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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
8. Creative Strategy:
Planning and Development
creative and media departments work together selecting magazines
and deciding on the ads that will appeal to the readers of each publication.
The creative department is often asked to create media-specific
ads to run in a particular publication. Exhibit 8-3 shows an Absolut ad
that was developed specifically for Los Angeles Magazine.
Planning Creative Strategy
The Creative Challenge
Those who work on the creative side of advertising often face a real
challenge. They must take all the research, creative briefs, strategy
statements, communications objectives, and other input and transform
them into an advertising message. Their job is to write copy, design
layouts and illustrations, or produce commercials that effectively communicate
the central theme on which the campaign is based. Rather
than simply stating the features or benefits of a product or service, they
must put the advertising message into a form that will engage the audience’s
interest and make the ads memorable. 10
The job of the creative team is challenging because every marketing
situation is different and each campaign or advertisement may
require a different creative approach. Numerous guidelines have been
developed for creating effective advertising, 11 but there is no magic formula. As copywriter
Hank Sneiden notes in his book Advertising Pure and Simple:
Rules lead to dull stereotyped advertising, and they stifle creativity, inspiration, initiative,
and progress. The only hard and fast rule that I know of in advertising is that there are no
rules. No formulas. No right way. Given the same problem, a dozen creative talents would
solve it a dozen different ways. If there were a sure-fire formula for successful advertising,
everyone would use it. Then there’d be no need for creative people. We would simply program
robots to create our ads and commercials and they’d sell loads of product—to other
robots. 12
Taking Creative Risks
Many creative people follow proven formulas when creating ads because they are
safe. Clients often feel uncomfortable with advertising that is too different. Bill Tragos,
former chair of TBWA, the advertising agency noted for its excellent creative
work for Absolut vodka, Evian, and many other clients, says, “Very few clients realize
that the reason that their work is so bad is that they are the ones who commandeered it
and directed it to be that way. I think that at least 50 percent of an agency’s successful
work resides in the client.” 13
Many creative people say it is important for clients to take some risks if they want
breakthrough advertising that gets noticed. One agency that has been successful in
getting its clients to take risks is Wieden & Kennedy, best known for its excellent creative
work for companies such as Nike, Microsoft, and ESPN. The agency’s founders
believe a key element in its success has been a steadfast belief in taking risks when
most agencies and their clients have been retrenching and becoming more conservative.
14 The agency can develop great advertising partly because clients like Nike are
willing to take risks and go along with the agency’s priority system, which places the
creative work first and the client–agency relationship second. The agency has even terminated
relationships with large clients like Gallo when they interfered too much with
the creative process.
An example of a company that has begun taking more creative risks with its advertising
is Wrigley. For many years the company, which has long dominated the market for
chewing gum, was very conservative with its advertising and relied on more traditional,
attribute-focused messages. However, in recent years Wrigley has taken a more dynamic
approach to its marketing by introducing new products and using an edgier creative
approach in its ads. 15 For example, advertising for the company’s Big Red brand used
the tried and true “Kiss a Little Longer” campaign, featuring smooching couples, for
many years. However, in 2000 Wrigley decided to develop a new image for the brand
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Exhibit 8-3 Absolut
vodka creates ads
specifically for the
publications in which they
appear, such as this one for
Los Angeles Magazine
243
Chapter Eight Creative Strategy: Planning and Development