THE JOY IS IN THE DOING: WHY ALL THIS MATTERS/WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU: Stuff every Advertising Copywriter, Art Director, Designer, Student and thinking-they-might-wanna-be needs to know about this “technical” stuff I’ve been telling you.

After I posted that last piece, it occurred to me that something I found tricky to write must be tricky to learn.  I sometimes share easier stuff, but mostly I’ve tried to give hard how-tos instead of easy anecdotes.  I must admit, however, some of my posts leave one big something woefully missing.  How much fun this is.

If it’s not fun, why would anyone want to learn it?  A job is nice.  Even better, being paid for a talent you’ve always enjoyed.  People perceive those who write advertising as infinitely more entertaining than those who underwrite insurance.  Good reasons, they don’t hit the heart of why knowing how to think, as difficult as it may seem, will get you more mitzvahs (look it up or ask a Rabbi), in more award books and potentially enjoying the best sex substitute you can have in a crowded office.

I got into ad copy because I was funny, a genetic writer, a fearlessly out of the box thinker, “creative” dresser and disastrous in any practical field whatsoever.  Fun, but until Y&R sent me to Strategy School, I had no understanding of what I was supposed to be doing. 

Make it fun, get it noticed.  Who cared how – or even if – it solved client problems, spoke to the Prospect, could backup the work with smart thinking.  Subjectivity determined value.  That, and how good you were at selling ice to Eskimos.

It was hard being so meaningless.  While I’d always managed glib, I was clever – not smart – for a living.  Then came Y&R Strategy School - all of a sudden it made sense.  The process worked.  My stuff was still creative, but it was also smart.  Got the Prospect involved, did what it was supposed to do.  When I ran lines, I knew what I wanted them to say.  Best of all, if it was On Strategy, it took quite a bit of subjective clout to kill my best work.

Practical, but far from a great sex substitute.  Or was it?

Any creative act releases the same endorphins that make us crave chocolate, death defying thrills and (more) sex.  I might not be able to get laid in my office during normal business hours, parachute off the top of an office tower or eat a total chocolate diet, but I sure can feel like I did.  And get paid to boot.

Money and massive endorphin release.  Not bad.  But that’s all under the radar stuff.  Perks. 

What Creative Strategy really gave me was the ability to let my mind – my creativity and rational+irrational brainpowers – run naked down Mad Ave.  I knew where I was going, had the tools to get there.  Instead of listing puns, playing with meaning and defining clever, I was solving problems, taking products/clients from status quo to something no one had seen before.  I had a verifiable blueprint for success.

(One of) the most general definitions of Zen’s Satori is “the state of sudden, indescribable intuitive enlightenment.”  The big Ah/O moment.  Because we’re talking endorphins fed by catharsis in the course of 9-5/M-F j-o-b, there’s also a huge element of “the joy is in the doing” to it. 

Doing ad creative – strategy, concept, copy, producing broadcast, wading in electronica, yadda yadda – puts me closer to Satori than most people ever get in life.  Let alone at work.  And that’s the best reason I can give to learn how.

Where I work people don’t just tolerate – they value and enjoy the quirks of the Creative Personality* other fields might consider firing offenses (although you can still get fired, and probably will*).  I work with people who understand the brilliant organization of an impossibly messy desk.  Who look and act more like me than the banker across the conference table.  My creative partners and I can pump endorphins all afternoon and never get called for cheating.  I can tack things on my wall, take field trips, tell people I’m reading Skateboard magazine (MAD, comic books, Rolling Stone, Car and Driver, kiddie books, Playboy, The New York Times Magazine, whatever) for my job – and mean it. 

Doing great work feels great.  Collaborating with other creatives – writers, art directors, photographers, directors, studio engineers, the occasional AE, clients, whoever – only ups the endorphin count.  While all that’s making me happy, I’m pushing, stretching, reinventing myself, my world and all that gray matter so I can go farther creatively, personally and professionally.

I’d like to say that’s why I do it.  Why you need to learn it.  Why I want to help.  But ultimately, there’s still one final, selfish reason to take these lessons to heart – and the bank.  As strange as my Love/Hate relationship with Advertising is, it’s also the easiest thing I can do.  Not that the work is easy.  It’s that the work – and the industry – understands Doreen as Doreen. I can get high on just being me. 

As an engineer I know would say, “It’s the tits.” 

