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
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