This document discusses creative strategy in advertising. It covers inputs to the creative process like research, qualitative studies, and testing. Common models of the creative process are described, including preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification stages. Developing a major selling idea and creative brief are important parts of creative strategy development. Approaches to finding the big idea that can be a basis for an advertising campaign include unique selling propositions, branding, inherent drama, and positioning. Contemporary strategies aim to engage consumers through attention-grabbing and adaptable big ideas.

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Chapter 8
Creative Strategy: Planning
and Development

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Learning Objectives
LO1 Describe the role of creative strategy in
advertising.
LO2 Identify inputs to the creative process.
LO3 Describe the development of creative strategy.
LO4 Examine approaches to developing the major
selling ideas that are used as the basis for an
advertising campaign.

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The Advertising Message
Creative Strategy
• Determines what the advertising message will say or
communicate.
• Creative tactics:
• Determine how the message strategy will be executed.
• Big idea: central theme of campaign.

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Exhibit 8-1
Advertising can be used to create images or associations and position a brand
in the consumer’s mind. Many consumers who have never driven in a BMW
perceive it as “the ultimate driving machine,” or as this ad states “joy is the
all.”
Source: BMW of North America

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The Importance of Creativity in Advertising
Creative Ads
• Good creative strategy and execution can determine success
of product or service.
• Does not always increase sales.
• Debate over advertising awards.

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Advertising Creativity 1
Different Perspectives on Advertising Creativity
• Managers’ perspective:
• Advertising is creative only if it sells the product.
• Ads are promotional tools used to communicate favorable impressions
to the marketplace.
• Risk-averse and want more conservative ads.
• Creative people’s perspective:
• Ad creativity in its artistic value and originality.
• Ads are communication vehicles for promoting their own aesthetic
viewpoints and personal career objectives.
• Maximize impact of message.

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Advertising Creativity 2
Determinants of Creativity
• Advertising creativity:
• Ability to generate fresh, unique, and appropriate ideas that can be
used as solutions to communication problems.
• Two central determinants:
• Divergence.
• Relevance.

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Advertising Creativity 3
Determinants of Creativity continued
• Divergence:
• Extent to which ad contains elements that are novel, different, or
unusual.
• Achieved through:
• Originality.
• Flexibility.
• Elaboration.
• Synthesis.
• Artistic value.
Source: KFC Corporation
This ad for KFC Hot and Spicy chicken uses
divergence based on originality and artistic value.

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Advertising Creativity 4
Determinants of Creativity continued
• Relevance:
• Degree to which elements of ad are meaningful, useful, or valuable to
consumer.
• Achieved through:
• Ad-to-consumer relevance—Ad contains execution elements that are
meaningful to consumers.
• Brand-to-consumer relevance—Advertised brand of product or service is
of personal interest to consumers.

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Advertising Creativity 5
Determinants of Creativity continued
• Studies of advertising creativity:
• Does impact consumers’ responses across various stages of response
hierarchy.
• Draws more attention to advertised brand, higher levels of recall,
greater motivation to process the information, and deeper levels of
processing.
• Divergence achieved through novelty/originality and/or elaboration is
particularly important.

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Figure 8-1 Impact of Combinations of Creative
Elements on Sales

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Planning Creative Strategy 1
The Creative Challenge
• Must transform advertising message into engaging and
memorable ad.
• Every marketing situation is different, and each campaign or
advertisement requires a different creative approach.

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Planning Creative Strategy 2
Taking Creative Risks
• Essential for creating breakthrough advertisements that get
noticed.
Source: NIKE Inc.
Nike’s willingness to
allow their ad agency,
Wieden+Kennedy, to
take creative risks has
paid off in powerful and
effective advertisements
like this one.

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Planning Creative Strategy 3
The Perpetual Debate: Creative versus Hard-Sell
Advertising
• Suits or rationalists:
• Advertising must sell the product or service.
• Poets:
• Advertising must build emotional bond between consumers and
brands or companies.

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Planning Creative Strategy 4
Creative Personnel
• Background in nonbusiness areas.
• More abstract and less structured, organized, or conventional.
• Everyone involved in IMC must seek creative solutions.
• Clients should not inhibit creative process.

