More Promises Kept: Reflections on Kamikaze Objective Based Creative Strategies Post I: Clarifications, apologies, further enlightenment for Kamikaze Creative Copywriters, Art Directors, AEs, CDs, Students, Clients, Relatives and Friends.

I’ve been thinking about my last post.  Objective Based Creative Strategies – huge.  One post can’t do it well, or even adequately.  To help any confusion I created, with apologies to the CD expecting Kamikaze Creative Design Strategy (check back next week – it’s almost done), before and after rereading it, I had these thoughts on KOBCS (and the post itself).

If anyone missed it, the example I gave was way too easy.  It’s the kind of idea that gets presented a lot because too many creatives, AEs and clients stop there.  Exactly why you shouldn’t. It’s a first idea, not a great one.  Way too obvious – keep pushing.  It may get attention, but is so predictable, it’ll sell category, at best.  It’ll never imprint the brand.

How do you push it?  Like you push any Kamikaze Creative Strategy:  Push the Prospect.  What have you overlooked?  Push the Promise –  does it really matter to the Prospect; is it truly something no one else can say?  Push the Reasons Why – don’t overlook Perceived Benefits.  Push the Competition – what’d you miss and how does that relate to your Prospect?  Always, always - Push the Key Fact.  Especially the Key Fact. 

Here’s a real life crazy example I got from a friend who works high up on a lot of fast food, consumer packaged goods, etc.  Big budget accounts.  Huge.  Not sure how it came up – possibly in a discussion on the ways agencies approach e-media.  A few jobs back, his agency was presenting phone apps.  Not because anyone truly understood them, why they're needed at that particular time or had even a rudimentary knowledge of how to qualify their creation/design/ programming.  Worse, they had no idea what – if any – real, measurable benefit the client would reap.  Let alone if the benefit was worth the cost.

No, he admitted with candor, they were pushing apps because everyone else was doing them.  If competing client corporations and their agencies were doing apps, his agency and client had to be doing them, too.  Can’t be left behind – even if we’re blowing smoke.

This isn’t an example of Kamikaze Objective Based Creative Strategy.  If anything, it’s a media based strategy.  I hesitate to call it that, as no media planner/buyer I know would propose any medium if they didn’t have stats to back it up.  Especially as a good deal of client faith in e-media has to do with click-through and quantifiable ROI.  

If you don’t do apps because everyone else is, how do you get there?  Once there, how do you know if your app (or whatever the vehicle to the Objective is) will at least meet – if not exceed – it’s Objective?  You know this one.  You go back to your Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (Objective Based or not).

Always to the Prospect First.  What’s going on in their world(s)?  How can you make your client integral to something you know the Prospect cares about?  It’ll be right there in your Kamikaze Key Fact. 

Find and play with your Key Fact just as you do in a traditional Kamikaze Creative Work Plan.  You just choose/interpret your Objective Based Kamikaze Key Fact so it leads to an actionable way to deliver the conceptual message to your Prospect. 

Don’t stop at the Concept itself and apply the concept to the medium.  In Kamikaze Objective Based Creative Strategies, your concept is part of the medium.

Back to my friend’s story, what apps do you have that you actually use?  Not which apps did you find amusing enough to play with for bit then forget.  Which do you actually use?

Why?  They relate to your life in a way that is somehow beneficial.  They deliver on their Promise.  You gave them a try because not only are they integral to who you are (Prospect knowledge); they grabbed your attention and imagination for what they are – and for how you learned about them.  

Sounds like a wrap to me.  I hope this helps.  If you have other questions, you know how to find me.  If I awake in the middle of the night with a big OH NO HOW DID I FORGET THAT?  I’ll find you.

Thoughts about the last post itself:  Mea culpa.  Should have given it one more edit (at least). 

Since this is a learning experience:  after a week away from it, I saw another 15-20% I might have been able to cut from the word count without hurting message or style.  I found at least one word that made me cringe (“exploit” – never admit that about the biz unless you’re 100% sure who’s reading).  I also found a few (very few, but there) Copy Sins.  All laugh derisively. 

