Selecciones - Webs

Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
8. Creative Strategy:
Planning and Development
become very popular in recent years as many agencies have seen the successful campaigns
developed by agencies that are strong advocates of account planning. 18 One
such agency is Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has used account planning to
develop highly successful campaigns for clients such as Polaroid, Hewlett-Packard,
Sega, and Nike, as well as the popular “Got milk?” ads for the California Milk Processor
Board.
Jon Steel, vice president and director of account planning at the agency’s San Francisco
office, has written an excellent book on the process titled Truth, Lies & Advertising:
The Art of Account Planning. 19 He notes that the account planner’s job is to
provide the key decision makers with all the information they require to make an intelligent
decision. According to Steel, “Planners may have to work very hard to influence
the way that the advertising turns out, carefully laying out a strategic foundation with
the client, handing over tidbits of information to creative people when, in their judgment,
that information will have the greatest impact, giving feedback on ideas, and
hopefully adding some ideas of their own.”
Account planning plays an important role during creative strategy development by
driving the process from the customers’ point of view. Planners will work with the
client as well as other agency personnel, such as the creative team and media specialists.
They discuss how the knowledge and information they have gathered can be used
in the development of the creative strategy as well as other aspects of the advertising
campaign. Account planners are usually responsible for all the research (both qualitative
and quantitative) conducted during the creative strategy development process. In
the following section we examine how various types of research and information can
provide input to the creative process of advertising. This information can be gathered
by account planners or others whose job it is to provide input to the process.
Inputs to the Creative Process: Preparation,
Incubation, Illumination
Background Research Only the most foolish creative person or team would
approach an assignment without first learning as much as possible about the client’s
product or service, the target market, the competition, and any other relevant background
information. The creative specialist should also be knowledgeable about general
trends, conditions, and developments in the marketplace, as well as research on
specific advertising approaches or techniques that might be effective. The creative
specialist can acquire background information in numerous ways. Some informal factfinding
techniques have been noted by Sandra Moriarty:
• Reading anything related to the product or market—books, trade publications,
general interest articles, research reports, and the like.
• Asking everyone involved with the product for information—designers,
engineers, salespeople, and consumers.
• Listening to what people are talking about. Visits to stores, malls, restaurants,
and even the agency cafeteria can be informative. Listening to the client can be
particularly valuable, since he or she often knows the product and market best.
• Using the product or service and becoming familiar with it. The more you use a
product, the more you know and can say about it.
• Working in and learning about the client’s business to understand better the people
you’re trying to reach. 20
To assist in the preparation, incubation, and illumination stages, many agencies
provide creative people with both general and product-specific preplanning input.
General preplanning input can include books, periodicals, trade publications, scholarly
journals, pictures, and clipping services, which gather and organize magazine and
newspaper articles on the product, the market, and the competition, including the latter’s
ads. This input can also come from research studies conducted by the client, the
agency, the media, or other sources.
Another useful general preplanning input concerns trends, developments, and happenings
in the marketplace. Information is available from a variety of sources,
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
247
Chapter Eight Creative Strategy: Planning and Development