Creative Process

→ Ideation

FOUNDATION OF EVERYTHING

PERSUASION. I’ve been asking myself ‘how can people possibly sell an idea?’. If you sell a chair, you sell a tangible product, something physical that people can handle. It’s something people know the value they get from the transaction. When it comes to selling an idea, it’s something intangible. Then, over time, I find out that, the value of an idea lies in what people can do with it, and also lies in the ‘how’ (process) you came up with the idea in the first place. And that’s where a creative process (e.g., design thinking) comes in. Having one, helps to communicate by articulating your thoughts, and to convince clients.

TOOL. Taxi drivers use a car as a tool to make a living. Creative professionals are no exception, they need a tool too. Creatives use two type of tools. The ones they can buy instantly (Photoshop, After Effects etc.) to execute, and the one they build themselves over time from years of experience (a creative process) to create.

PROCESS. Conventional ideas feel comfortable, familiar. So we tend to pay attention about them, while when it comes to innovative thinking, we tend to stay away. So unconventional approaches need an environment that embraces innovative thinking, so they are more likely to find a place to fit in. And that’s where a flexible creative process makes sense of something that at first glance, doesn’t. A creative process also aims to process creativity.

Creative Strategy

→ Strategic Thinking

AN IDEA ISN’T CREATIVE OR STRATEGIC

Most of the time, the creatives belong to the Creative team, and the strategists belong to the Planner team. In some agencies, they have Creative Strategists, but it’s not common yet. So, folks from the Creative team should have a strategic thinking skill. An idea isn’t creative or strategic. It’s both.

If an idea is not strategic, it’s self serving, it’s self expression (art). Ideas in the advertising world have a function, which is to solve a business problem, or to increase brand awareness.

Strategic thinking skill, is handy in articulating the idea platform. It’s important because of the implication for the next step of the creative process, which is building the communication framework (campaign rollout), cascading into channels and ‘sub-messages’. The idea platform brings cohesion to campaigns that last 3, 5 years, and makes sure that all executions are on brand.

One of the manifestation of a strategic thinking, is thru the drawing of mental models & frameworks. They help to explain and share how pieces of communication gonna be deployed and unfolded over time.

That leads to the next topic: the campaign ecosystem. Most of the time, a Creative is not a Strategic Planner. However, when coming up with an idea, it’s important for a Creative, to be able to project how that idea will help to support the campaign objectives. Because in fine, it’s the objective of an idea.

Creative Vision

→ (en)Vision

EYES DON’T ONLY LET THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN. THEY ALLOW TO PROJECT A WORLD.

In this day & age, lack of clarity is one of the reason why people or organization get lost. Vision is key because it gives a direction. A vision fundamentally is formed by positivity and hope since a vision is an ideal. And that’s okay if we never reach that vision, because a vision, is not a place. It’s an horizon.

Sometimes, we pressure ourselves to get that vision from the ground up. The good news is, a vision doesn’t have to be right and accurately defined with criteria from the get go. Actually, what would be terrible, is a vision that doesn’t change, while the world is moving. A vision should be relevant to the current time, so it will evolve over time. There’s no need to define accurately a vision, since there are too much variables out of our control. Instead, it’s more realistic, to envision an ideal world.

On a functional level, a strategic vision is how an advertising campaign would look like (from development of messaging and marketing collaterals such as KV, iTVC, app, landing page, micro site, website, Facebook Youtube TikTok video long and short form content) to move the brand closer to its expected achievements.

On a more emotional level, a strategic vision is the belief of how a brand should contribute to build that ideal world, world in which the brand makes a change in people’s lives, helping them to reach their own goals in life. A strategic creative vision is a movie projected by a brand. A movie that customers want both to watch, and being the heroes.

Building a Brand from Scratch

→ Brand Development

BARELY SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

Most of the time, working for a brand, means working with an established one. So when the time comes to create a brand (or a sub-brand) and its brand architecture (taxonomy) from scratch, it’s exciting and almost feels like playing god, since branding is about creating an ideal world, places where a customer can experience an ideal life.

Creating an ideal world needs the usage of building blocks such as values, purpose, mission, vision. They are materials to manipulate and work with. But to that point, it’s barely scratching the surface.

