Kamikaze Creative Strategy: Tips to help Copywriters, Art Directors and other ad folk hit “The Big Idea” every time.

Kamikaze Key Fact or Client Fact?  Welcome to the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, where Advertising Strategy is NOT Creative Strategy, where art direction and copywriting prowess alone can’t make work smart and what’s going on in an Advertising Prospect’s World is more important than what’s going on in the Client’s.  Today’s Kamikaze Copywriting Tips apply to everyone – Advertising Copywriters, Art Directors, Account Types, etc. and are the basis of great work by client- and advertising award-winning Kamikaze Copywriters.

There are probably as many different “Creative Briefs” “Strategy Documents” “Creative Work Plans” and “Creative Briefs masquerading as Creative Strategy as there are ad agencies.  They seem to start this way:

·        Creative Person X works for Advertising Agency Y where they use Advertising “Strategy” Document Z

·        X leaves Y to start his own shop, which he names Q, and takes a drawer full of old Zs with him

·        Without giving it too much thought, agency Q adopts Z – it’s what X knows and seemed to work at Y

·        Account Person W goes to work for Q.  He/she gets a .pdf of Advertising Strategy Doc Z and is told to fill it out for every creative assignment

·        Strategy Doc Z is now a five-page monster written by an AE who, never having been a creative, has no idea what we need to concept from.  It reads like a client White Paper 

·        The Q Creative Team gets through the first two pages of W’s Z.  It informs copywriters, art directors and other advertising creatives what the client wants said.  It doesn’t help conceptually with how we say it.  It has no resemblance to a Kamikaze Creative Strategy, a customized plan that can actually lead and inspire fabulous (and fabulously effective) advertising concepts

Oversimplified/over-cynical, most of the time that’s how it goes.  Someone who doesn’t understand what Ad Creatives need keeps doing what’s always been done.  For the most part, this means a Creative Brief gets approved as a Creative Strategy.  Creative Briefs are supposed to well, brief us on the details/particulars of an account, its products, etc.  Creative Strategies are actual plans (as in Kamikaze Creative Work Plan).

Creative Briefs may include an Objective, some sort of Promise, a Prospect Definition/Target Market, often a client-centered Advertising Problem to Solve* and usually, a client centric Key Fact.  Creative Copywriters and Art Directors don't write them. 

The resulting document is “what I want you to say.”  There’s very little planning involved, rarely any creative strategic thought –just an Objective, maybe a meaningful (Prospect focused) Promise.  If there’s a Problem, it’s usually the Client’s.*  Its usual “most important thing to say about the client/product/service” Key Fact can’t help but be redundant to the Promise.

This kind of Strategy Document gives Creatives nothing more than a laundry list of Client driven information, the agency’s media plan and/or production notes.  When it comes to concept, we’re on our own.

There are many differences between a Kamikaze Creative Strategy and all the rest.  The biggest: Creatives who do the work write the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (KCWP).  Conceived and written by Advertising Creatives for Advertising Creatives, the KCWP contains everything we need to Concept a great solution, arranged in the order professional Creatives need to work our process. 

One of the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan’s most important components is the Kamikaze Key Fact (KKF).  What makes a Key Fact Kamikaze?  Kamikaze Key Facts insinuate the product/service into the context of The Prospect’s life.  To do that, they can’t be about the Product or Client.

To keep Kamikaze Strategies Prospect-Centric instead of Circular (everything loops back to client/product), KKFs are never about the Client or Client’s product.  A Kamikaze Key Fact is always about what’s going on in the Prospect’s world.

It gives you the context/concept in which the product – and your campaign - can soar.  Puts the Client/product in the context of The Prospect’s life. Makes them relative to Prospect experiences needs wants fears dreams.

I define the Kamikaze Key Fact as something out there in the marketplace – some truth about the Prospect’s world life experience heart soul whatever - which can become the driving force behind your concept.

Because a KKF is not about the Product, Client, a feature/benefit, positioning, market share, etc., there isn’t just ONE Kamikaze Key Fact – there can be dozens.  Just never more than one at a time. Most fun, you get to choose.  The key is that they (a) relate to the Prospect’s Life/World and (b) serve as a springboard for concepts that can carry the rest of the KCWP’s strategy in more conceptual – and more targeted – advertising.

