KAMIKAZE CREATIVE BASICS: WHAT ALL KAMIKAZE COPYWRITERS, ART DIRECTORS, GDs, WDs AND PROBABLY EVERYONE ELSE IN THE AGENCY SHOULD ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Why?

The more you know about how anything works, the better you'll be able to work it.  

I know I've mentioned it before, especially in reference to how the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (KCWP) so closely parallels its basic structure.  

Most of us don't think about the process itself.  We're more concerned with the results this mystical, magical, mysterious creative act gets.  Knowing the steps, working them, gives us a structure to anchor our creative juices.  It also gives us ideas about how to deal with when it doesn't.  The dreaded Creative Blocks and dead ends we all hope never happens to us.

There are five steps to the Creative Process.  

Step 1:  Define the Problem.  

Just as Creative Directors look at Copywriters as problem solvers, the CP (Creative Process) is viewed by our brains as solving a problem.  How many solutions we come up is directly related to how we define the problem.

Specific, close-ended problems restrict the number of possible solutions.  Open-ended, more  broadly posed tasks do just the opposite.  The more general the problem, the more ways you can solve it.  Define the problem as How do I build a door? your only option is to build a door.  Glass door, screen door, storm door, wooden door, double Dutch door.  Barn door, sliding door trap door.  No matter what it's called - still a door.  One possible solution, executed a gazillion different ways.  All doors, nonetheless.  

Expanding the problem allows infinite possibilities limited only by imagination and the root problem itself. Root problem?  Isn't building a door enough?  As everything in Kamikazeland, it must be drilled down, simplified, reduced to its lowest common denominator.  Ironically, this expands creative possibilities, doesn't limit them.  OK, so you want to build a door.  But why?  To pass from outdoors, in.  From inside, out. To go from room to room.  

The bigger, simpler, drilled down problem isn't which style door to build.  The bigger problem is How do I go inside from out?  How do I pass from room to room?  All of a sudden, you've created almost infinite promise.  Which works best is, of course, the business of your KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan).  For now, we want the biggest pool of possibilities. 

Passing from one place to another may not take a door at all.  You can take down a wall, use the window.  Tunnel.  Crash through the roof.   Build a chute.  Tent flaps. Astral project.  You get the idea.  Possibilities become more creative.  The more creative they become, the more infinite the options.  

Infinite options are a large part of what Kamikaze is all about.

Step 2:  The better the Input, the better the Creative

This is the fact finding phase.  Gather all the information you can about moving from one place to another. About doors, chutes, tent flaps, out-of-body-experiences.  More information than you think you could ever need.  When you think you've enough, dig up some more.  No matter how crazy it may seem (sometimes, the crazier the better), if it relates, write it down.  

Like how you define the problem, the depth of information you dig up increases options.  Options are what we're after.

It's as important here as in how you define the problem.  Hunt your input in a broad sweep, touching upon every aspect, no matter how far fetched the information may seem.  (Great ideas hide in far fetched information - come across something juicy, if irrelevant, save it for another time, another problem.)

Step 3:  Incubation

Our brains work in many unconscious ways.  How many times have you pushed, worried, rushed your way through a problem only to find the solution getting farther and farther away?  Felt blocked stalled out of ideas?  It's because you haven't gotten far enough away from the problem to allow the brain to do its thing, play with all your great information, without conscious awareness.  

Incubation is why great ideas happen in the shower, while we're driving, in our sleep, in the middle of a great party.  You cannot create without it.  Unfortunately, ours is a deadline business.  What if you don't have time to incubate?  There are techniques you can use to compress the incubation period/process.  There is no way you can solve the problem without it. 

Mediation/self-hypnosis, taking a walk, taking a nap, playing with the dog the cat the kid.  A good movie, making a great meal, animated discussion -  anything that fully engages the senses and precludes applying direct thought to the problem.  The point is to relax.  To engage in anything BUT what you "should" be doing.  

Without Incubation there can be no Step 4, no solution.  It's a physical fact of life.  Incubation is why I've held classes in bowling alleys, pool halls, parks and at Jonathan Richmond gigs.  Get too focused, too stressed - everything takes twice the time.  If at all.  With none of the fun.  None of the brilliance in the final concept.  

One former student told me (years after she had graduated to a successful, award-winning copywriting career) how, as a student, she had originally resented my taking her class bowling instead of holding the usual class, going over the work yet another time.  I saw a class of frustrated, frayed students with heads ready to explode not with ideas, but with stress.  I'd been pushing hard.  They'd been working harder.  Yet none of them was working to their usual level.

She saw a lost opportunity to go over the same work one more time, or to get in an extra night's tips at work.  

Then, she told me, after a wild night (!) wearing someone else's shoes, the ideas started pouring out of each of them. Eureka!

One more thing about incubation.  We're all adults, we're all aware (may have even done so ourselves) drugs, alcohol, etc., are often used to juice the creative process.  I am far from judgemental on the subject, but over the years have observed this:  if you depend upon external substances, acts, people to juice the incubation/creative process, you can lose the confidence you need in your own abilities.  Personally, I don't care if you do or don't.  What I do care about is that confidence in your own abilities.  Nothing will kill the process faster than losing your belief in it.  And in yourself. 