The process of building a brand from scratch is not a straight line. It’s easy to fall down in the rabbit hole, and there’s beauty about that because you never know where getting lost will lead you. Indeed, getting lost helps to find new territories.

Building a brand from scratch, reminds that, a brand is not frozen in time, it’s a wip. If we use to say “brand development”, it’s for a reason. Branding is a process. From a more emotional stand point, branding is a journey of self-discovery, an exploration that evolves along side with its ideal customers.

Part of a brand development, is brand storytelling. And unlike as it sounds, brand story is not about the brand. It’s about the customers. And when it comes to a story, it usually refers to something from the past. While a brand story actually refers to the future, it’s a narrative related to who the ideal customers are, encouraging them to be(come) who they truly are, and helping their ambition to become a reality.

Connecting with the Customers

→ Empathy

NOT PERSONA. REAL PERSON

A brand is a company that wears human attributes to look like a human. That way, it’s easier to communicate and engage with customers. However, a brand doesn’t appeal to every customers. That’s why it’s important to define the right onces. Even if it sounds counterintuitive, a good place start to define the targeted customers, is to define who they are not. Branding is about focus..

What is useful, is to specifically identify each TA by a name. The more specific, the better. But it’s not enough.

Coming up with a persona with a bunch of criteria, is a common practice in the advertising industry. If we don’t go further, the persona is only data and information. That’s difficult to have any empathy to a persona (even using a photo of a human as portrait). Going the extra-mile is necessary. How? There’s something useful to do which is to find someone you know (a colleague, a friend, a family member or a celebrity) and to picture that person in your mind, to represent a persona. That way, during the branding process when it’s necessary to do a reality check, it will be easy and effective.

As you may have understood by now, you’d better to have a passion for defining the target audiences, it’s a process that takes time and needs refinement. Over time, your target audiences become real, and you kinda develop a relationship with them.

Brand Guidelines On Point

→ Detail Oriented

GATEKEEPER

During the creative development, sometimes, agencies send to the client marketing collaterals without taking into account the brand identity guidelines (or Visual & Verbal Identity System), saying that “at this stage, focus is on the idea”. From the client perspective, it feels like a pain in the eyes because both brand & marketing teams from client-side, care about their brand. A brand identity guidelines well… is an identity. It’s who the brand & marketing teams are. If the position of a logo defined by the brand guidelines is not right, the marketing collaterals (even in the ideation stage) sounds off. A brand identity guidelines is not aim for decoration. Every component of a brand guidelines is there for a reason, if it’s not aligned with the brand guidelines, it’s irrelevant. So the visual translation of the idea must fit the brand guidelines in the first place. No one would write a slogan, not aligned with the brand tagline or TOV right?

A Creative Director, is also the gatekeeper of the brand guidelines. (s)He must know the brand guidelines like the back of his hand, checking that each detail of the marketing collaterals, before it’s sent to the client.

One of the goals of a brand identity guidelines, is to deliver an excellent consumer experience and to educate about, how brand is presented to the world (including HR, Marketing, Sales, Operation, Suppliers, Partners & Consumer) & how the brand should be perceived to the customers. So it has to be on point. A brand has a specific world view. A brand guidelines deserves a special attention, since it’s the visual & verbal translation of a world view.

Writing different types of Brief

→ Writing is Thinking

COLLECT TO CONNECT

Writing Marketing Brief with Marketing team. Folks from the Marketing team know their business, and that’s the point. They need help, for selecting what information should be shared with the agency (so agency people aren’t overwhelmed), and what structure should be used, so it’s digestable.

Writing Creative Brief for the Agency. A Creative brief might be boring. And most of the time, it is. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s the job of the Account, Planner & Creative Director to make it inspiring. We all want appealing campaign outcomes. So the input (the Creative brief) should be inspiring in the first place. Indeed, how a Creative brief is framed, how it triggers Creatives’ imagination and excitement to make a positive change in people’s lives, are key.

Great works, often comes from great understanding and engagement with a project. That’s why, a special attention should be given to craft a creative brief. We can’t control how a campaign will be received by the customers and perform. But we can control what relevant information we need in the first place, to come up with the idea. So to connect the dots, make sure to collect the dots.