Something fun to consider:  A former, very smart and talented Circus student of mine asked me about a piece of music I once played in class.  Although I answered her directly, I want to share it with you. 

Ima Sumac.  Selection I played from was on Mambo!  CD, which I highly recommend.  Most of her others can be an acquired taste.  I also played from Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man, Herbie Mann’s Push, Push, don’t remember what else.  If I didn’t include Caesar Evore, Charles Aznavour, Desi Arnaz, Edith Piaf and The Red Elvises, I should have.  I believe the discussion was Music as Branding/Concept.  Think great spot brands Infiniti Cool as Dave Brubreck. 

Looking Ahead/More Promises Kept: By request, my next post will be Kamikaze Design Strategy.  

As with all Kamikaze Creative Strategy, strategic design starts with the basic Kamikaze Creative Work Plan.  Kamikaze Design Strategy speaks to the way both strategic and production qualities affect graphic and conceptual excellence.  Tell all your AD, GD, WD (web design) friends if they don’t read this blog already.  And don’t skip it yourself (if you’re a CW, AE, yadda yadda).  Knowing it will make your work better by making it more conceptual/integral to the graphics.

Keeping Promises: What’s the object of Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies? How are they different from the Kamikaze Creative Strategies Advertising and Marketing Copywriters, Art Directors, Graphic Designers, etc. usually work from?

There’s this beautiful scene in the old movie Marty* where Marty and his best friend, Augie, are sitting in a diner.

“What do you want to do tonight, Augie?”  Marty asks.

“I dunno, Marty, what do you want to do?”  Augie replies.

“I dunno, Augie, what do you want to do?”  Marty asks.

“I dunno, Marty, what do you want to do?”  Augie replies.

It’s a scene so real to the minutiae of everyday life, it’d be boring if it weren’t so brilliant.  It also captures Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategy in that proverbial, cliched nutshell:  What do you want to do, Advertising Creative?

Kamikaze Creative Strategy’s job is to give you what you need to fashion a message and come up with the Big Idea (concept) for communicating that message.

Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies deal more with how that message is delivered. 

In Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies, the task is devising new, creative and unexpected ways of reaching your Prospect (provided you’re lucky enough to sell what you’re good enough to think).  Because the message itself must help drive your solution to your Prospect, you use all the components of the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan.  But because you job is also to first concept how that message will get to your prospect, you must change the emphasis/order of importance.  (See end of post.)

The Objective Based CS (Creative Strategy) puts the Objective right up front, as the most important part of the strategy.  How are we going to do what we’re  trying to do? 

I know, I know, we want to Create Awareness, Educate, Create Interest, Introduce, Position yadda yadda yadda.  How, exactly, will we do that?  I’m not talking mere media (apologies to all my very important, very smart Media Buying and Selling friends).  Although media selection is part of it, it’s more like Media Invention and Integration as they reflect The Prospect Definition and Promise/Benefit.

In other words, you look at the Objective (introduce, for example) through the lens of the Prospect Definition.  Say you want to Introduce a new product to the Young Urban Working Professional market. 

To fulfill an Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategy, you must first come up with a new, creative way to reach those Young Urban Working Professionals.

In a KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan), where the Prospect outranks the Objective, it’s all about what you communicate, how.  In the usual KCWP, the how is about message concept, not the vehicle it arrives in.  Ditto the Key Fact.

In an OBKCWP (Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Work Plan), Prospect Definition follows the Objective.  The problem is first, what am I going to do, for whom?  How do I reach into the Prospect’s life to find a way to introduce the product they can’t ignore?  Second, how do I exploit what I know about the Prospect’s life and the Client’s Objective to actually make the media/vehicle part of the message-carrying Creative Concept?  This takes the Objective, Prospect, Problem and Key Fact.

Let’s see if an example will confuse you more.  Say you’re introducing a new product that gets “pet” stains out of anything.  Your prospect is young urban professionals.  Your benefit?  The stuff works.  Really.

How are you going to introduce the new cleaner to young urban professionals?  To keep it simple, I’ll go with the obvious.  Young professionals take commuter transportation to work.  So maybe you meet the objective by putting branded fake vomit with copy underneath it on commuter bus stop seats and sidewalks.  What you have is a bus stop campaign where commuters first think someone got sick on the bench/ground.  When they get closer – surprise!  – short, zingy and hopefully memorable copy explains to clean it up. 

