — has the power
to be noticed, watched,
remembered, used and shared,
leaving a positive impression and
overcoming the single greatest
obstacle confronting all
advertisers today — indifference.

96. You have to be like this guy.
You have get people to care, and
compel them to watch.
Interrupting, which worked for
years, is dead in an age when
everyone can mute, skip, DVR or
otherwise avoid advertising.
That’s the role of creativity.

97. My friend Tim Cawley, CCO and
founder at Sleek Machine and the
creator of many award winning
campaigns, including ideas that
earned attention and inspired
sharing, says this is the only filter
that matters.
“Would you watch it in your
feed and would you pass it on
to a friend.”
Tim did this for Century 21

98. creativity comes into play across all media

99. TV
print
outdoor
radio
websites
online ads
apps
social media
ambient
experiential
mobile
stunts

100. creativity comes into play across all tactics

101. campaigns
one offs
platforms
content: stock
content: flow
big
small
expensive
cheap
new forms

102. do you call this creative?

103. simply letting a user confront your critics?

105. how about this?

107. or this?

109. there’s no shortage of ways to be creative

110. hi jack the moment

111. demonstrate a feature

112. crowdsource content in a novel way

113. seed a story with an idea that migrates across the web

114. offer useful content in snackable sizes

115. create advertising that is anti-advertising

116. the list could go on and on, but…..

117. these ideas are creative

118. they share certain characteristics

119. • They’re conceptual, not literal.
• They’re original/unexpected in that they don’t rely on the same tried
and true formulas.
• They invite you into the experience.
• They entertain first, sell second.
• They’re visually arresting.
• They allow you to participate.
• They’re either fun, useful, beautiful or a combination of the three.

120. creativity can be in a message

121. creativity can in an experience

122. we will start with messages/ad concepts

123. why would we do that in digital age?

124. Because the ad-like object, which
could be print, poster, online ad,
landing page,social media post,
Instagram w Over, etc.remains the
fastest, simplest way to show
that you can think creatively and
reduce a message to a single,
concise, clever concept.

134. Conveys benefit
Celebrates user
Demo Announces
Makes a claim

135. Visual story
Image with words
Use of space Product
Headline/image

136. • They’re conceptual, not literal.
• They’re original/unexpected in that they don’t rely on the same tried
and true formulas.
• They invite you into the experience.
• They entertain first, sell second.
• They’re visually arresting.
• They allow you to participate.
• They’re either fun, useful, beautiful or a combination of the three.

137. they are beautifully crafted and designed

139. they are simple

141. they have a hierarchy

142. First
Second
Third

143. they respect your intelligence

145. advertising can sell stuff, of course

146. but it doesn’t have to bang you over the head

148. advertising can make the world a better place

150. advertising can lighten your day

152. it can approach art

154. it can inform popular culture

156. but too much advertising sucks

157. it interrupts an interesting story with a less interesting story

158. start to think about what is great and why;
find great and not great, be prepared to talk about it

159. we have to be part of the solution, not part of the problem