The Snickers’ “Diva” campaign?  Their KKF was probably something like “People aren’t themselves when they’re hungry” or "Everyone needs a mid-afternoon pick-me-up."   No client or product involved.  Just a truth about the Prospect. Wonderfully translated to make the Client’s Product our hero.

Here are some I’ve used: It’s an election year.  The polar ice cap is melting.  Those damn Yankees won again.  President Clinton did a lot for cigar makers.  There are more shades of gray than of black and white.  Not a client or product in there, yet all inspired concepts their Prospect responded to.  Why?  Because they’re things the Prospect cares about.  They carry Clients’ message/ products/services to the Prospect within.

A Key Fact about the Client, Product or Service can’t do that.  Why?  Because it’s No. 1 on the Client's list, not the Prospect's.  (You may get a killer, benefit-driven headline/visual, but you won’t get Conceptual Advertising.)  Even if it’s a product feature/benefit important to the Prospect, it won’t connect you to them conceptually.

Does this mean the KKF must scream from the headline, concept, visual, etc.?  Not necessarily. But it must be reflected as an element that makes the Concept (and therefore, the headline, visual, product, etc.) relevant to the Prospect.  Think of it as Conceptual Context.  Think Aretha, Liza and Betty White.

The more you play with it the easier it gets.  Pick an assignment, put client concerns in your input folder and focus on the Prospect.  Pick a KKF that’s important to them.  Play with it a while, see what ideas you come up with, how you can use it to meet objectives and keep pushing til the well runs dry.

Then try another KKF. There’s no right or wrong – just better, better and best.  If you start with the obvious, never end there.

Switching in and out of various KKFs supercharges my conceptual progress.  Going from KKF to KKF, I stretch, forcing myself to think conceptually in many different ways/contexts, many different directions.  I can try on lots of ideas, approaches, directions, etc., before I decide what best speaks to my Prospect and fulfills the entire KCWP.

Where do I get my Kamikaze Key Facts?  From The Prospect’s life. (Think Clinton’s cigar, melting ice caps, etc.)  I read magazines The Prospect reads – which I may not.  I immerse myself in Prospect culture.  Historical coincidences can make cool Key Facts.  So can general truths about Prospects’ lives (the Diva’s hunger meltdown).

Always remember – it’s not your life experiences any more than it’s Client concerns.  It’s about the Prospect.  85% of the time, that won’t be you.

Be careful.  The KKF you chose must link to market/consumer forces at work.  An unexpected Kamikaze Key Fact will make your concepts what you want – fresh never been done unexpected hard-hitting effective smart.

Say you’re doing a campaign for Ostrich meat.  Think how much fun – how effective and conceptually liberating – “The FDA doesn’t see every Mad Cow” could be.  Imagine how limiting – how circular “Ostrich is a delicious red meat with less than half the fat of beef.”  Which leads the Prospect to the Product and which starts with the Product and assumes the Prospect cares?  (In Kamikaze Creative Land, that Ostrich fact is support for the Promise, a “Reason Why”.*  As a Key Fact, it dooms your creative to circling  back to client/product concerns, leaving the Prospect out of the conceptual loop.)

An expected/safe and/or Circular Key Fact makes for expected/safe and/or circular creative.  The best you can do is been there/done that disguised by clever lines/clever visuals or an expected product message carried by Style.**

A Kamikaze Key Fact does just the opposite.  Grounds your work in the Prospect’s world so your ideas – as far out as they may be – will always speak to the Prospect. 

Isn’t that what you want to get paid to do?

For your very own copy of the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, email me at kamikazecreative@gmail.com.  I’ll send you the form and Cliff’s Notes explanation.  If you want the entire 20+ page handout (with award-winning examples, long form discussions and chock full of Kamikaze Unorthodoxy) have one of your instructors get in touch.  If you don’t have an instructor (as in, I’m not in ad school), email yourself and let me know your status.  No matter what medium you’re using – new, old, in-between, the KCWP will make your work better, smarter, more successful.   

*Ah, yes.  The elusive “Problem the Advertising Must Solve.”  This should be the Prospect’s problem, not the Client’s.  Solve the Prospect’s problem, you’ll solve the Client’s.  You can’t solve a Client’s problem by using it somewhere somehow in the work.  All you do is remind the Prospect the Client has a problem.

**Not sure about Style?  Go back a few blog posts – it’s touched upon in Concept vs. Illustration, but it's not the entire schtick.  If you want more on that, Ask.