You’ve put your product where your prospect is and inspired prospect involvement.  You’re introducing the new product in a very fun, hard to ignore  product demonstration.  You’ve solved the Objective problem.  Now all that’s left is fleshing out the creative. 

Got it? 

I know this is over-simplification.  All you’re trying to do is meet The Objective for The Prospect.  If Augie and Marty had known what they were trying to do – alleviate boredom, find excitement, get out of the diner, yadda yadda, then looked at themselves – and their lives – they could have spent a lot less time asking each other what they wanted to do and could have actually done something. 

In our world, it’s more about finding unexpected ways, places, vehicles to meet the Objective.  I got into it years ago from my early training in integrated campaigns.  I worked for one of Boston’s original Mad Men, a man named Bill Small.  Bill had had one of the biggest shops in Boston.  At the time, health issues and changing ad fashion were taking a big toll on his business.  Bill never learned to change – he drilled Objective Based (Integrated) Thinking into my head with every assignment.  He didn’t call it that, of course.  To Bill, it was just adding “Where/How” to the Creative Process of “What/How” and using it to build a traditionally  integrated campaign.

There was no media innovation/invention, just the basic tenants of an “Old Fashioned” Integrated Campaign.  It took the Internet and the advent of all the web’s peripheral possibilities – the freedom it gave to re-invent the tenants of Integrated Campaigns.  In Bill Small’s day it was PR, media advertising (traditional print/broadcast), maybe some Direct Mail with/without a Promotion thrown in.  Today, it’s Traditional Media Advertising doesn’t stand alone.  Direct Mail/Promotions now contain - if they don't lead with - Web Campaigns/Promotions, Ambient, etc. 

As the definition of Integration changes, Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies become more important.  Not because the Objective is more important than the Prospect, but because the Objective has so many possibilities for fulfillment.  Invent a new way to reach the Prospect by considering what it is you have to say using the rest of the KCWP just as you’ve always done (you do write one for every assignment, right?). 

How big is Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategy?  The last (or next-to-last) term I taught it at the Creative Circus, at least 5-6 years ago, a line-up of nationally and internationally recognized Creative Directors came to Atlanta at their own expense to give assignments and critique my students’ resulting creative.  These guys were on the cutting edge of the Advertising/Web Divide – still are.  They – and now, everyone else - all want creatives who don't just understand the goals of Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies.  They want people who drop dead know it. 

As far as I know, the course hasn’t been taught since.  So while this entry may be a fairly basic intro to Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies, it may also be one of the few places you’ll find information on the How/What of it.  

Want to learn more?  If you’re in school, ask the head of your department – print this out and take it with you if you want.  If you’re working and think you haven’t tried it, think again.  If you’ve ever suggested putting stickers above urinals or painting copy on sidewalks, you’ve thought about it.  Now practice it.  On every assignment, whether it's supposed to be Objective Based or not.  No matter what they call it, it’s what clients and Creative Directors are looking for.

Today, Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies are The New.  Cutting edge.  You’ll find it done wrong in integrated campaign formats straight out of Mad Man Bill Small, with nods to today’s ad tech.  Done right, the media invention/integration bit's written into the KOBCS.  Same old/same old.  How’s that for everything old is new again?


FYI:  Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Work Plans go in this order:
1.  Objective
2.  Prospect Definition
3.  Problem to Solve
4.  Kamikaze Key Fact
5.  Competition
6.  Reason(s) Why
7.  Competitive Information
8.  Mandates & Limitations

EXTRA!  Some of my Kamikaze Occupational Safety Rules for Copywriters and Other AdCreatives proved their usefulness in a big way this week.  Had to do with a cryptic suggestion one of my early CDs, Ron Spatero, then of Bozell, made.  When I complained about an AE being so bad, ("Do not think you - or anyone else - can change an Idiot...") I was working directly with clients on things he should have done, Ron said, “If you want a better AE, be a better Copywriter.”  