Recreate or not, creativity comes from inside.  Externals can feed it. Kill it. Or  handicap its ability to create on your own.  

Step 4:  Illumination/The Big Idea/The Eureka! Moment

Once it starts, it's our job not to stop it.  Let it flow, get it all down.  Whatever you do, don't closely consider, reject or flesh out anything.  Don't self-edit.  Self-correct.  All those things stop the flow.  Follow each idea where it takes you, then move on to the next one.  Don't presuppose any are THE idea.  Don't play favorites.  

Generate as many concepts as possible.  Drill down every one of them, following each as far as it leads you.  Follow each new idea - and each variation on existing ideas - without judgement, reservation or worry.  This is the fun part - the part that gets those endorphins pumping out more ideas.

An important part of this is understanding the power of the word "No!"  I worked with a GD once who was so focused on budget, instead of considering the idea, then how it could be produced, one of her favorite remarks was "we can't afford to do that."  Drove me crazy.  There is no "No!" in the Creative Process.  It's not just an idea killer, it's a team killer.  

Worry about what things cost, how it can be executed, whether or not it's exactly on strategy during Step 5.  Never in Step 4.

Step 5:  Verification

This is where the KCWP saves your kiester.  Time to go through all those ideas, comparing the best - the most original, unexpected, Kamikaze - against  your Creative Strategy.  Starting with your Prospect and working your way through it, you'll know right away which will - and won't - work.  Which can be tweaked to work.  What to save for another day.  Which offer hope of brilliance.  

It's also another way to verify the strategy itself.  Many people - especially clients - don't understand a strategy - creative, advertising, marketing, whatever - until they've seen work against it.  This is another of those big reasons great ideas get killed.  Not your fault, but the Advertising/Marketing Strategy you're writing your KCWP to help fulfill may be flawed.  This is your chance to make sure it isn't.  

I can't tell you how many times verifying concepts against the KCWP has sent the entire team - client, AE, creatives, media included - back to Square One because for the first time, everyone can see exactly what it is they've agreed to.  I've seen it even with experienced, trained and highly conceptual clients, AEs and fellow creatives.  Everyone agreed before you started.  Problem is, no one agreed to the same thing. 

Even statements of hard fact - dates, names, key ingredients - can be interpreted dozens of different ways by dozens of different people.  I hate to say it, clients hate to pay for it, but sometimes you're the guy building his house upon the sand.  No one notices until something happens to bring it tumbling down.  

That "something" is Verification - the final step of your creative process.  What the entire creative process stands on.  It not only validates what you've done, it's your best friend at Presentation time.  If your creative strategy is right, the solution will be.  Follow the process, you'll have an easier - and more fun - time working it.

CALLING ALL KAMIKAZE CREATIVES - COPYWRITERS, ADS, WDS, CDS, SOMETHING NEW TO TRY: ADVERTISING POETRY: The Last of Doreen’s 1stQ 2013 Style Assignments

Where has Advertising Haiku taken us?

The point of advertising Haiku is to force you into writing short/grokking every single word, every single syllable, to use a twist to prepare the reveal, then a takeaway strategically important to the carefully chosen prospect/customer.  Haiku force you to develop the twist, bringing the product home in most unexpected ways.

 

The point of advertising Poetry is to use copy/content in unexpected ways, unexpected words, unexpected structure and – if you do it right – to unexpected results. All within a highly calculated emotional/non-emotional structure carrying your message to the heart of the Prospect, not just the head.   I’m not talking about quoting Cummings, Blake or Emerson in an ad.  I’m talking about writing ad copy in the Style of Poetry.  Original Poetry¸ written just for advertising.

Real Poetry takes pride its consumption and acclaim is limited to a few journals, minor publishers and prizes.  In truth, even Dad’s old Vietnam/WWII Mom Sonnets and the tortured diaries of teenage girls have much larger markets.

One of the most important things to remember when discussing Ad Poetry vs. Pure Poetry: Ad Poetry does not spring from the heart.  It has no freedom of word, format, application.  Ad Poetry may seem like a tough one.  In truth, it's many, many times easier to write than Real Poetry.  You still have to write it, but your KCWP gives you all you need.  No deep, personal retrospection or Loved One required.

Like every other writing style, there are hundreds of different approaches you can take to writing Ad Poetry.  You can do fun, limericky sassy stuff so catchy, people repeat it to each other, giving it bigger, more sociological import.  Kinda like jingles, Got Milk?, Where’s the Beef?, Taste the Rainbow and other iconic ad lines used to. 

You can use free-form ad poetry to express a Prospect point of view and avoid punctuation/paragraphing.  Break your lines so the reader is pushed to the next one visually as well as verbally.  Make short copy look longer, longer copy, shorter.