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The Creative Process 1
Young’s Model of the Creative Process
• Immersion: Gathering raw material and data; immersing
oneself in the problem.
• Digestion: Analyzing the information.
• Incubation: Letting subconscious do the work.
• Illumination: Birth of an idea.
• Reality or verification: Studying the idea and reshaping it for
practical usefulness.

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The Creative Process 2
Wallas’s Model of the Creative Process
• Preparation: Gathering background information needed to
solve problem through research and study.
• Incubation: Letting ideas develop.
• Illumination: Finding the solution.
• Verification: Refining idea and analyzing whether it is an
appropriate solution.

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The Creative Process 3
Account Planning
• Conducting research and gathering relevant information
about the client’s:
• Product/service and brand.
• Consumers in target audience.
• Account planners:
• Provide decision makers with information required to make an
intelligent decision.
• Responsible for research conducted during the creative strategy
development process.

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The Creative Process 4
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination
• Background research.
• Fact-finding techniques:
• Read everything related to the product or market.
• Ask everyone involved with the product for information.
• Listen to what people are talking about, particularly the client.
• Use the product or service and become familiar with it.
• Learn about client’s business.

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The Creative Process 5
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination continued
• Background research. continued
• General preplanning input:
• Gather and organize information on product, market, and competition.
• Analyze trends, developments, and happenings in the marketplace.

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The Creative Process 6
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination continued
• Product- or service-specific research.
• Gathering information through studies conducted by client on product
or service and target audience.
• Problem detection:
• Asking consumers familiar with product to list aspects they do not like.
• Provides:
• Input for product improvements or new product development.
• Ideas regarding which features to emphasize.
• Guidelines for positioning brands.

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The Creative Process 7
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination continued
• Product- or service-specific research. continued
• Branding research:
• Helps gain better insight into consumers and develop more effective
campaigns.
• Y&R Group’s BrandAsset Valuator (BAVTM).

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Exhibit 8-7
Source: BAV Group, Inc.
Y&R Group’s proprietary tool the BrandAsset Valuator (BAV™) uses four
pillars: energized differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge. These
pillars identify core issues for the brand and evaluate current and future
financial performance and potential.

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The Creative Process 8
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination continued
• Qualitative research input.
• Provides valuable insight at early stages of creative process.
• Focus groups: Consumers from target market are led through a
discussion regarding a topic.
• Give a better idea of:
• Who target audience is.
• What audience is like.
• Who creatives need to write, design, or direct to.
• Which creative approach to use.
• Critics believe testing can weaken creative execution.

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Exhibit 8-9
The Aflac duck did not
test well in focus
groups, but the
company continued
anyway. This creative
award-winning
campaign has been very
successful for Aflac.
Source: Aflac Incorporated

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The Creative Process 9
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination continued
• Qualitative research input. continued
• Ethnographic research: Observing consumers in their natural
environment.
• Expensive to conduct and difficult to administer.

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The Creative Process 10
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation, Incubation,
Illumination continued
• Qualitative research input. continued
• The Advertising Research Foundation initiated the David Ogilvy Awards.
Source: Procter & Gamble
The Cleaner of Your Dreams
campaign for Mr. Clean won
the Grand Ogilvy Award for an
IMC campaign based on
consumer research.

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The Creative Process 11
Inputs to the Creative Process: Verification, Revision
• Process:
• Evaluate ideas.
• Reject the inappropriate ideas.
• Refine the remaining ideas.
• Give ideas final expression.
• Techniques:
• Directed focus groups.
• Message communication studies.
• Portfolio tests.
• Evaluation measures, such as viewer reaction profiles.

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The Creative Process 12
Inputs to the Creative Process: Verification, Revision
continued
• Storyboard: Series of drawings that present a proposed
commercial’s visual layout.
• Animatic: Videotape of storyboard along with audio soundtrack.

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Creative Strategy Development 1
Advertising Campaigns
• Set of interrelated, coordinated marketing communications
activities that center on a single theme or idea.
• Appear in different media across specified time period.
• Campaign theme:
• Central message communicated in all advertising and promotional
activities.
• Expressed through a slogan or tagline.
• Summation line that briefly expresses company or brand’s positioning and
the message it is trying to deliver to target audience.