Confused the heck out of me.  Until I realized he was telling me to focus on my job, not the AEs.  (Be good at what you do; accept what they are.)  Sure enough, as soon as I stopped trying to make my job easier by doing what the AE didn't , several big gaps appeared in the way the account was handled.  Especially regarding creative budgets, input and approvals.  Before long, I was a better, more focused copywriter.  With the expected client complaints, the AE became a better AE.  The account became my favorite.

**An apology for my too-long silence.  Business, family, family losses, new pet search, life – all ganged up on me and ate whatever time I had left over.  Will try to do better.  In the meanwhile, if you have a question on this no one else can answer, email me.  I’ll help if I can.

MANY THANKS to those of you who expressed kind thoughts at the passing of my 26-year writing partner, Elvira the World’s Oldest Cat.  I’m happy to report Miss Olivia, eight weeks of kinetic kitten craziness, now has the job.  You’ll find her pictures on my facebook page.  As soon as she learns climbing up my leg (by digging in her claws) isn’t the best way to get onto my desk, she’ll be perfect!

Marty*:  If you haven’t seen it, get it from Netflicks.  It's a bastion of Cultural Literacy; One Best Picture Oscar winner that really was.

Kamikaze Creative: Preview "Keeping Promises: What’s the object of Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies? How are they different from the Kamikaze Creative Strategies Advertising and Marketing Copywriters, Art Directors, Graphic Designers, etc. usually work from?"

Kamikaze Creative: Preview "Keeping Promises: What’s the object of Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Strategies? How are they different from the Kamikaze Creative Strategies Advertising and Marketing Copywriters, Art Directors, Graphic Designers, etc. usually work from?"

Perception vs. Reality: When The Truth might not set your ad concepts free. More Creative Strategy heresy for Advertising Copywriters, Art Directors and – if they’re listening – Advertising Account Executives and Clients.

Even though a researcher is publically discredited and admits he faked his data, thousands of people still believe his baseless results are true.

Everyone in my family knows Dawn is the only dish detergent capable of getting grease off Tupperware.

A paranoid schizophrenic in Arizona kills people and political progressives everywhere blame a right wing nut who used the graphic analogy of a gun’s cross-hairs for this very sick and sickening act of a mentally disturbed youth.

Someone they know gets their clothes clean in cold water with whatever detergent is on sale, yet millions know only All TempaCheer will get that job done.

I meant to discuss key words, meta tags, SEO and search engine algorithms, but current events have made the differences – and powers – of Perception vs. Reality a timelier topic.  We Copywriters, Art Directors, Graphic and Web Designers, etc. are in the business of creating perceptions – real (based in fact) and imagined (based in who knows?).  We play with the power of words, images, color, design and media – but how often do we stop to consider the powers they wield?  

Which is more persuasive? Which sells more product?  Perception?  Or Reality?  A real competitive advantage or a perceived one? 

I’d much rather sell against a real competitive advantage than a perceived one any day.   Why?  Truth – and its possible competitive advantages - is only real.  All it has are facts – and as each of my opening examples illustrate, facts are easily muddied, misquoted, discredited, discarded and ignored. 

A  perception and a perceived competitive advantage, on the other hand, are all smoke.  You can’t dependably discredit perception with facts because you can’t take hold of it.  Who can discredit smoke?  Where would you even start? 

Example:   My grandmother swore by Dawn Dish Detergent and its amazing power to get grease off her Tupperware.  For several years, Dawn was factually the only detergent that could.  Then other brands – nationally advertised and  store brands, developed their own grease fighters.  Many are cheaper than Dawn.  Many are more appealingly named, packaged.  Many work just as well (if my empty margarine tubs are any judge).  But the only dish detergent anyone in my family uses is Dawn. 

I could arrange side-by-side blind testing, but they’d discredit my methods and results.  Could smear lard on every piece of plastic in the kitchen and get it squeaky clean with some supermarket brand, but they’d accuse me of somehow messing with the results.  Even my husband won’t buy anything else. 

Example:  Cheer Laundry Detergent came up with “All TempaCheer.”  They didn’t say they were the only laundry detergent that got dirt out in cold, warm or hot water.  They just said Cheer would.  And they had that line, “All TempaCheer.”