Revising Agency Proposals

→ Critical Thinking

WORK ETHIC

When you learn how to drive a car, sometimes the instructor ask you to sit in the back seat, and you may think “I don’t pay to not practicing and doing nothing”. Actually, you do something by observing others practicing, so you have an overview of the situation, and learn from mistakes of others.

Same principle applies when working in client-side. By reviewing agencies’ proposals, it allows to understand why sometimes some propositions are rejected, and needs the agency to back to the drawing board. Sometimes, it’s because it’s off brand, or it’s not relevant regarding the brief objectives. This realization helps to improve the work. Sometimes, practice is not enough to become good at something. What is also needed, is to observe, to use critical thinking for improvement purpose, and to provide guidance for the agency.

Helping the agency to craft the proposition by giving them encouragement matters, since we all want the same thing: success for the campaign.

Coordinating
Proposals

→ Storytelling

APPROACH

When I first started out in the industry, as art base, I didn’t know how to tell a story. It was a big deal to me. And then, came the time when I had to create decks (a task that I did not enjoy). I only focused on parts of the deck where I can throw KVs, videos etc. It was kinda working in silos.

I needed to see the bigger picture, so I could be a part of the excitement of the Account team & executives, that comes with client presentations. I realized that, slides of a deck, are like scenes in a movie. Each slide is a step, building up the next one. Everything is cohesive, bringing to life a story.

When it comes to developing a story, there are characters who want or achieve something. They have goals. But they can’t because of a limitation or an obstacle that stands along the way (can be external or internal). And like in real life, things go wrong. So the characters are on a journey of exploration that transforms them thru experiences. Once the characters transcends his limitation or overcomes the obstacle, comes the happy ending. The story arc approach helps to build up the proposal. Transformation is what brands buy.

Hiring Creatives team Members

→ Decision-Making

TEAMWORK

Hiring Creative team members is part of the job. And in many cases, it starts by writing the job description. At first glance, a JD might seem to be written by the HR team. But who better than a Creative Director, knows the direction that a Creative team should take?

Then, comes the time to conduct the interview of potential candidates. It’s a part of the hiring process which is sometimes overlooked. This segment deserves a special attention, better than just meeting candidates, asking almost questions that comes to mind on the spot. In other words, there’s no preparation.

Hiring a new member has implications for both the Creative team, and for the agency. That’s why attending an interview with the CV of the candidate is not enough. Instead, what is needed is preparation. By being equipped with a framework of some sort to conduct the interview, does help. The Creative Director saves time, by asking directional, and strategic questions. That also helps the candidates, because they all deserve to have the same interview experience. Being fair with candidates, allows to make informed-decision (or recommendation).

In fine, chances are, at a moment in time, HR team or Line Manager, will ask to provide a rational on why a specific candidate is recommended. Unlike as it sounds, this is not about giving a report to a boss. This is about teamwork.

Training Creatives team Members

→ Training

TRANSFORMATION

Creative team members are talented people, they have been hired by the agency (or by a corporation) to work for brands. They are creative for many reasons. One of them, it’s because they have a growth mindset (Vs fix mindset). That growth mindset helps to push boundaries, to be ahead to find new creative solutions. It’s who they are, fast forward thinkers. They are on a journey that could take many directions, and it’s easy to get lost.

So, part of the job of a Creative Director is to put the Creative team members, on a path that will help them to feel fulfilled. It’s a challenge since part of the job of a CD, is to support the Creative team members to do their job coming up with fresh ideas, creative formats and concepts, while helping them to thrive as a creative.

Training the Creative team to improve their skill is necessary for the business. However, on a deeper level, imo the true meaning of training, is to move the Creative team from being members, to becoming leaders.

Leading Brainstorming Sessions

→ Facilitation

BRAINSTORMING, BUT NOT IN A STORM

Conducting a brainstorm is complex. It needs the right condition for creativity to unfold, and the right condition for the creative juice to flow. How? To make progress, a structure is needed to the session. Ideas don’t come out of the blue, it’s the result of an environment and a process. Conducting a brainstorming requires a combination of hard skill (which is something that can be learned thru practices) and soft skill (which is mainly psychology related, since brainstorming is about dealing with people’s personality).

