Creative concepts
Today's marketing talks a lot about campaigns,
programmes, and
strategies,
while the web wants IA, AD,
and UX. But all these things
exist solely to service something deeper: an idea.
An idea - a creative concept - is two thoughts linked in a way they
weren't before... saying something new as a result. Every great product or
service was built on an idea, and it's no different for marketing. Communicating
an idea is the principal task of any campaign or programme. In fact, it's
the only reason to do anything at all.
Sport is empowerment? - Big Idea. Nike makes billions from it. Magic
you can trust? Big Idea, and IBM handles most of the world's enterprise computing
with it. Technology is human-shaped? Big Idea, and with it Apple drove computers,
phones, and the entire way we consume media to a new level.
If your idea's bad or wrong, you can forget about your campaign doing
more than bouncing off your audience's limited attention span; it'll be unwanted
and unloved. But if your idea's great, it'll get inside their heads in a way
no edgy art direction or killer copy can alone.
A great idea is participative. It asks your audience to contribute
something and gives them back more than they put in. No joke is funny without
something left out, a gap in which the audience 'gets it'. Because once people
get it, they're connected to you on a platform of shared understanding. And
that's the basis of great marketing.
Next: information architecture.