Chapter EightCreating Ads: Strategy and Process

Arens|Schaefer|Weigold

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Learning Objectives

• Identify the members of the creative team and their primary responsibilities

• Describe the characteristics of great advertising

• Explain the role of the creative strategy and its principal elements

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Learning Objectives

• Show how advertising enhances creativity

• Define the four roles people play at different stages of the creative process

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The Creative Team

• Creates the words and concepts for ads and commercials

Copywriter

• Determines how the ads verbal and visual symbols will fit together

Art director

• Head of the creative team of copywriters and artists• Responsible for the form the final ad takes

Creative director

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Dimensions of Great Advertising

• Audience resonance - Surprise element that gets the audiences’ attention and imagination– Informational ads– Transformational ads

• Strategic relevance - Ad should be in alignment with the sponsor’s strategy

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Creative Strategy

• Guides the creative team in writing and producing an ad

• Elements– Problem the advertising must solve– Advertising objective and definition of

the target audience– Benefits to communicate– Support for the benefits– Brand personality and special

requirements

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Message Strategy

• Helps media planners determine how messages will be delivered to consumers

• Components– Verbal– Nonverbal– Technical• Mandatories: Specific requirements for

every ad, such as addresses, logos, and slogans

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Creativity

• Combining two or more previously unconnected objects or ideas into something new

• Role in advertising– Informs– Persuades– Reminds– Helps with the boom factor

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Fact-Based vs. Value-Based Thinking

Fact-based thinking

• Fragments concepts for analysis

• Analyzes situations to discover one discover one best solution

• Produces straight-forward layouts, fact-based appeals, and lots of data

Value-based thinking

• Decisions are based on intuitions, values, and ethical judgments

• Produces ads that are metaphorical, subtle, soft or intuitive

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Roles of Art Director and the Copywriter in the Creative

Process

• Searches for new information and unusual patterns

Explorer

• Experiments with a variety of approaches looking for an original idea

Artist

• Evaluates the results of experiments to find the most practical approach

Judge

• Overcomes obstacles to bring a creative concept to realization

Warrior

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Exhibit 8.2 - The Advertising Pyramid and the Creative Pyramid