Creating Advertisements 2

Creating Advertisements 2
The proliferation of the media and rising media costs constitute another major challenge to creativity in advertising. According to Arun Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director, Rediffusion Advertising, media costs have risen 52 per cent between 1991 and 1994. The number of TV channels is one factor. The problem is how to get the most out of your money. In advertising, a creative person has to. be totally loyal to the marketing brief, the marketing objective, which is something very mundane, very matter of act. This loyalty has to be transformed info attention-getting material. Today, much of the attention getting effort is to be achieved through the use of computer graphics. Unfortunately the computer has become a toy in the hands of those who create advertisements, especially when they have nothing new to say. This novelty is not going to attract attention for long. Already, experienced and more hardheaded advertising and marketing people are opting for a strong message, emotional appeal and reaching out for results. Advertisements of detergents on 'television (Ariel/Surf) are typical examples. Even where such attention-catching sound and visuals are used, the basic thrust is the sales or motivational message. The devil's head might catch the attention but the message is clear-'The Owner's Pride and the Neighbor’s Envy'-such is the quality of Onida.
If you want to join the creative department of an advertising agency, apart from the skills of the trade that you might possess, you must have the ability to absorb and digest a basket full of a variety of information. You must have the ability to put yourself in the consumer's shoes. It is such a total understanding churned in the crucible of your imagination and sensitivity that would bring you success in your search for an ideal point of contact between the product or service and the consumer, engender credibility about the benefits offered, particularly those that add to the value of a consumer's life and environment. The appeal in the ultimate analysis, particularly in the area of undifferentiated competition between different brands of the same product or service, is to the option. Of course, in the case of capital goods or industrial products and inputs to industrial or agricultural production, the appeal to emotion does not work. A great deal of financial investment is involved and hence, only hard facts, most credibly focused alone are likely to win consumers. The major challenge that a creative person faces in advertising is the acquisition of a total perception of the task in hand that involves not only the product or service and the related consumer, but also the opportunities and limitations of the medium of creative expression. Above all, it is essential to be able to meet the requirement of delivering on demand a fresh idea every time, to meet the communication needs of a specific marketing situation. What is more, it must first be acceptable as credible to the client, most often represented by a team, with all its attendant limitations of a variety of perceptions, and finally meet the ultimate test of the consumers.
In this context, let me tell you a story popular in advertising circles. I cannot vouch for its authenticity. Once upon a time there was an art director. With blood and sweat, day and night he labored to conceive a new idea and behold, he found that he had created a full-blooded stallion with flashing eyes, proudly arched neck, powerful legs and a flowering tail. This was such a perfect arumal that not even the ancient gods could have done better. A conference was called to inspect the masterpiece. The salesman declared: "He trots too lightly." There was a great deal of talk and the stallion was given the legs of an elephant. Some one else piped up: "I think the range of vision is too limited." There was more talk and the stallion wound up with a giraffe's neck. Finally/the boss remarked: "He is not fancy enough." Of course, everybody agreed. The arumal now received a peacock's tail. And everyone wondered why the idea did not pull.
The entire process begins with the client briefing the agency. These days, the creative people too are exposed to this preliminary briefing. The account service group now proceeds to gather together all the information and work out an advertising objective, based on a clearly defined measurable marketing objective. The advertising objective is a specific communication task to be achieved among a defined target group or audience or consumers, at a certain time and place and within a certain period of time. On the basis of the advertising objective the account service group works out the communication concept or the basic idea or theme to put across in the advertisements to ensure consumer credibility, brand confidence and motivation and action. The communication concept would include consumer benefits, a product image with the consumer benefits implicit or attributed; new, exclusive product features; difference with other brands-implicit or attributed; benefits external to the product itself. All these would add up to the campaign theme or positioning the product in the market.
Creativity in advertising is the process of translating a communication concept into an idea, interpreting it and presenting it in the most credible and persuasive communicable form. What is wanted is not the combination of imagination merely with native, artistic or creative competence or skill, but also with the requirements of a specific marketing situation and of the media to be used.
