Advertising Design by Medium

A Visual and Verbal Approach

Robyn Blakeman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781000551396
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Advertising

Conceived to give readers the principles and the tools to create successful advertisements in a variety of mediums, this book is a detailed exploration of how visual and verbal elements of design work together to solve a business goal.

Effective visual and verbal design solutions are more than just a good idea; they are purposeful, on-target, on-strategy, and recognizable no matter where, or in what form, they appear. Success depends on creative teams' understanding of ideation, layout, type, color, varied image formats, copywriting, media advantages and limitations, and production procedures for varied media formats. The step-by-step approach of this book goes beyond broad theoretical discussions on copy and design. Instead, the book dissects the creative process into individualized and detailed discussions both creative and non-creative students alike can understand and employ. This book is ideal as a textbook for design courses within programs in advertising, graphic design, integrated marketing communication, strategic marketing, entrepreneurship, business, and mass communication.

Accompanying the text are online materials for instructors: lecture slides, a testbank, and an instructor manual. www.routledge.com/9781032183596

Chapter 1 Where Does the Creative Process Fit in Advertising? The Business Behind Advertising Creative

DOI: 10.4324/9781003255123-2

Chapter 1 Objectives

1. 1.The reader will understand the role the marketing plan and creative brief play in creative.
2. 2.The reader will understand the role research plays in the development of the visual/verbal message.
3. 3.The reader will be introduced to the varied creative roles found in advertising.

The Business Behind the Creative Idea

Art direction in advertising is the movement from sales objectives to creative solutions. Advertising is considered “creative” according to Gestalt psychology because it inspires new and unique ideas and offers insights that result in a solution using imagination rather than logic or reason. Advertising creative can also be defined less imaginatively, as a unique visual and verbal idea that must creatively camouflage a client’s business goals.

Because business decisions drive the development of advertising creative, it cannot be subjective, or imaginative without foundation. Great advertising requires a strong business plan that assists with the development of strong visual/verbal solutions.

The results seen on television or in digital or print media are just a small part of the business of advertising. Wrapped up in the final creative solution is an in-depth study of the product or service to be advertised, the competition, and the audience to be reached. Additional steps include ensuring the visual and verbal message can be coordinated across multiple media channels without losing meaning, will stand out from competing brands, and reach the right target with the right message in the right medium at the right time. No small job.

Before consumers see or interact with any advertising, the creative direction must unearth a unique way to sell a product or promote a service. Creative teams or “creatives” most often will have very strict parameters they must work within, rarely if ever getting to do whatever they want creatively. Budget and a client’s marketing initiatives will drive creative development. It is important to always remember you do not design for yourself; you design to sell a product or service to a predetermined set of individuals or target audience.

Before the creative team puts marker to paper or fingers to keys, there are multiple business steps that must first be prepared to ensure the creative team has enough information to successfully solve the client’s advertising problem; these include 1) research, 2) the development of a marketing plan, and 3) the construction of a creative brief. Let’s take a very brief look at each one.

The Visual and Verbal Message Is Grounded in Research

Surprisingly, all creative solutions have a foundation in research. Before coming up with that great idea that entices the target to buy the client’s product or use their service, the creative team must thoroughly understand what the client needs to accomplish with their advertising efforts. The type of research undertaken will vary by brand, the life-cycle stage the brand is in, the target audience’s overall knowledge about the brand and the current competitors in the brand category.

There are two basic types of research: Qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data employs the use of open-ended questions that can be distributed and collected through interviews or convenience polling. Another popular data-gathering option is the use of focus groups. A focus group assembles together a small group of demographically similar members of the potential target to use, discuss, or try the brand in a controlled environment. Conversely, quantitative data uses closed-ended or controlled surveys, where participants must choose their answers from a preselected set of responses. Surveys can be conducted over the phone, in any preset location, or from panel studies. Once gathered, research is organized in a document known as a marketing plan.

The Marketing Plan Is the Client’s Business Plan of Attack

The marketing plan organizes and analyzes the overall environment in which the brand will be seen and used. Its job is to take a comprehensive look at a business’s place within its brand category. Before any creative executions are undertaken, the client or marketer must first determine what they want to do—financially, strategically, and competitively.

A marketing plan is a brand’s strategic business plan; it identifies how a company will market a brand, or brands, to its customers. It will define both the marketing and advertising strategy for a set period of time, often a year. Size and overall content will depend on the client and brand, but will typically include a target market profile, sales objectives, analysis of marketing opportunities and threats, as well as brand strengths and weaknesses as compared to competitors within the brand category, and will determine implementation and evaluation tactics.

Without the research in the marketing plan, the client cannot ensure their advertising efforts are unique and will reach the correct target with features they care about. Ultimately, the goal is to find out as much as possible about any current trends and/or attitudes in the brand category, and overall target needs. Any problems that need to be addressed or favorable trends that might be exploited will need to be researched further.

Developing a comprehensive plan that incorporates research efforts is the foundation for creative direction. If the client wants to increase sales, profits, and brand equity, he must have a plan that will talk to the right audience, define the brand and the competition, and offer a product that is unique and consistently reliable. The next business step is the construction of the creative brief.