Coming from New England, I wash everything in cold water.  Being cheap, I use whatever detergent is on sale.  They all work.  But I have friends (many in advertising) who only use Cheer – or some newer, more exotic “cold water detergent” - w/cold water.

Cheer came to own the non-specialty cold water wash category.  Their brand perception is so strong, no other mass market brand even tries to claim that space. 

Consider that wonderful old Rolling Stone Perception vs. Reality campaign.  Research showed their readers were very heavy into imported beer, vodka, gin, whiskey, etc.  Yet they had very few advertisers in those categories.  Why?  Because everyone knows only dopers read Rolling Stone, right?  Of course it was.  Even though the cold, empirical facts told a totally different truth.   This went up and down the list of possible advertisers – high-end stereos (all stoners care about is volume and bass and besides, everyone knows stoners don’t have money), luxury branded clothing (no one who reads Rolling Stones cares about designer fashion and they couldn’t afford it, anyway), yadda  yadda  yadda.

The first ad in the campaign showed an ashtray full of roaches - the JOB wrapped kind.  It’s caption read “Perception.”  Next to it was a shot of several open bottles of imported beer and high-end liquor with dirty glasses.  That caption read “Reality.”  The body copy cited research, gave numbers and attributed facts pointing out that RS readers drank an amazingly impressive amount of branded liquor and imported beer.  And that – surprise! – they had plenty of disposable income.

Everyone loved the campaign.  It won just about every award that year.  But push-come-to-shove, the increase in commercial respect for Rolling Stone readers was still marginal.  Why?  Everyone knows only stoners read Rolling Stone Magazine.  Everyone knows stoners don’t drink good booze, can’t afford high end sound and wear what they find on the floor from the night before.

So when I get to that section of the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan called “Competition,” I don’t just want solid competitive facts.  I want the Perceived Differences.  Those are the ones that will kill you. 

It’s easy to sell against facts – you just kill them with perception by stating your less-than-stellar attributes as if they bested the category.  You treat your second-  or third-rate stats are if they were record-breaking.  Existing or newly minted, say them often enough, loudly enough - the perceptions your proudly announced weaknesses create will win out before The Truth ever does. 

If I’m selling against a Perception, I know it’s an uphill battle.  How uphill?  Example:  Consider an article that ran in newspapers nationwide recently.  It seems the researcher who originated the theory that Autism is caused by vaccines was discredited.  Even though he admitted he lied, falsified information.  Even though his fall from grace was widely publicized.  Even though  even though  even though -- a significant portion of the public still insist the link between vaccines and Autism is true. 

Example:  that horrible incident in Arizona?  Conservative and Progressive blowhards are still blaming each other.  As all good advertising creatives should know, graphic analogies aren’t meant to be literal translations of a message.   They’re meant to communicate and creatively plant Perceptions.  Seriously, how many biological chimps have winked at you in the cold remedy aisle?

So how do you sell against perceived differences?  How do you get people to doubt what they know is true, regardless of reliable, well-documented, well-publicized facts proving the opposite?  You attack perception with perception.  It can be  dangerous – there are truth in advertising statutes and liabilities.  So you create them without saying them aloud.  They’ll still be stronger than reality.

How?  If you want to position a fun, artsy, risk-taking competitor as dull, old school and more regimented than your factually dull, old school and regimented client, you don’t say the competition’s more dull, old school and regimented.  You suggest it.  How?  With concept, style (analogy is a style of ad, not an ad concept – see previous posts), art direction, language of concept (tone, vocabulary, structure), graphics, design and media. 

Sometimes you don’t have to say a word – just give your perceived duller client the appearance of hippness.  Plant a few wildly funny, wildly hip YouTube videos.  Put stickers over urinals.  Use all the up-to-the-minute street language, images and graphics you can think of to get your  message understood.

Want to turn an upstart new product into the old school standard?  Reverse the process.  It doesn’t matter what you say, just say it in ways that out-conservative the most arch conservative.  Make the logo look like a very old,  very conservative bank.  The layout more Wall Street Journal than Wired (which has become its own hybrid form of mainstream, regardless its perception).  And be sure the ads take themselves way too seriously.

