Companies and individuals spend a good bit of time and money
to be creative. That creativity is expressed in everything from interesting
logos to the entire corporate culture. Some companies like the design firm
IDEO, are known for their creative cultures that allow employees to express
themselves to benefit their clients. They create products and services for
clients that solve problems for customers. Always, the customer’s pain is at
the center of the creative process. This
helps the folks at IDEO generate very creative ideas that support the client’s
brand and solve problems.
Some local companies try to do the same thing. The group I
practice with, the Ad4! Group, takes these same concepts and principles to
solve problems for our customers, but always with the customer’s brand and pain
at the heart of the process. That allows us to be creative without giving the
customer a solution with which they are not comfortable or portrays them in an
unfavorable light. This kind of creativity almost always leads to happy
customers.
Sometimes, however, ad agencies or in-house marketing
personnel lose focus on the customer and get creative just for the sake of
being creative. Today, I received in the mail, a 6” X 9” hand-addressed manila envelope.
The envelope had my name and company and address as well as the sender’s
address, but no name or company listed. The envelope had a stamp, not postage
machine affixed postage. So far so good. They got me to open the envelope.
Inside was a 6” X 9” card with a web URL, and an instamatic
photograph. You know, kind you take in a pop-open camera and pull the cover
sheet off to expose the image in about a minute. This picture was very dark and
I was just able to make out what looks like a Sasquatch. That’s right, a big
foot.
Now I’m thinking, what the heck? Why did someone send this
to me? They took the time to hand address the envelope and attach an actual
stamp. Normally, I would have thrown the whole mess away and thought, these
fools. What a waste of money. But today, I needed a blog post idea, so I went
to the website to see who these fools were.
So it turns out that this big database management firm has
hired a marketing firm in the Dallas area to create a clever marketing
campaign. From my perspective, I think they totally missed. They sent me a photograph
of big foot. Trying to be clever, they out thought themselves. The theme here
is you have to see it to believe it. But my perspective is they have been extremely
“clever” just for the sake of being unusual. The end result is they missed the
mark and have a stupid campaign that doesn’t support the customer’s brand or
their pain.
Marketing isn’t about being clever. Sure, being clever is
good, but it can’t be about just being clever. It has to be about the customer’s
pain and solving it within their brand. Those things have to come before the
clever part, or it turns out like this campaign.
If you need help with your marketing strategy or need to
refresh your branding, give us all, we’re here to help.