Imagination, originality, inventiveness have to be integrated with a profound understanding of human psychology and behavior patterns and expressed through attractive and evocative words and illustrations and design or layout. Even this is not enough. What you say is as important as how you say it. At times what you say is more important than even how you say it. .
Creativity in advertising is team work; the collective work of the creative director or the ideas man, the copywriter and the visualiser and finally the artists who put all this together. In the collective effort, there are other inputs as well. The multidimensional aspect of creativity in advertising starts from campaign planning, which provides a total approach to the creation and dissemination of advertisements. Research is a specific input. It assembles together qualitative and quantitative data: Fed into computers they can produce varied analytical results and, might be, even formulae. Ultimately, the human intervention is essential. The analysis, understanding and interpretation of this data themselves constitute a creative process. It is necessary at this stage to realize that creativity in advertising extends to other areas as well. It applies to the selection of media, even the allocation of the budget and the scheduling and distribution of advertisements over the different media over a period of time. All the artistic efforts going into the creation of advertisements would be useless unless there are creative contributions and even inputs from these various disciplines that constitute the multidimensional world of advertising. There is creativity in the work of the processor of the artwork for the final reproduction, of the printer, photographer, the radio/TV producer, the person who lends music to the words or profound background music for audio-visual advertisements, the recording or sound engineer, and so on. Creativity in advertising has to relate to these various disciplines and make use of their limitations and potential in constant interaction with them and has even to acquire a working knowledge of these disciplines. Creativity in advertising is also disciplined by limitations of costs and today influenced by the trans-nationalization of communication, thanks to the technological revolution in information and communication and the increasing entry of transnational corporations in the Indian market, followed and often even preceded by the transnational advertising agencies, projecting universal lifestyles and brand images and stereotypes.
The search for creative ideas or expressions is like the search for the proverbial philosopher's stone that turns even the crudest of metals into gold. Sometimes the choice is not left to the team of creative people. The client might demand to go with the fashion or the trend. How many advertisements do you see these days? If you have the liberty to break away from the trendy and the fashionable, you look for a suitable formula, based more or less on the belief that all the diverse information can be put into the human mixer, the creative person, and homogenized into a creative concept, which would at the same time ensure an approach to the heart of the consumer, different from that of the competing brand. The challenge, on the one hand, is often to overcome the taboos of commercial tribalism, which are embodied in some house stereotypes of every client, and, on the other, to be able to convert every mass medium to an instrument of individual appeal. Clear, direct appeals, credible expression, have to be dressed up in attention catching, memory-jogging images. One has to express the obvious in such a way as to draw attention to it. One has to be heard or seen in a cacophony of voices or a crowd of images. Interpretation is the soul of creativity in advertising. What Alexander Pope had once said is very appropriate: "What oft was thought but never so well expressed." This demands an awareness of today's needs. Awareness is the essence of creativity in advertising. You have to be aware of every factor that moulds the thinking and behavior patterns of people and motivation for their, action at a particular place, or under particular ambitions, or in particular situations. Relating the specific reality to the specific communication task is the role of creativity in advertising.
Distilling awareness and the perception of reality in the crucible of imagination helps relate human situations with no apparent connection to achieve surprise. This demands the ability to perceive the universe in a grain of sand, as William Blake had once said. In the search for a creative solution to every marketing problem that is unique, one must also remember the specific character of every medium of communication. Every medium is a challenge. It has its own language, its own communication function, its impact on other media. Television provides a sense of intimacy. It is more personal. The close-up, the camera angle, the light and shade, the diffusion and the sharpness, create a feeling of romance and a sense of involvement, of participation. The time and cost factors determine the economy of words and visuals. Such a medium demands simplicity, proximity and the warmth of involvement, an easy and not a pompous approach; a quick and sharp thrust and clarity above all. True, with the flexibility of the computer graphics, all kinds of images are being shown in advertisements on TV, but it is not the mind-boggling trick of the medium but the basic features of the product or service that help assimilation of the message. Otherwise, the form would overwhelm the content. The brand name might be recalled and the product and the benefits it offers might be forgotten and even missed. Television is now influencing the print media through large space, eye-catching images and the use of color to add drama to the product benefit too, through the creation of different situations.