*Want more info on The Creative Process, Creative Personality, Kamikaze Creative Occupational Safety, etc., email me @kamikazecreative@gmail.com.  I’ll send you handouts.

MORE REASONS I LOVE WHAT I DO/FUN THINGS THAT KEEP ME WRITING COPY:

Hot roughnecks.  Early morning outdoor photo shoots.  Watching the Exxon tiger almost get somebody.  One agency’s house chef.  Helping Ed McMahon cinch his girdle.  Rock Concert Radio.  Watching the other World Trade Center tower sway in the breeze while presenting to fifty Japanese guys.  Stretch limos.  Flying First Class.  Hanging in gyms with female professional boxers.  Disneyland.  Free media dept. tickets to baseball games (field level, front and center).  Taking the executive helicopter from downtown to the airport.  Concepting at the zoo.  Making twenty suits stomp their feet and scream at the top of their lungs.  Being the expert because I’m the only one standing up.  Company jets.  Watching Jesse Caesar present.  New Business.  The Drake.  Life size rodeo beer babe cutouts.  My own hard hat.  Kraft Services.  Late night music production. No one noticing how late I come in.  Sunsets from the Chicago Merchandise Mart.  George, Raymond, Naomi, Robert, Bob, Jannie, Carol, Betty, Julie, Andy, Mitch, Scotts I, II, III, Allen, Gerry, Jerry, Jim, MC, Mary, Kim, Alison, Dave, Greg, Tom, Tony, Janet, Heddy, Ryan, Joyce, Dan, Lucy, Bob, Carmille, Minsoo, Keith, Beth, Andrew, John, Michael, Michael, Tondra, Cam, Larry, Jesse, Amerphil, Berkley, Stan, Lee, LaDonna/Madonna, Kinney, Ron…the list just keeps going and going.

INTEGRATED OBJECTIVE BASED KAMIKAZE CREATIVE STRATEGY: Beyond the Creative How, What every Advertising Copywriter, Art Director, Ad Designer, Creative Director and Account Executive needs to know about using Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies to concept Integrated Kamikaze Creative Campaigns.

I’ve mentioned Mad Man Bill Small a few times.  Much of this is an updating/expansion of basics he taught me. 

I’m always amazed when an old advertising idea recycles as something “New and Improved!”  Ad agencies are supposed to be originators, early adopters, the last commercial creative frontier.  But every time I hear Integrated Campaigns and their basic components talked about like it’s some new discovery that’s going to cure Cancer, make Congress useful and blow the doors off the competition, I want to scream.

True, Creative Integration is what most of the job listings I see now want.  What they’re really talking about is mainly experience in Traditional + New Media.  What scares me is how too many agencies talk about it as if were some Advanced – vs. Basic – Skill.  Too many creatives don’t know what it is beyond that New/Old Media divide.  Let alone how it’s supposed to be done conceptually and how much stronger it is when done right.

Bill Small and the Mad Men of his generation had their Integrated Campaign down pat.  No big deal, just how you bought media.  It was pretty much Traditional (Print + Broadcast) + Direct + Promotions + Outdoor + PR + possible Co-op.  Today, it usually refers to campaigns run across all the above + “New” (Web, Interactive, Ambient, Guerilla, Apps, etc.)  Media.  With or without corresponding Direct, Promotions and somewhat related PR. 

ICs (*a list of Kamikaze Creative acronyms follows this post) then/now might also include Internal Client/Employee/Shareholder Communications, Product Placement, Sports and Philanthropic Sponsorships, Training materials yadda yadda yadda.  The available media has expanded, but the basic strategy behind the Fully Integrated Campaign hasn’t changed since Bill was plying clients with three martini lunches. 

On the surface, an Integrated Campaign’s about the messengers (media).  If you’re playing with Integrated Campaigns from Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies, it’s less about the messengers than the message.

You decide – based upon deep Prospect knowledge and everything else that goes into the OBKCWP – how to best reach your Prospect.  Then carry your campaign through every medium that’s conceptually related to product and Campaign Concept (that the client can afford).  Integrated campaigns give you more media options.  But if that’s all it is, it would – still – be just a media buy. 

The Truth is in the Concept.

The big difference between too many Integrated Campaigns and Integrated Kamikaze Campaigns is what it is you’re integrating.  In Bill Small’s day, an IC might be a spread ad reduced to a single page ad (same headline) reduced to small space (where have I seen that headline before?).  Plus a :60 and :30 for both Radio and TV that pretty much parrot the print.  Plus some reference in the PR.  Maybe matching Outdoor.  Plus coordinated and creatively matching Direct, Promotions, Point of Sale.  Plus a mention in clients' internal/shareholder newsletters, etc.

