"How do you prepare for a client's advertising campaign?"
The contrarian in me is trying to find different ways of processing this, to be out of the box and counter-culture.
The truth is, whether copywriter or art director; whether follower or destroyer of culture; whether you think your client is an idiot or a best friend, nothing replaces the rigors of analysis, elimination, and acknowledgement that best answers come from the most elegantly phrased problems.
To prepare for a campaign, you do the following:
1) determine the client's business objectives
2) identify the barriers to client's business objectives
1) determine the client's business objectives
2) identify the barriers to client's business objectives
- is it a customer issue? (awareness, greater market share, dropping loyalty)
- a product issue? (name is hard to pronounce, cultural inacceptance)
- a PR issue? (business is perceived as 'bad,' past product failures)
- a supply chain issue? (customers can't see it on shelf, store managers won't stock it, business doesn't offer delivery)
- it can't be searched for on the internet
- etc.
4) verify that the barriers to your client's business objectives are correct
5) explore the most natural way to communicate with the "barrier"
5) explore the most natural way to communicate with the "barrier"
- advertising
- PR
- supply chain management
- direct marketing
- branding/rebranding
- SEO/SEM
- etc.
Since my students specifically asked how to prepare for an ad campaign, let's proceed to:
6) make a creative brief
7) choose a fact, insight, truth in the creative brief to overcome the barrier
8) execute with a concept
9) test your execution with a focus group discussion (optional)
10) refine
11) present to client
6) make a creative brief
7) choose a fact, insight, truth in the creative brief to overcome the barrier
8) execute with a concept
9) test your execution with a focus group discussion (optional)
10) refine
11) present to client