In radio, which has some of the features of television, words and sound assume the greatest importance. The perfect marriage of sound and music and words must be able to conjure up a visual image. Satellite communication opens up new challenges and opportunities for creativity, especially in reaching out to people in different cultural contexts with vastly different levels of experience.
What I have said so far should help you to decide whether you fit into this framework, and if you do, in what specific area of creativity in advertising? This is now the focus of discussion. Usually the creation of an advertisement starts from the copy or the words. Copy consists of all the reading matter or spoken matter that appears or forms the body of an advertisement. In a press advertisement or in any other form of printed advertising, copy includes the headline, the sub-headings if any, the text of the main message and the address of the advertiser and other relevant information. The ultimate purpose of every copy is to stimulate sales or goodwill. In the case of the audio-visual medium, copy would constitute the commentary. Words would also constitute the skeleton, which would be given flesh and blood by the camera and sound and music. The words of the script would be from where the director of the audio-visual media and the team of technicians would begin.
The task of the copywriter is to use words in a certain combination to attract the attention of the consumers and generate an impulse to lead them to the desired objective of the advertiser. What the salesman does across the counter or the table, the copywriter has to achieve at a long distance and on a mass scale with the aid of modem communication technology-the press, radio, television and films.
What I have said above about the various demands pn creativity in advertising applies most to the copywriters. They must be sensitive to human psychology. They must have some understanding, especially in India and in today's context, of operating on a global market, not only of the diversified public and its ever-changing demands, some of which the copywriter must also be able to create, but also the forces that mould human psychology-cultural and historical background, general economic developments, social political environment and so on. Copywriters must obviously have a feel for words and be able to use them most effectively, in the struggle for an audience within the limitations of space and time. They have to have the ability to Marshall all available data, sift through them to pick up the most relevant and formulate a copy platform, which would cover the basic points included in the campaign theme. In making this selection, copywriters must be able to weave the benefits of other selling points into a composite whole.
The copy platform has now to be worked out into the actual copy. Here one would have to follow a logical sequence taking the reader or viewer from the level of awareness about a product or service td information about it, and, then, create a desire for it. But desire is not enough; the reader or viewer has to be led to the conviction not only of the need for the product or service but for the particular brand. Finally, the consumer must be motivated to make the decision to buy the product or service concerned. Hence, the communication must have a focal point. It is obvious that the copywriter must be able not only to attract attention to the words and thus secure a reader, but also create enough interest to make the reader go through the entire copy. The copy must arrest attention and maintain interest from the start to the finish. There must be a tone of earnestness and conviction to the kind of words used and the message that they carry.
Words are the tools of the copywriter. The effective use of words is the question of a style. This cannot be taught. It can, however, be developed and sharpened. Good reading is the key to good writing. The words must be pregnant with meaning, fresh and vibrating and must strike home. The copywriter must be able to write for the eye as well as the ear.
Expressions must be such as to conjure up a vivid vision and give flesh to the reader's or listener's or viewer's dreams and desires. The message must flow from idea to idea easily to build up a thought process in the mind of the audience. In a country such as ours, the illustration or the audio-visual presentation must interpret the copy. It is seldom otherwise.
From the copywriter's table we move into the studio where artists reign supreme. The copy or the series of copies of an advertising campaign first goes to the visualiser. He creates the layout or the design constituting an arrangement of illustration and copy or of the copy alone. The process might start with a scribble, a very rough idea of what the advertisement would look like. There could be a constant interaction between the copywriter, the account executive concerned and the visualiser at every stage of the development of the advertisement. From the scribble would emerge the rough layout, a clearer presentation and then on to a finished rough. At this stage one would have a clear idea of what the advertisement would ultimately look like. The illustration would be clearly sketched, the copy area clearly defined, the size and the character of the types to be used indicated. The final stage would be the creation of a finished artwork from which material for printing could be processed.