Sometimes, brainstorming sessions go nowhere. Or worst, it leads to a dead end. It can happen and does happen. I’ve been in some of these situations. In order to prevent that to happen often, these are some guides that may be helpful. 1) At the beginning of the meeting, reminding the objective is useful. In a world of abundance of distraction, this actually allows to gather people’s attention and creates focus. 2) Best practices (code of conduct if you will) should be shared in the first place. Once participants agreed on it, it’s a foundation that allows people to work together. Why it matters? Brainstorming is well known to be a place where people think out of the box, but sometimes, some people behave in a way that other members don’t speak up, as a result, that prevents other ideas to emerge. Everyone is different, not everyone is an extravert. A brainstorming should be a place full of excitement, but it doesn’t mean that it should take place in a storm. A brainstorming should be a place & moment where extravert & introvert people have a voice.

Collaboration with Clients

→ Persuasion

SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

When it comes to the skills related to a creative person, what comes obviously in mind, is the creativity. But the creativity in question has to be understood, well received by the client. And that’s where the ability to influence, to convince comes into play. At the end of the day, someone has to buy the idea.

In the advertising world, there’s that myth of having ‘crazy idea’. It’s cliché. Business world is mostly related to money. Who would invest in something crazy? (except crazy people). Who wants to have the guaranty to loose money? Craziness has no foundation. On the other side, innovative ideas, come from fast forward innovating thinking, made of tangible building blocks. That allows to articulate the thought behind an idea (the behind the scene of an idea if you will). Articulations that make sense of an idea that doesn’t in the first place, it’s what convinces clients.

Collaboration with Stakeholder

→ Diplomacy

ADOPT TO ADAPT

Working with Stakeholders can sometime be tricky. Not because of them, but because different Stakeholders, have different product and level in the business. Since a Creative Director is someone who works with many verticals, he has to convey the message that all Stakeholders, deserve a special attention. So the challenge, is to navigate thru X-functions seamlessly, regardless of the level. So all Stakeholders have the feeling that they are heard and understood. It’s the foundation for building and maintaining a good relationship across the board.

The way of communicating in an advertising agency or in a Creative team is really casual and straightforward. When it comes to communicating with Stakeholders, it’s another story. The communication has a different code. For projects to succeed, it’s key to adopt director level written & verbal communication.

Collaboration with Brand team

→ Active Listening

BRAND GATEKEEPER

Brand team are the folks who think and work on the master brand guidelines, on a corporate branding level. At first glance, it might be challenging to work with them because they are detail oriented people. But once you’ve learn to know more about them, about what drives them, collaboration gets easier and even enjoyable.

It’s interesting to note that, what guides the brand guidelines itself, is a set of values. Values that the brand represents in the first place.

When it comes to the brand guidelines document, it’s sometimes referred as the visual guide of a brand. But a brand guidelines also includes a verbal aspect (how a brand talks, tone of voice). Brand personality (archetype) must be taken into account too.

Collaboration with Digital Agency

→ Collaboration

RESPONSIVE CONTENT

A previous experience working in the thin tech industry, helps to speak the same language with Digital Agencies. That helps not only because of having some technical knowledge, but because of the mindset of positioning the user at the center. Especially when it comes to a mobile environment, it’s all about context and usability.

When it comes to the technical aspect in a project, almost everything is possible for developers. The only limitation, is the time at the disposal. So the challenge is to find the right balance between what is technical feasible in a given time frame, and how to deliver content & messaging in a experiential way.

Indeed, what matters is to deliver the best digital experience to customers, taking into account typology of clients, brand identity, and making sure that the experience is consistent across various types of device (desktop/laptop, tablet, phone & ATM). What is needed to be responsive, is not only a website. Content has to be responsive and appropriately adapted to each digital medium to both deliver a good user experience, and values.

Collaboration with Digital Mkt team

→ Active Listening

DIGITAL WORLD, IS THE REAL WORLD

They are the ‘young’ people, the fresh mind, in other words, they are the living proof that youthness and expertise can go hand in hand.

While working for social media, no one is right or wrong. Indeed, thru A/B testing, the one who is always right, are the customers. It’s part of the beauty of the digital world, a best idea isn’t arbitrary decided by someone internally, but it’s measured thru how a communication material performs in the real world, the digital world. It’s validated online, by the decision-makers: the customers.

