There’s inherent drama in every product!
Your job is to dig for it, and embrace it!

Creative Strategists are embracing a new dimension. More than imaging they’re about inspiring action!  You must activate people… or lose leads!

In the recently-published book, The Activation Imperative, authors Rosen and Minsky advocate “for marketers to move beyond building brands to activating them–from simply projecting what a brand is to optimizing what it does—to move people closer to transaction.”

In today’s continually expanding multi-channel, multi-media world my clients’ marketing stories are beleaguered by competitive messages coming from every direction. Clever messages, brilliant messages. However, most of them don’t stick. How do I make my client’s messages stick? How can I help them render competitors irrelevant? The answer is easily projected but not easily accomplished…move from “two dimensional” messaging to “three dimensional” action. Produce messages that inspire some sort of activity, because action better enables the “penetration of the belief clusters that serve as cognitive dissonance filters”. And action accelerates the pace to “transaction”.

In the recent Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing, by Robert Rose/Carla Johnson, offer powerful insights into the value of “experiences” vs. two dimensional messaging. Michael Brenner of NewsCred reports, “…Carla and Robert have done a tremendous job in laying out the framework for using experiences to drive results for your marketing efforts.”

I learned many years ago, and have shared it with many of my ad agency’s clients over the years…experiences stick better than words. A quick glance at my “Work” page, and examples of messaging my agency created over the past 30 years reveals many interesting concepts that displayed, and led to, physical activity which is definitely farther reaching than just mental activity. From snakes and apples to hands-on analysis of existing systems we learned that “touch and feel” is a lot more conducive to (trans)action than simply “think and ponder”. Apply it and you’ll see there’s nothing more potent than a powerful call to action.

Think creativity is solely the product of brilliant human brains?

Review the June 2017 issue of CCO (Chief Content Officer) labeled DATA-DRIVEN CREATIVE and discover Forrester’s efforts to start a new research theme “content intelligence” defined as “the use of artificial intelligence technologies to understand and capture the qualities inherent in any content.”

To expand a little on this from my recently published white paper labeled Creativity: the critical gap between Messaging & Media; “While marketing automation promises the world, what it actually does is automate the execution of content marketing while decision-making remains an impractically manual effort. It offer marketers a strong workflow and even insight, but fails to provide an automated way to act on those insights at scale. Fundamentally, the content in those systems is dumb; the system doesn’t understand what the content is about and who should read it.” Enter Forrester.

It’s true. Media is valuable, but primarily as a tool for the distribution of the content/messages that impact branding. Messages in turn are becoming heavily dependent on neuroscience to alter the brain chemistry required of changing a prospective buyer’s attitude. Artificial Intelligence is starting to play a role. 

Inspired by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity are powerful thoughts from the 2016’s The Case for Creativity by James Hurman. A cover quote from Giles Hedger of Leo Burnett states, “The relationship between creativity and effectiveness is the golden thread of advertising”.

This is an incredibly inspiring book. All Creative Directors contend their work is “creative” but is it “effective”? Sometimes we’re too far from the stage to know, or perhaps to care. Be sure to read about what effectiveness researcher Peter Field calls “fame” effects. “Fame campaigns work by getting the brand talked about and generally making it more famous,” says Field. “—it is about creating perceptions of being the brand that is “making waves”. It’s nice to make a brand stand out from competitors, but even nicer if it impacts society.

Need a B2B copywriter with Content/Theme Imaging skills? Send an email to keithbates@kbates.com. I’d be happy to assess your present messaging.