The Creative Brief: The Communication Plan of Attack

The creative brief evolves from the client’s marketing plan. Its job is to lay out for the creative team the communications plan of action. It is a detailed document that outlines the product or service and keeps the creative team on-target or talking to the right audience, and on-strategy, or accomplishing the creative or strategic goals.

A small but informative internal agency document (usually no more than one page), created by the account manager assigned to the brand or in conjunction with the client, the brief serves as a guide for initial brainstorming. A good brief, according to creative legend Jackie End in a 2009 Adage article by Howard Margulies entitled, “What are you packing into your (creative) briefs?” is “when you can read it without missing lunch and dinner.” The equally legendary Leo Burnett, quoted in the same article defined a brief as “single minded … logical and rooted in a compelling truth … [incorporating a powerful human insight].”

The brief is not a document that theorizes, simplifies, or outlines the visual/verbal message; it should be concise, focusing only on the information the creative team needs to develop a creative solution for the client’s advertising problem.

It is a compact version of the client’s marketing plan that assists the creative team to understand the client’s advertising goals. The team will use the information to develop the visual/verbal message. It is not a creative outlet—it does not determine copy, or define or determine what creative solutions should show. It is a guide for what creative needs to accomplish only. Like advertising, a creative brief must inspire the target audience to action. The target for a brief, is the creative team. It becomes the skeletal structure the creative team will use to flesh out the final creative idea. A well-crafted brief is thought out and thoroughly researched. An informative brief requires culling through the research and reporting only on the insights that matter most. Its job is simple and singular, educate the creative team to assist them in the development of a unique, informative visual and verbal solution.

Account managers use the brief to keep all the stakeholders (the account and creative teams and the client), on the same page, avoid directional ambiguity, save time, avoid waste, and help to eliminate confusion and risk. Beyond being informational, it also helps to enhance collaboration between the account and creative teams to ensure efficiency and integration between the teams. By working together, there is less chance for errors, surprises, and endless rounds of revisions.

Secondly, creative briefs are the initial inspiration for the brainstorming of ideas and the final, strategically driven, creative solution that ultimately solves the client’s advertising problem. It is a type of “living” document that can, and often does, change at almost any point along the way as needed.

Finally, it should help answer questions and solve any misunderstandings anyone involved with the creative product—copywriters, designers, digital developers, illustrators, and especially the client—may have before the creative team starts brainstorming.

A well-written brief should define the target audience and the communication objectives, analyze the target’s knowledge about the brand, describe individual brand features and corresponding consumer benefits, address the competition, introduce the key consumer benefit and support statement, and determine the appropriate creative strategy and tone as well as layout any relevant promotional options. In my book Integrated Marketing Creative Strategy From Idea To Implementation, I show what needs to be included in a brief. See Template 1.1 for a sample creative brief template.

Template 1.1 Sample Creative Brief

Creative Brief Template

1. 1.Target Audience
   • Primary:
   • Demographics:
   • Psychographics:
   • Behavioristics:
   • Geographics:
   • Secondary: (If needed)
   • Demographics:
   • Psychographics:
   • Behavioristics:
   • Geographics:
2. 2.Communication Objectives
   • •To create awareness about …
   • •To convince the target that …
   • •To persuade the target …
3. 3.Target Analysis
   • What does the target currently think about my brand?
   • 1.
   • 2.
   • 3.
   • What would you like them to think?
   • 1.
   • 2.
   • 3.
   • Why should they believe it?
   • 1.
   • 2.
   • 3.
4. 4.Brand Features and Benefits
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
   • •Feature:
     • Benefit:
5. 5.Positioning (Place competitor name here)
   • •Short description of competing brand.
   • •Description of the brand’s similarities and differences as compared to the client’s brand.
   • •Their current advertising. What does it say and/or show?
   • •What is their key consumer benefit (KCB)?
   • •Logo design: What colors, symbols, typefaces are used?
   • •Are they using a tagline or slogan?
   • •Any unique colors or graphics...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Templates
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Where Does the Creative Process Fit in Advertising?: The Business Behind Advertising Creative
• Chapter 2 Conceptual Development
• Chapter 3 Getting Attention and Delivering an Informative Message
• Chapter 4 Visuals and Their Voice in Advertising
• Chapter 5 Type as a Design Element
• Chapter 6 The Many Visual and Verbal Voices of Color
• Chapter 7 The Stages of Advertising Design
• Chapter 8 Layout Options and What They Say
• Chapter 9 Spokespersons and Character Representatives as Part of the Concept
• Chapter 10 Graphic Design, Logo, and Package Development
• Chapter 11 Writing Copy That Strategically Promotes the Brand and Talks to the Target
• Chapter 12 Concepts That Incorporate the Visual and Verbal Voice of Individual Media Vehicles
• Chapter 13 The Visual and Verbal Design Behind Broadcast
• Chapter 14 Making It Big and Taking It on the Road:: Out-of-Home and Transit Advertising
• Chapter 15 Direct Marketing:: The Old Guard
• Chapter 16 What Makes Internet and Social Media Marketing Work?
• Chapter 17 What Makes Mobile Work?
• Chapter 18 Campaigns, and Visual and Verbal Uniformity across Multiple Mediums
• Chapter 19 Pitching, Approvals, and Deadlines
• Glossary
• Index