In each of those easy solutions, you still have to tell the truth.  The effectiveness is in how you tell it, not in what you tell.  That, and where/how often you say it. 

Don’t believe me?  If you’re male, go to classes (or somewhere else) in lipstick the first day, before anyone knows you.  Get someone to paint your lips bright red.  Then never do anything like that again.  Proudly display your girlfriend.  Play macho sports.  Just try to live down the whispers that say, “Yeah, he seems straight – but I know better – I saw him in lipstick.”

Come up with your own test.  Watch how people react, listen to what they say about it.  Try not to laugh when you tell them it was all a test.  You’ll find no matter how strong your case, some people – I’d venture to say a lot more than you’d think – smart people  educated people  people you respect – will still know otherwise. 

So which would you rather sell against?  Perception?  Or Reality?

©2011, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative

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.  

IOU, more from last installment, a promise, something you need to consider

IOU:  I promised something on the Kamikaze Key Fact vs. traditional Key Fact, then got distracted by other things (I represent The Prospect, Concept/Illustration, sorry and thanks to all who called me on it).  The next post will fulfill that promise.  Promise.

From last post:
Concept or Illustration?  Allstate's "Mayhem" campaign.
Additional messing with your minds:  Is the Snickers Diva campaign really a concept?  Or is it just a very funny, very creative Product Demonstration?  If it's Product Demonstration, can it also be a Concept?  If it's a Concept, can it be Product Demonstration?
Those footballing Clydesdales?  Concept or Metaphor?  Metaphor or Illustration?

A promise:
I just finished updating five divisions of a city website.  I am seriously thinking it's time I Just Do my own website for what I need now vs. waiting for what I want eventually.  As a result, I've been picking uber webster brains about Key Words, Meta Tags and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  They are starting to agree with what I've said all along.  Even Google's catching on.  What am I talking about?  It's coming after the Kamikaze Key Fact.

Speaking of the Kamikaze Key Fact:
If you'd like the Cliff Notes version of the entire form:  complete format with quickie definitions, email me @ kamikazecreative@gmail.com.  If you want the entire, in-depth discussion (20+ pages, with examples and illustrations) and are a student, have your instructor get in touch.  If you'd like the long form piece and you're out of school, let me know about your situation.  We'll work something out.

Something you need to consider:
Mercury's heading Retrograde.  (What's up with that?  http://www.planetaryperceptions.com, click on Retrograde Mercury.)
11/22-12/9 - Mercury in PreRetrograde Shadow (starts to go awry)
12/10-12/29 - Mercury in Retrograde (go to site above, then hang on!)
12/30 - Mercury heads Direct
12/30-1/17 - Mercury in PostRetrograde Shadow (things start to gel)
1/18 - Home Free!
(Not sure what it all means?  See URL above.  Knowing what it is and how to use Retrograde Mercury to your advantage is an important Kamikaze Creative Occupational Safety Rule.)

If you'd like my old CMYK article on salary negotiation, it's been reprinted in Maxine Paetro's latest edition of How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising (out this year - available online everywhere).  I expanded the original piece to include negotiation tips and truths for negotiating during The Great Recession.

Something I assume you know:
Everything I write in this blog is (c)Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative in the year it appears, if it wasn't already (Copy Sins, Occupational Safety Rules, etc.  Some of this is taken from that book I've yet to finish).  Share it, print it, use it.   Let me know if you want to include it in what you write.   Don't say it's yours or anyone else's.

Kamikaze Creative: Love Poem to our Prospect

Not that I’ve ever been a poet, but I do know a thing or two about Love of Prospect. 

One of the best student, interview/freelance portfolio show questions I get is this:

What’s your role in the Creative Process?

As a Creative Strategist, the easy answer could be, “I concept the strategy.”

As a Copywriter, “I come up with concepts and write copy” works for most people.

As a Teacher/Workshop Leader, you’d think, “I teach others how to use strategy to solve creative problems” would be first on the list.

But because I am a true believer (Eric Hoffer aside), my best answer is, “In all things strategic, conceptual, copy and creative, I represent the Prospect.”