Ad poetry can create an image, a feeling, a perception regular ad copy can’t.  It can set aside lines to remember.  A good enough rhyme + snappy message can keep ad copy playing in the Prospect’s head for weeks – even years (I still hear jingles and ad lines from childhood, don’t you?  They’re GRRREAT!)

You can do couplets, sonnets, lines that rhyme, structure that flows.  Make it too pretty, too pastoral, too girlie – the entire piece may fail.  While men respond well to ad poetry, waxing too poetic over sausage or deodorant will get it ignored.  Make it fun, funny, clever, unable to ignore, you’ve got “I need Calais before I see Alice.”

When do you use ad poetry?  Like everything else we do, that’s up to the Prospect and how you want him/her to respond.   What products will carry it?  Done right, for the right prospect, just about anything.  The trick is to match the level of poetic sophistication to Prospect, Objective, Product, Promise.

 

Ad Poetry isn’t for every writer any more than it’s for every prospect.  In all my years writing ad copy, I’ve used it exactly once (if you don’t count the rhymes I used to help Exxon mechanics and Arby’s kitchen workers remember their Safety Rules).  My CW friend who won The Nation’s poetry prize never used it in copy at all.  Use it or not, it’s all about how you solve the problem.

Strangely, this is a great era for Ad Poetry.  Poetry Slam is almost a national sport – or at least a large minority pastime.  The US Poet Laureate reads at all the Presidential (and many state) Inaugurations.  The brevity of web, e-communications and availability of guerrilla/ambient media in unprecedented amounts and ways leads right up to Ad Poetry’s economy of words.  One of the most popular unsolicited magazine submissions, The New Yorker to Reader’s Digest, is poetry.  So why don’t we see more of it in advertising?

Simply put, ad creatives aren’t thinking of it.  It’s another way you can use Style – the kind of ad styles we’ve been exploring – over formula to break through the clutter.  Still, too many creatives stick to the tried, true and SEO-mongered.

 

Here it is, end of the term – and here’s Doreen, asking you to take your biggest creative risk thus far.   If Ad Poetry is so great, what’s the catch?  If an ad poem of any kind is only 95% on, the entire piece fails.  Why?

People expect more from poetry than text.

When you take a creative risk (and a risk is merely doing something you haven’t done before), they’ll find any excuse, any little thing to kill it.  Absent advertising strategy, Ad Poetry turns into Bad Poetry.  Who needs – or wants - to wade through that?  Too long, too emotional, too silly, it won’t be read.  Too sophisticated, too complex, too intellectual, the same thing happens.

It’s Advertising – not Real Poetry. There’s less tolerance for length, flowery language, love hearts flowers.  Like Real Poetry, Ad Poetry is visual, thrifty and can say things in ways you’d never get away with using another style.  You can get deeper, more personal using Ad Poetry.  More reflective.

You can also be bawdy, mystical, over-intellectual (as long as the Prospect’s right for it), less formulaic.

 

Can you tell it’s something I wish more of us would try – and make work?

Here are examples from poet/consumer advertising advocate Ilya Vedrashko, whose blog, "MIT Advertising Lab," was named "Best Blog of the Year" by Fast Company magazine in 2005:

http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_21_media_examples.html

This one’s a Brit site, but good stuff.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2009/dec/02/rise-poetry-in-advertising

"Two prominent adverts, both of which lean heavily on the emotional appeal of poetry, are currently airing on our {Brit} screens – a David Morrissey-narrated ad for McDonald's ("the Gothy types and scoffy types and like-their-coffee-frothy types were just passing by"), and a Pete Postlethwaite-narrated ad for Cathedral City cheddar cheese ("On the A47 it's cheese with cucumber / It's lunchtime for her as the rest of us slumber"). In recent years we've also seen poems used to advertise the AA, Waitrose, Center Parcs and the Prudential. But what do poets feel about this unsteady dance with commercialism?

"Nick Toczek has also written a poem for an advert (the Prudential again: Our kids, who've grown and flown the nest, / Now only phone us to request / More cash on loan, their tone depressed"). He welcomes the exposure that advertising offers poetry.

“My Prudential poem is still the most recognised of all my poems. It took me 20 minutes to write, was broadcast 5,000 times and earned me £5,500."

"Jim Bolton, the creative director at Leo Burnett, the ad agency that produced the McDonald's advert, says that many viewers probably don't even think they're hearing poetry. "The McDonald's Favourite ad is not a tricky poem. But there is a certain cheekiness of McDonald's using poetry. It is not something people might expect."

This is W&K Levis TV, with a poem VO and a response:

http://adland.tv/commercials/levis-go-forth-pretentious-poetry-capital-p

Read more at http://adland.tv/commercials/levis-go-forth-pretentious-poetry-capital-p#T8Q7dc4WXOijjGkt.99 

The current Bulmer's Cider ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7fKmx0Fhfk

http://www.readthismagazine.co.uk/onenightstanzas/?tag=poetry-in-advertising

There are broadcast pieces above, but you can also think print, web, radio, direct, promotions wherever you can write copy, you can write Ad Poetry – as long as it works for your Prospect with your KCWP.