The process of designing an advertisement is not as simple as it sounds. It is not merely a question of routine command over the skills of the trade, of competent craftsmanship, apart from all that marketing communication demands as already outlined in considerable detail. India might be in the process of being flooded with a whole range of goods and services, which have been common in the advanced countries. The revolution in information and communication terminology might bring in new lifestyles, value systems and even social behavior patterns. How ever much this massive invasion might overwhelm us, it is difficult, if not impossible, to uproot us from our rich heritage of a civilization going back to more "than 5,000 years. Over these long centuries have developed a rich sense of color and design among our people. Cross-fertilization of the Saracenic and Anglo-Saxon influences has enriched this heritage. Music is part of the daily life of vast sections of our people. We have a wealth of motifs, themes and forms. These are both decorative and imbued with meaning and symbolism. Color is imbued with social and spiritual significance. Every mood has a color and even music associated with it. There is the whole canvas of folk forms expressing the day-to-day experiences of the people. There is a wide diversity in the symbolism inherent in color and design.
It should be obvious that the skills of the trade learnt at the art school are not enough to be a visualiser or illustrator or a designer in a studio in an advertising agency. There is need for a profound acquaintance with the design and art heritage of our people in their infinite variety, if you are to speak to the people through an art form that would evoke immediate response.
There are different specializations even in the field of commercial art or art in the service of marketing communication. The visualiser is more like an ideas man. You could be an illustrator, giving form and shape to the scribbled ideas or the rough produced by the visualiser. An important and scarce discipline is that of the typographer. As much as the illustration, the type or types used for the text of the advertisement are an essential part of the design of an advertisement for the press. Typography is the art of selecting and arranging types to help express an understanding of the theme, thoughts and emotions inherent in the copy of an advertisement, in harmony and integration with the overall design. This is a very important area of creativity in advertising. It passes unnoticed because its effectiveness lies in not drawing attention to itself. Its virtue is its unobtrusiveness. A typographer is not necessarily a designer of new types. He uses available types to serve a particular communication function. A typographer has to be profoundly aware of the design features of different types developed over the years, since the beginning of the invention of the movable metal type for printing in the fifteenth century A.D. by Johan Guttenberg. A whole range of different types with specific design features are available today-heavy, light, expanded, bold, decorative, dean and modem, with a contrast of thick and thin strokes creating various color values even in black and white and so on. The computer now enables the typographer to play about even with existing types. It is possible to arrange the printed matter in such a manner as to create a design or an illustration. In this the computer is a very flexible instrument. The typographer's sense of design can find free flow in calligraphy or the handwritten alphabet, basing oneself on the Indian tradition, which includes both the indigenously developed scripts and the Arabic calligraphy brought in by the Arabs and the Central Asians.
If you have moved ahead from school-day classroom drawings and sketching as a hobby and have graduated from an art college with specialization in commercial art, you have an option to enter advertising as an artist. Like a copywriter you would start as an apprentice at around Rs. 6,000 a month. The maximum you reach would depend on your abilities. It could be anywhere around Rs. 80,000. If you have passed out from the National Institute of Design, your opening prospects are better. You would start at a salary of around Rs. 10,000.
The new area of creativity in advertising is the electronic media. There was a time, when the only audio-visual medium used in advertising was .the film. For this the copywriter usually produced a script. This was then translated into a storyboard or sketched frames with accompanying copy for commentary and indications for background music and sound effects. This was then presented to the client with slides and taped commentary. Much of the work could be done in the studio of the agency itself. Slides had to be produced by photographic studios to be used in cinema houses for advertising products and services for advertising films one had to depend on film producers and studios. Today television is the medium and after the storyboard stage, the work passes on to the independent video producers, who have all the studio shooting, "recording and editing facilities. If you have some understanding of the film medium you could also supervise the production or even direct it on behalf of the advertising agency. This is an interesting extension of your work, either as a visualiser or a copywriter. There are, however, greater possibilities in the video-producing studios. If the audiovisual is your medium, these studios would possibly give you opportunities to go beyond the limitations of mere marketing communication. The earnings could also be higher.