In the digital space, everything happens fast and in real time. That’s a good thing when you want to constantly test to adjust your communication. To do so, you need to create an on-going feedback loop and to communicate with PICs on the weekly basis to receive feedback and analyze performance of the creative content or material.

Collaboration with Marketing team

→ Active Listening

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY

For years, tbh I didn’t really like marketing. It represented the act of ‘forcing’ people to buy stuff they don’t need, and spending money they don’t have. Nowadays, I’m part of the marketing department… So what happened?

The shift in perspective occurred, when I realized that what matters is the intent. If a brand grows its business by adding values in people’s lives, that’s a good deal. Brands sell product or service. Customers buy a feeling. At the crossroad, is where lies meaningful marketing initiatives.

And it’s where a Marketing team comes into play. In order to offer & deliver that feeling, they know the customers intimately and understand them on a deep level because, marketing is not about attracting and talking to everyone. Marketing is about focus, defining who’s not the ideal customers, and who is, and then creating segmentations (or tiers). That allows to pair ideal customers with offers which are relevant in their lives (and life stage). Customer centricity, is definitely an effective approach.

And a good place to start, is to use active listening skill to understand customers’ feeling.

Collaboration with Advertising Agency

→ Collaboration

SYMBIOSIS

As a Creative who works in Client-side, part of the role is to collaborate with an agency, by giving detailed feedback about their outcomes for improvement purpose. So, what is needed is clear and defined evaluation criteria (because feedback such as “I don’t like it” is not relevant). Sometimes, in order to avoid conflict with the brand personality, what’s key is to be transparent about the brand identity, by sharing the brand guidelines, and based on that, also providing directional guidance.

When it’s necessary, part of the role is to share creative processes & frameworks, to help the agency to work with a more methodological approach.

Last but not least, is to invite the agency to not only provide idea options, but to recommend which option is the best one. Recommendation, is the added value of an agency, and it should be supported by a rational (explaining why an option is the most suitable one to achieve the campaign objectives).

Working with an agency, means growing together along the way, it’s fulfilling to make progress. It also means building a symbiotic relationship over time.

Collaboration with Production House

→ Problem-Solving

REAL LIFE DOESN’T CARE

To bring a TVC to life is huge work. It involves a lot of creatives from various disciplines such as Talent, Make-up Artist, Hair Stylist, Costume Designer, Producer, Director of Photography, and of course Film Director. A Production House, is the one who gathers everyone.

Big team, because it’s a big deal.

Meetings such as PPM, Offline, Online are necessary. Each meeting with it’s own validation to move forward. However, there will be a lot of back and forth.

The climax of the creation of a TVC, is the D-Day, the shooting day. That’s a strange day, because it comes with a mix feeling, there’s a kinda discreet excitement in the air. Everyone is happy for the day to start, and everyone has to focus on specific tasks to be done. Stakes are high. It’s a day that lasts one second. No time to rest, everything and everyone are very fast.

Real life doesn’t care about what has been planned, or agreed in a meeting. Problems occurs along the way, and gonna need to be solved on the spot, and on the fly.

Collaboration with Influencers

→ Negotiation

EXPECTED UNEXPECTED MAGIC

The higher a KOL is positioned on the 5 ladders of KOLs, the better (s)he behaves with everyone on the shooting day. KOLs are collaborative. If they think their performance is not good enough, they are more than willing to redo it. In a context of a TVC shooting, it has consequences. But the cost of an average outcome is high in term of brand image, since KOLs have their own personal brand to build and maintain as well. In fine, that mindset is beneficial for both KOLs, and for the brand. It’s a symbiosis. So there’s no KOLs being on one side, and clients on the other side. Everyone is on the same boat, heading toward success.

Over the years, by working with many KOLs, I’ve find out that, a way to get the best out of their performances is to ask the KOLS “So you’ve done all what has been expected from you, but it’s has been done according to the client’s request (all checkbox has been checked). However, are you willing to perform again, but this time, in your own way? In your own style?”. And… most of the time, it’s the performance that clients buy because it’s when the KOL has creative freedom, revealing himself and performing best.

That’s the expected unexpected magical outcome.