If my primary responsibility is to the Agency, I only see things through the Agency’s eyes.  I must filter focus, perspective, strategy and concept through the Agency agenda, what’s best for the Agency, what the Agency wants me to do/say/represent.  While this may save my job, it'll only be until the Client moves on due to ineffective work.  It won’t help my Client, Product or portfolio – just the Agency.  (Who does represent the Agency?  The jaded old dame says, “Anyone with Sr., VP, CD (in any variant – ACD, ECD, GCD, etc. etc.) in their title.”  The thinking person’s answer?  Well, that’s a whole new blog entry.)

If I don’t represent the Agency, do I represent the Client?  Not if I want to do them any good.  If I’m always looking out for the Client’s internal needs, the Client’s internal problems, internal politics, yadda yadda, the only thing I can do for them would be to maybe help with some of their internal issues.  I couldn’t do jack in the marketplace.  (Who represents the Client?  The easy answer:  Account Services.  The thinking person’s answer probably includes all management – including Creative.)

OK – it's got to be the Creative.  Do I represent the Creative?  This one’s a bit trickier, but I think you can intuit where I’m headed.  If I represent the Creative well, I’ll get it approved by both Agency and Client.  If it’s cool enough, I might win some awards, keep my job and become the Client’s preferred Creative.  Sweet, but like representing the Agency or the Client, it means merda in the real world of competitive market share.  (Not sure about merda?  Ask your Eye-talian Granny.)

What about the Product?  I’m a writer, so I have to know all about the Product, right?  True enough.  But if it’s my job to represent the Product, I must filter everything through that Product knowledge.  May make points w/some engineers and product managers, may isolate some interesting Product USPs (Unique Selling Propositions), but again, won’t mean squat in the marketplace. 

Which is where you need to look for me:  in the marketplace.  Because in all things creative, I represent The Prospect.

Why?  Because the Prospect wields the power.  The Prospect decides how much product is sold, how it’s perceived, whether the Client’s career lives or dies, whether the Agency is retained or gets the boot.  To make any of that happen – to motivate the Prospect to use their power, buy the Client’s Product, respond to the Creative in the desired way, keep the account at the Agency and me at my job – I must filter out all those other concerns and focus on the person I’m trying to reach. 

If you think of it in terms of the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, while the Client and/or Agency may determine the Objective, it’s the Prospect who determines if, when, how and why that Objective is – or isn’t – met and/or exceeded. 

A Kamikaze Key Fact that’s focused on the Product may keep you working what the Client wants to say, but it won’t give you something to hang your creative – and your Prospect’s ability to grok – on.  The “Big Idea” becomes impossible.  Instead of insinuating the Product into the Prospect’s life, all you can do is be clever with whatever product feature, fact, perception you, the Client and/or Agency think important.

In a strategy focused on anything but the Prospect, a Kamikaze Problem to Solve in the Client or Product realm won’t motivate anyone.  If you’re solving a Problem the Prospect doesn’t care about, it won’t solve a Product or Client problem, either.  Product and Client problem solving is an internal function, not a function of advertising creative.

When I approach all of the above from a Prospect-centric position, I can:

·      Solve the Agency problem by keeping the Client happy and spending money

·      Solve the Client problem by meeting the Objective

·      Solve the Product problem by making it essential and/or changing Product perceptions in the Prospect’s mind

·      Solve the Prospect’s problem by instilling the Product in the Prospect’s life

·      Use the Product to solve a Problem that’s meaningful, motivational in the world where Prospects live

If you’ve seen the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, you know I put the Prospect first.  On the form.  In the concept.  In the language of concept.   Now you know the basics of Why.

If we’re not tuned into and talking the language, lives and priorities of the Prospect, any creative we do is creative masturbation:  self-serving for Creatives, Agency, Client and Product.  That may make us seem loyal, Product smart and Client/Agency savvy.  But in the long run, creative strategies and executions that don’t reflect the Prospect’s view of the world will come back to bite you.  Hard.

In all things Creative, I represent the Prospect.  So should you.  Your work – your book and your job security – will be better for it.

©2010, Doreen Dvorin