CREATIVE STRATEGY

The creative strategy (often called a copy or advertising strategy) defines what

you will say about your product or service. It explains how you want consumers to
think about your Brand. The creative strategy guides and directs the development
of current and future sales messages, brochures, and advertising.
 The steps are: 1. Marketing Position Statement 2. Complimentary Role of Advertising
and Salesmanship 3. Push versus Pull.
Step # 1. Marketing Position Statement:
A marketing plan should provide a position statement explaining how a company’s product
(or service) is to be differentiated from those of key competitors.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

This statement is derived from an analysis of market opportunities. The most important
assessments are those of customers’ market requirements and competitors’ strengths and
weaknesses.

The advertiser’s own strengths and weaknesses must also be considered.

Step # 2. Complimentary Role of Advertising and Salesmanship:

The role of personal selling varies considerably across firms. In a typical industrial
organisation, personal selling dominates the marketing programme almost to the exclusion of
other forms of promotion. At the other extreme, mail order firms (like the Reader’s Digest)
rely entirely on advertising and employ no field sales-people at all.

Promotion involves a communication process in which prospective customers are made

aware of the existence and relatively desirability of a firm’s products and services. The
promotional mix is a combination of the promotional tools personal selling, advertising,
publicity, sales promotion and public relations designed to sell goods and services.

Each element of the promotional mix has a part to play in the marketing programme. For
most companies, the focus of the promotional effort is on advertising. Advertising is designed
to build awareness of the product class and to inform the customer about product features
(such as durability, safety, fuel efficiency, etc., as in case of cars).

Sales promotion techniques, such as discount coupons as in the case of light consumer goods,
are used to get buyers to take immediate action to choose and pick up items in retail stores.
Personal selling helps answer customer questions and provides an opportunity to persuade
buyers to sign purchase orders.

Although personal selling or salesmanship is crucial in developing and maintaining

distribution of consumer goods, communication to the mass market can be accomplished
more efficiently through advertising.
Advertising is a direct effort to create sales and makes use of many media. Advertising is
often used by a firm to “open the door” for its sales-people, especially in the industrial
market. That is, for the salesperson to be effective, the firm and products that the salesperson
represents should already be familiar to the potential buyer.

In this case, advertising complements and enhances the direct selling effort. Yet direct
contact is usually essential for obtaining an order.

The primary decision in the design of the promotional mix usually is whether to put the major
emphasis on personal selling or on advertising. Sales promotion is typically viewed as
supplementary.

Step # 3. Push Versus Pull:

The personal selling technique is often used when an organisation believes that a product
needs to be pushed through channels of distribution. Sales force push means that
representatives talk to prospective buyers and literally push the product into the hands of
potential customers.

For example, many small manufacturers rely on the push provided by personal selling and
trade fairs and exhibitions to gain and keep customer contacts.

The opposite situation occurs when advertising pull is used to gain customer acceptance.
With advertising pull, promotion is directed at the final customer who, in his turn, asks the
retailer of the product to pull it through the channel of distribution. Heavy advertising is the
common practice among marketers of consumer goods (both durables and non-durables).

CREATIVE FORMAT
1. Desktop Video Advertising
With in-stream and in-banner inventory, standard and interactive pre-roll formats are the most
common for digital video advertising. In-stream offers a premium branding experience with the
video playing before, during or after content while in-banner is a user-initiated experience
within standard web ad units, offering massive scale for online video advertising.
2. Mobile Video Advertising
It’s no secret that mobile is the fastest growing digital ad format of all time. The combination of
interactive ad executions, pocket-sized screens and engaged audiences has provided more than
enough evidence to advertisers that mobile advertising should no longer be perceived as
additive, but as a key component of any overarching brand strategy.
3. Connected TV Advertising
Connected TV advertising gives viewers a lean-back branding experience while consuming
digital video content on their television sets. These video ads play at full resolution on app load
across smart TVs, gaming consoles equipped with internet-streaming capabilities and
standalone devices such as Roku and Apple TV.
4. Display Advertising
Display advertising is an important component of brand advertising. Enhance branding efforts
by using standard display ads to reinforce messaging, or share your brand story through banner
video ads. Pairing display advertising with video advertising can also markedly boost brand
awareness and association.
5. Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising provides an ideal medium to reach an audience who is actively
engaging in digital content. Brand messaging that fits seamlessly into social news feed and
gaming content often delivers the highest engagement rates of any digital video advertising
format.
6. Native Advertising
Native advertising is a hybrid ad format often considered to be the next generation of standard
display. This format drives high engagement, as the ad blends in with the content audiences are
viewing to offer a less intrusive experience. Native advertising meets the growing demand for a
better advertising universe for both you as an advertiser and your audience.
7. Digital Out-Of-Home Advertising
Successful brand campaigns are planned with a media mix designed to best reach your
customers, which often means managing multiple platforms in order to solve for the increasing
fragmentation of screens, devices and viewing habits. Expand your branding footprint by
folding digital out of home advertising (DOOH) into your media mix.
8. Brand Surveys
Brand lift can be difficult to measure, but our integrated survey module – served within any of
our digital video advertising formats – can help advertisers understand whether their TV,
mobile video or display ads are making a lasting impact with their audiences. Work with
TubeMogul’s in-house Creative Team to build surveys featuring video or display creative to
more accurately measure recall and sentiment driven by non-desktop channels.
 COPY WRITING

Copywriting is the skill of choosing the right words and technique of arranging them smartly
to promote business, product, service, idea, or a person. The selection of words and its
presentation largely depends upon the media through which it is planned to convey. For
example, depending on whether it is a newspaper, magazine, hoarding, radio, television, or
internet, the script will vary accordingly.