As much of the campaign as possible fed off the initial ad.  Maybe you repeat the visual + headline in all the print (including any Collateral, Direct, POS, etc.).  The radio and TV might not relate to the print at all (how often do you still see that), or it could just repeat/expand/make it “visual” (Radio should be an extremely visual medium).  Other than graphic elements and a few purloined lines, what made the campaign Integrated was the same creative ran everywhere at the same time. 

What’s a Campaign Concept?  Thought you’d never ask.

This is where today’s Integrated Campaign should claim new territory outside New Media.  One of the trickiest parts of IOBKCS is that the media should be a Conceptual Partner to the Creative Concept.  Not a venue for an individual ad, repeated.  A Campaign Concept (hit that Prospect + Key Fact) hangs together no matter how many different mediums you use.   

A friend and Atlanta CD once gave me the best explanation of a Campaign Concept I ever borrowed, here with some Doreen mixed in.  “Think of it as a coat rack,” he told me.  “The rack itself – the Campaign Concept – is a Big Idea strong enough, big enough to hang dozens of coats – conceptually related creative pieces running in various, media - off it.”

We’ve already played with Concept vs. Ad/Idea vs. Illustration (it’s worth going back and reading those posts), so you should have an idea how that works.  Use your Kamikaze Key Fact to insinuate the client/product into the Prospects’ lives.  Keep pushing.  What do you have.  Ad? Concept?  Push that Key Fact some more.

The only way to hang Ambient, e-, Outdoor and Traditional media off a single headline/Illustration or a three ad series is repetition.  If not exactly word-for-word/image-for-image, close enough to bring the original placement to mind, building that connection.  If your Campaign Concept isn’t Big Idea enough to play the same KKF off varied expressions and media, the only thing integrated is still the media buy.

Start with a strong, scalable Campaign Concept/Idea big enough to put its different  - but conceptually, stylistically, strategically related – creative expressions in conceptually related mediums.  Everything you have will fall from that single (Campaign) Idea/Concept.  Not by using the same exact headlines, not by using the same headline paraphrased and/or otherwise disguised.  With a real Concept that all the creative in the campaign harks back to, no matter what the headline. 

You’re now working a Kamikaze Integrated Campaign.  Integrating the Big Idea with conceptually related media. 

There are tricks, hedges, Integrated Campaigns where the first headline (example: Get All You Have Coming) becomes the tag line to the rest of the pieces.  That’s Integration by Tag.  On the other hand, if Get All You Have Coming is really your campaign concept risen from Prospect Definition and Key Fact, none of the pieces has to actually use that line.  They just have to share the Big Idea.  Individual headlines, body copy, direct, POS, etc. will all be different expressions of the same (people want as much as they can get).  The Idea stays constant across all supporting mediums, no matter how it’s expressed. 

Each piece will need the same conceptual tone, graphic style, language of concept, etc.  If your Campaign Concept – your coat rack - is big enough to integrate, you’ll never have to repeat a headline to make it so.

What you’re really Integrating, then, is the Idea.  No matter how many different mediums you use, the Idea (Campaign Concept) comes through to push the Prospect (and the media) to the Objective.

Integrated Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies in twenty-five words or less:  A single Campaign Concept carried across conceptually related Objective Based mediums makes an integrated Campaign.  Not product, creative repetition, media buy or Graphics.

Everything old is newer again.  What makes Integrated Campaign Strategies so today is starting with an OBKCWP and making the media part of your Creative Campaign Concept.  Not the other way around (starting with the media buy as per Mad Man Bill Small and adding creative repetition of the original print across it).

Brush Up on Kamikaze Acronyms:

IC – integrated Campaign/Creative

IKC – Integrated Kamikaze Campaign/Creative

FIC – Fully Integrated Campaign

KCWP – Kamikaze Creative Work Plan

OBKCWP – Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Work Plan

KC – Kamikaze Creative

KCC – Kamikaze Creative Campaign/Concept

IOBKCWP – Integrated Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Work Plan

KCS – Kamikaze Creative Strategy

OBKCS – Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategy

IOBKCS – Integrated Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategy

POS/POP – Point of Sale/Point of Purchase

TMBMBWTM – There May Be More But Why Torture Myself