Monday, July 30, 2012

TALKING HEADS & CREATIVE STRATEGY: What every Kamikaze Copywriter, Art Director, Designer and Account Person needs to Think, Check, Rethink, Recheck. Then Think/Check again.


OK, so it’s only been my third week back teaching at The Creative Circus.  Yeah, I’m supposed to be focused on Copywriting.  Acknowledged, student work is student work and if it’s a good idea, but off strategy, it’s perfectly acceptable to change the strategy to fit the work (as long as you never admit it to any CD reviewing your book/never do it in the real world). 

What’s the big deal?  Why did my drive home mind music ignore a mix that included Los Lonely Boys, Jonathan (Nobody called Picasso Asshole) Richman, Dropkick Murphys and George (He Stopped Loving Her Today) Jones to keep repeating The Talking Heads’ Puzzling Evidence?

Granted, my classes are mostly lower Qs (2-4 + smattering of 8 polishing final book pieces), but here I am – teaching in one of the best portfolio schools (or any kind of ad creative program) in the US – and every piece of copy I get is written for the same Prospect.  Themselves.

True, too many big, if-I-could-work-there-I’d-die-happy shops and their clients still buy into old school “get ‘em when they’re young/they’re yours for life” marketing.  True again, CDs look more for ideas than details in student books.  But once you get there, not only are you expected to know what we do well enough to nail 80% of your assignments – you’re also not likely to replace seasoned Gold Pencil writers on accounts geared strictly to people like you.

Like it or not, the fastest growing market segment in the US is what we used to call Seniors (aka, Baby Boomers).  More women your age than you’d expect opt to be Stay at Home Moms.  B2B (Business to Business) is huge.  The Town & Country folks are spending more money than all the other markets combined. 

I could go on and on, but here’s my point.  Go back to my September, 2010 Love Poem entry.  Read it three times, at least.  You want to be a Kamikaze Copywriter?  You want to innovate, push beyond the expected, go where no creative team has ever gone before?  I’m all for that!  But first, you absolutely must get your head out of your own _____, acknowledge, get to know (inside and out) those other markets so when you sell Depends or $2000 bottles of wine, your creative is taken to heart by the people who actually buy them. 

To help, I’m going to give you the same assignment my classes will be getting this week.  One that works so well, a brilliant NYC CD (and former Portfolio Center Kamikaze AD) who teaches at Parsons gives it out to his students, too.
Go somewhere you would never, ever, in your right – or wrong - mind go.  Where people you would never meet – maybe never want to meet – hang out.*  While you’re there, don’t just grab a corner or barstool and watch.  Interact.  Talk.  Get to know them as people.  Not just what they wear what they drink how they dance.  Who are they inside?  What’s important to them?  What are their political leanings (don’t argue – listen).  What kind of food do they crave?  What kind of art do they like – or do they even like art.  If they do, do they define it the same way you do?
Whatever you do, do not tell them you’re an ad student/aspiring copywriter/art director on a homework assignment.  Go as one of them, even if uninitiated.  Find something you actually like about these people (it may be easier than you think).  Something you have (or almost have) in common.
When you’re done, go home and figure out what kind of a product they’d love, but don't currently use.  Write a Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (Objective Based or Regular) for it and then do creative against it.  Every time you think you have the concept, go back and make sure it’s right for them.  Not you.  Not your parents.  Not some parody of them you saw in a Brad Pitt/Julia Lewis movie once.
Keep in mind those Will Farrell spots for Old Milwaukee Beer.  You’ve probably seen them on YouTube.  In one, he makes fun of all the rush hour traffic that isn’t.  In another, he talks about the views of rusted trampolines from the railroad tracks.  In all, it’s clear he knows the people enough to make fun of them.  Never once does he create as one with them, with affection and respect.
Guess what.  They didn’t sell zip Old Milwaukee Beer.
Not to beat you over the head with it, but here it comes again.  Everything – and I mean absolutely everything – we do is for the Prospect.  Treat them with respect.  Treat them with affection.  Sell tons of beer.
One of my favorite TV campaigns is for Apple Auto Sales, a Tote-the-Note** used car lot in Charlotte, NC.  They cost under $500 to create, most of that in a wig and a suit.  Shot by the local UHF station, the production values are well – let’s just say they’re produced.  All the “actors” work at Apple.  The guy who owns the place wrote and concepted them.  Look them up on YouTube – Reverend Rob/Apple Auto Sales. 
They’re funny.  They’re informative.  They sell the heck out of Apple’s inventory whenever they run (usually tax return time).  The point is, the campaign works because Apple absolutely groks their market.  Unlike Will Farrell, they’re laughing with their prospect.  Never at him.  They’ve been running since the 1980s, when all three networks in Bible Belt Buckle Charlotte pulled them their first week due to complaints.  Since they got over that, everyone in the area’s seen them about a gazillion times.  Everyone loves them.  They still sell out Apple’s lot.
The guy who wrote them – Reverend Rob himself – is far from his prospect.  He’s college educated, owns his land, his building, his inventory and most likely, a nice big house on the lake.  He didn’t write those spots for himself.  Neither did he do them to denigrate his customer base in any way.  He knows his prospect.  He likes his prospect.  He steps outside of his world into theirs every time they run.
That’s what Kamikaze Creatives do for a living.  Get off your duff.  Let go of your comfort zone.  Get out there into the real world.  Get to know – really know – people you don’t hang with.  Maybe next assignment, you won’t still be talking to yourself.

