WTF is advertising?
Before we delve deeper into the industry, let’s quickly go through what advertising actually is and how it’s evolved into what it is today.
What’s the difference between marketing and advertising?
Advertising is only one slice of the marketing pie. It’s part of the marketing process that involves directly getting word about your business, product or service to your target audience. These communications are used to influence consumer perceptions of your brand and attempt to change their behaviours. Great marketing requires great advertising. It’s an essential and often overlooked aspect of the marketing mix.
What is commercial creativity?
It’s many things... But in its simplest form, commercial creativity is doing something fresh to solve problems. You’re given the set up (problem, budget, time, target audience, etc.) and you’re paid to figure out a creative solution. Not everyone will agree on the quality of the work produced, but having an educated guess as to what will resonate with an audience and influence them to buy is what fuels the industry to be better everyday.
Why is creativity important?
The reality is if something is different, funny, interesting or even just makes you think, you’re more likely to engage. Sometimes things just sell and we have no idea why but the best chance for success is to harness the power of creativity. Creative marketing doesn’t mean you have be loud or overt. It’s understanding your target market, identifying a problem, solving that problem and then finally communicating it in a way that talks to the heart of your audience. Your goal is to make people feel something. Sound tough? That’s half the fun.
"We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in & be what people are interested in."
Craig Davis
How are ads made?
- Strategy
- Creative Development
- Approvals
- Production
- Live
Once the agency has received the client brief (with client service managing this), it’ll go right into strategy. There, the strategists will create the strategy and creative brief, which outlines the target audience, key insights, key messages and the single-minded ‘proposition’ that the creative department will take as inspiration for their actual work.
The brief will then be given to the creative department, who, based off the information in the brief, will devise multiple ways of executing it. These concepts will go through various internal reviews where creative directors, account service and strategists will be able to give feedback to ensure the work is ‘on brief’.
Once it’s in a state everyone is happy with, the work will be presented to the client, and will go through a couple of rounds of feedback before it’s officially ‘sold in’. Prepare for many battles between clients trying to have their say and agencies trying to protect the integrity of the idea.
Now sold in, the chosen campaign transitions into the production phase. Here, the agency producers will work with outside production companies to bring the campaign to life. During this process the creatives work very closely with production and account service to ensure that the whole thing runs smoothly and the client is happy.
Once the campaign is completed and approved, it’ll go live. This is when you can go for Friday drinks to celebrate all your hard work.