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Creative Strategy Development 2
Advertising Campaigns continued
• Slogans:
• Should be simple, catchy, and predictable.
• Should connect with consumers emotionally.
• Many companies not using them.
• Campaign themes:
• Attempt to develop campaign themes that last many years.
• Guided by specific goals and objectives.
• Creative strategy statement outlined in copy or creative platform.

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Figure 8-2 Examples of Effective Advertising Slogans
Company or Brand Slogan
1. Nike Just do it.
2. Home Depot More saving. More doing.
3. Gillette The Best a Man Can Get
4. McDonald’s I’m Lovin’ It!
5. Chipotle Food With Integrity
6. Walmart Save Money. Live Better.
7. Bounty The Quicker Picker-Upper
8. Gatorade Win From Within
9. Under Armour Protect This House. I Will.
10. Dunkin America Runs on Dunkin

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Creative Strategy Development 3
Creative Brief
• Document that specifies key elements of the creative strategy
and serves as basis for communication between client and
advertising agency.
• Association of National Advertisers (ANA) provides guidelines
for developing effective briefs.
• Two-step process: Client creates assignment brief and then ad agency
develops creative brief.
• One collaborative brief: Client takes lead and develops brief with ad
agency.
• Often gaps in information.

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Figure 8-3 Key Elements of a Creative Brief
1. Basic problem or issue the communication must address or solve.
2. Communication objectives.
3. Target audience.
4. Insights to drive creative work.
5. Key benefits or major selling idea to communicate.
6. Reason to believe/supporting information.
7. Tone and manner/brand personality.
8. Deliverables (what is needed and when).
9. Measures of success (should be tied back to objectives).

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Creative Strategy Development 4
The Search for the Major Selling Idea
• Major selling idea: Strongest singular thing company can say
about its product or service.
• Has the broadest and most meaningful appeal to target
audience.
• Basis of many creative, successful advertising campaigns.
Source: Old Spice by Procter & Gamble
The Man Your Man Could
Smell Like campaign for Old
Spice is one of the best
campaigns of the new
millennium. What is Old
Spice's major selling idea in
this campaign?

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Creative Strategy Development 5
Developing the Major Selling Idea
• Most creative ideas try to dramatically and effectively convey
the key benefit claim.
• Approaches:
• Using a unique selling proposition.
• Creating a brand image.
• Finding the inherent drama.
• Positioning.

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Creative Strategy Development 6
Developing the Major Selling Idea continued
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
• Benefit:
• Buy product/service and you get this benefit.
• Unique:
• Proposition must be unique to brand or claim; rivals can't or don't offer it.
• Potent:
• Promise must be strong enough to move mass millions.

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Creative Strategy Development 7
Developing the Major Selling
Idea continued
• Creating a brand image:
• Image advertising: Strategy used
to develop strong, memorable
identity for a brand.
• To be successful:
• Associate brand with symbols or
artifacts that have cultural
meaning.
• Use visual appeals that convey
psychosocial associations and
feelings.
Source: Bebe Stores, Inc.
bebe uses advertising to build an
image as a sexy and stylish brand.

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Creative Strategy Development 8
Developing the Major Selling Idea continued
• Finding the inherent drama.
• Characteristic of a product that makes consumers purchase it.
• Advertising should:
• Be based on foundation of consumer benefits.
• Emphasize the dramatic element in expressing those benefits.
Source: Hallmark Licensing, LLC
Advertising for Hallmark such as the
“Put Your Heart to Paper” campaign
often uses inherent drama.

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Creative Strategy Development 9
Developing the Major Selling Idea continued
• Positioning:
• Establishes product or service in a particular place in consumer’s mind.
• Done on basis of distinctive attributes.
• Basis of firm’s creative strategy when it has multiple brands competing
in same market.
Source: Kellogg Co.
Kellogg has repositioned
Special K cereal using the
“Power of You” campaign.

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Creative Strategy Development 10
Contemporary Approaches to the Big Idea
• Many creative styles and strategies are available.
• Big ideas must:
• Capture consumer attention.
• Be adaptable to be used across various media.
• Engage consumers and enter into a dialogue with them.