*True examples from previous students:  AntiGun activists who hung out and took lessons at a shooting range.  GQ worshipers at the local Saturday night dirt demolition track.  Manly men getting Korean Nail joint pedicures.  Intellectual white chicks hanging in Afro-American biker bars.  Atheists at tent Revivals.

**Tote-the-Note Lot:  No banks no loan companies.  We finance you ourselves.  Just don’t forget to bring in your payment every payday.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

ON INNOVATION, BREAKING RULES AND PUSHING UNTIL IT'S KAMIKAZE: How Copywriters, Art Directors, Account Folks and even non-Adlanders can Think Different (in homage to you know who - you don't? Look it up and learn even more!)

I'm starting a class in Copywriting at the Creative Circus next week and have been concepting where to start.  I've not worked with these students before.  I know they've taken courses in writing, web writing, a few others and have been taking teams concept courses, but the spread of the students' school terms and lack of personal knowledge had me flummoxed.  I remembered my promise to talk here about Innovation and - unless I need to spend all the time on things more basic, I hope I've also found my core subject for the term.  


By now, you've all read, contemplated, practiced working with both the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan and the Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, right? You've spent time with the Key Fact discussions and how to manipulate various KCWP sections to change your ways of thinking (if not, go back and do it now - this post might not make sense if you haven't).  That puts us here, with the assumption you have a project - advertising copy, art direction, personal, marketing, product development or whatever - you want more innovative.   While this will be dealing more specifically with Copy, you can apply and manipulate the KCWP principles to just about anything.  


First, let me dispel some myths about Prospects and Copy. The Prospect rules all creative endeavors. Innovation - no matter how far out you go and the farther out, the more true - lives in Prospectland, too.  Professional Creatives - whether they're ad creatives, engineering creatives, product development creatives, whatever - innovate for our Prospect, not for ourselves, our books, bosses, yadda yadda.  This puts a slightly different twist on things, shifts the paradigm from the creator/innovator to their Objective: creating the desired response in the Prospect. The kind of Innovation we do isn't creative for creative's sake.  If you can't get your head around that, lots of Fine Art schools will show you how to follow your personal muse.  Forget about Advertising.


There's another truth about Innovation you must consider: Innovation means different things to different people. Something may be old hat to you - but your grandparents may find it revolutionary.  If your grandparents are your Prospect, it is - to them.  If you're your Prospect, you're going to have to dig deeper.  One exception I'd like you to consider:  if you preface anything you present to your CD or in a portfolio show with "This was considered pretty radical for insert your category/market/the times here," it's nothing you want to show if you're going for innovative.  Instead of being a smart thinker, you'll come across as unoriginal or old.  


Knowing this, how do we innovate with Copy?  Assuming you have a fresh, unexpected Concept, we have to look at that Concept through the Prospect Mind.  Figure out how they take in the information/motivation, what's important to them and their process, how it relates to your job at hand.


So what makes Copy Innovating? Style?  Content? Vocabulary?  The lack of?  Think back to the entry on What it takes.  That thing about Problem Solving?  That's where copy innovation starts.  How will you solve the problem?  What approach will you take?  Find an innovative approach to solving the overall problem.  You've taken the first step toward innovative Copy.  It's the verbal or nonverbal but still communicative/informational expression of that solution.  


Which brings us to another truth about Innovation.  It breaks rules.  Turns things upside down even in ways the Prospect may not notice, but will still make them engage/think. Regardless what it is. 


Problem is, almost everything you can think of has been tried. Comic books, stories, sign.  Poetry, true confessions, no copy at all.  Go back to the way you solve the problem. Work from there.  Follow where it takes you.  Sometimes what makes copy innovative is the way the problem is solved; how it's presented.  The juxtaposition of the information/solution can lead to expression in ways you'd never expect.  


Make the copy not just an extension/explanation of your innovative solution.  Make it part of - and therefore inseparable from - the solution.  That's where you'll find the thread where innovative copy starts.


The thing is to implant your copy into your solution.  Let the unexpected give birth to compatible, extended unexpected, rather than try to explain.  This is a bit easier in Objective Based projects, as you get to determine - even invent - the medium as well as the concept.  In the more traditional advertising mediums (and I consider much of web work part of traditional ad mediums - WTH, it's been twenty+ years!), where Copy is usually Copy. Concept Innovation needs to be extended to whatever it is you need to say.  


You can do this stylistically, in the way you frame the solution of the Prospect Problem you're solving, with the way the Copy is fed to the Prospect, with no Copy at all - just about anything you can come up with.  The key is to take the risks, grow your Copy as the Innovative Language of Innovative Concept.  Whatever language that may be, however that Language can be delivered/received.


Take a look around.  If you can, find something you consider Innovative.  Then do a kind of Reverse Engineering, to figure out why it's Innovative, how it's Innovative and ultimately - if it's Innovative.  Figure out who/what it's Innovative for.  You don't want what you do to mirror what's already done - you just want to learn to intuit the process.  Most importantly, how the process differs from the way Copy is usually done.  When you realize that difference, it may be a clue to creating Innovative yourself.  


(If several paragraphs post strangely, I don't know why.  Mercury is heading Retrograde, however (7/14-8/8), so it's beyond my control.  Don't you love it!  It's not my fault - Mercury's Retrograde!)