However, whatever is the type of media, the purpose of copywriting is the same i.e.
promotion. Therefore, it should be persuasive enough to be instantly attention grabbing.

Elements of Copywriting

Copywriting has some essential elements required to develop a convincing ad. Following are
the significant elements −

 Heading − Headline gives the first impression and lasts on readers’ mind, therefore,
it should be eye-catching. Heading should tell – what it is all about your ad in a very
few words, ranging from 3 to 30 words.
 Body copy − Write body copy in such a way that it seems as the continuity of the
heading. Provide details of all the features and benefits that you are claiming for. The
language should be promising and trustworthy.
 Slogans − Think of "The ultimate driving machine" (BMW); “Just do
it” (Nike); "Because I'm worth it" (L'Oréal), what comes to your mind? The moment,
you hear the slogans, you link it with the respective brand not only because you have
heard it many times, but rather it works. A well-written and effective slogan is a
trustworthy brand representative. However, your slogan should be small and crispy
giving meaning to your brand.
 Taglines − Taglines are usually used for literary products to reinforce and strengthen
the audience's memory of a literary product. For example, “she went in search of
answers, and discovered a love she never expected,’ Book Name “Faithful” and
Writer - Janet Fox. Thus, tagline tells the gist of the products for marketing purpose.
Like, a slogan, it should be small and eye-catching.
 Jingle Lyrics − More often accompanied with background music, iingle lyric is a
short slogan, tune, or verse written to be easily remembered (especially used in
 advertising). For example, Fanta: "Wanna Fanta, Don’t You Wanna?" It should be
small, crisp, and rhythmic (like a song) so that it registers with people at once and
they remember it.
 Scripts (for audio and video ad) −Scripts are the descriptions of an ad that narrates
the dialogues, actions, expression, and movements of characters. Since, script is a
complete guidelines of an ad; therefore, it should be written meaningfully, orderly,
and nicely.
 Others − (White Paper, Press Release, & other written material such as emails,
articles, and blog (for the internet)): These are all promotional write-ups written
purposefully to promote a particular product/service. So, while writing white paper,
press release, articles, blog, or even an email you need to focus or emphasize ONLY
on one product that you want to promote. You need to describe all features and
offers of the respective product in simple and plain language.

Advertising Layout:
Advertisement layout is a process concerned with the physical arrangement of all the
elements of advertising message for faster and better sales presentation and communication.

In other words, layout is the visual plan for arranging the elements of an advertising message
in printed form. Advertising layout deals with proper and attractive physical arrangement for
the presentation of the advertising message or the sales communication.

Functions of an Advertisement Layout

An advertisement layout is a blueprint. The main functions of advertisement layout are:

 Assembling Different Parts – The main function of layout is to assemble and arrange the
different parts or elements of an advertisement illustration, headline sub headlines, slogans,
body text and the identification mark etc. And boarder and other graphic materials – into a
unified presentation of the sales message. In all the layouts present these elements in the same
size, form, shape, position and proportion as desired by the advertiser in the final ad, proof ,
Thus layout gives both creative personals (copywriter and artists) and the advertiser who pays
for it a good idea of how the finished ad will finally appear.
 Opportunity of Modification – The layout offers an opportunity to the creative teams,
agency management and the advertiser to suggest modification before its final approval and
actual construction and production begins.
 Specification for Costs – The layout provides specification for estimating costs and it is a
guide for engravers typographers and other craft workers to follow in producing the
advertisement.

Principles of Design and Layout

It is not necessary that all elements of advertisement copy must form part of the copy. They
appear in today‟s ads with varying degree of frequency. The components of the
advertisement copy must be decorated or positioned on the basis of certain basic principles
regardless of the number of elements in an add. The following five principles of good
composition are important to anyone who creates or evaluates the advertisement:

1. Balance – A layout may be called balanced if equal weight or forces are equidistant from a
reference point or a light weight is placed at a greater distance from the reference point than a
heavy weight. Balance is the law of nature. The reference point or fulcrum is the optical
center of the advertisement. The artists with a given area or space, are to place all the
elements with in this space. Optical center of fulcrum of the ad is often a point approximately
two – thirds of the distance forms the bottom. It is the reference of the advertisement layout.
2. Proportion– Proportion is closely related to balance since it refers to the division of space
among layout elements for a pleasing optical effect. Good proportion in an advertisement
requires a desired emphasis on each element in terms of size and position. If the major appeal
in an advertisement is product’s price. The price should be displayed in proportionate space
position.
3. Contrast and Emphasis – Contrast means variety. It gives life to the whole composition and
adds emphasis to selected important elements. An advertiser always looks to advertisements
from completion point of view and desires the policy of the most important elements to
attract the attention of the people. An advertisement with good contrast may attract the
attention of customers Contrast maybe visible in a number of ways. It may be witnessed
through sizes, shapes and colors. Different colors sizes and shapes of elements in an
advertisement add contrast. The varying directions, of design elements (Vertical trees,
horizontal pavements arched rainbows) add contrast; too there must be sales communication
purpose behind every layout decision made.
4. Eye Movement – Eye movement is the design principle which helps move the eyes of the
readers from element to element in the order given in the hierarchy of effects model for
effective communication of the message in advertising. An effective ad uses movement to
 lead its reading audience from initial message awareness through product knowledge and
brand preference, to ultimate action (intent to purchase). Direction and sequence are two
terms for the same element and artists may perform it in many ways. Mechanical eye
direction may be created by devices such as pointing fingers lines arrows or even a bouncing
ball that moves from unit to unit. Planned eye movement should follow the established
reading patterns too, such as the tendency to start to top left corner of a page and read through
to the lower right corner. The eyes also moves naturally from large items to small from dark
to light and from colors to not – colors.
5. Unity or Harmony – Unity or harmony is another important design principle. Although each
element should be considered as a separate unit in striving for balance, proportion, contrast
and eye movement. The complete layout or design should appear as a unified composition.
Common methods of securing unity in layouts are (i) use of consistent typographical design.
(ii) repetition of the same shapes and motifs, (iii) the overlapping of elements (iv) use of a
boarder to hold elements together and (v) avoidance of too much which space between
various element.

Idea Generation

Idea generation is described as the process of creating, developing and communicating

abstract, concrete or visual ideas.

It’s the front end part of the idea management funnel and it focuses on coming up with
possible solutions to perceived or actual problems and opportunities.

Idea Generation Tools:

1. Idea Challenge

Idea challenge is a focused form of innovation where you raise a problem or opportunity with
the hopes of coming up with creative solutions.

The point of idea challenge is to participate in ideation and generate ideas around a pre-
defined theme for a limited period of time.
It allows you to form a specific question and direct that question at a specific audience to
receive new ideas and unique insights.

Before setting up an idea challenge, it’s important to define what you want to accomplish
with it.

Because there are two types of idea challenges, problem centric and solution centric

approaches, you should first clarify whether you’re looking to identify challenges or develop
potential solutions for them.

When organizing an idea challenge, there are different parameters that you can choose to
achieve the outcomes you’re looking for, such as theme, audience, responsibilities,
time, or channels.

Keep in mind that idea challenge is the best technique when you need to generate lots of new
ideas. It may not be the most effective way to generate ideas if you only involve a few
experts in your ideation process as it’s proven to be more useful for engaging large audiences.

Although idea challenge enables you to gather lots of ideas fast, careful planning takes time
and might not be worth the effort if there are no resources to execute it properly. Also, right
timing is necessary for it to succeed.

We've written a comprehensive guide to idea challenges you can read by clicking below.
 2. SCAMPER Technique

The SCAMPER technique is created by Bob Eberle, and is a method used for problem-
solving and creative thinking. It’s a holistic way of applying critical thinking to modify ideas,
concepts or processes that already exist.

The purpose of the SCAMPER is to make adjustments to some parts of the existing idea or
process to reach the best solution. It consists of seven actions that can be used to replace parts
in the process:
 
1. Substitute – Substitution technique refers to replacing a part of your product, concept or
process with another to achieve even better outcome.
2. Combine – The combine technique explores the possibility to combine two ideas into a
single, more effective solution.

3. Adapt – Adaptation analyses the possibilities to make the process more flexible and
focuses on other similar incremental improvements to the idea, process, or concept.

4. Modify – Modifying the idea looks at the problem or opportunity from a bigger

perspective and aims for improving the overall results, not just the idea.

5. Put to another use – This approach focuses on finding ways to use the idea or existing
solution for another purpose and analyses the possible benefits if applied to other parts of the
business.

6. Eliminate – The elimination technique is quite straightforward: it examines the possible

outcomes if one or more parts of the concept were eliminated.

7. Reverse – This action focuses on reversing the order of interchangeable elements of an

idea.

Although the SCAMPER technique was originally designed for brainstorming sessions, it can
be applied to your own thought processes as well.

Often, people tend to focus on finding the next big idea. When generating new ideas, it is
easy to forget that the continuous incremental improvements are the ones that really make an
impact in the long run.

When you make ideation a constant practice, you’ll have a good chance to win that big idea
through a number of small ones. Sometimes, all it may take is to have look at what you’ve
already got. Using your existing ideas or processes as a starting point can reveal a lot about
your current situation, which is what the SCAMPER technique is about.

3. Opposite Thinking

Opposite/reverse thinking is a technique that can help you question long-held

assumptions related to your business. It’s a useful tool to consider if you feel your team is
stuck with the conventional mindset and coming up with those “out-of-the-box ideas” seems
to be difficult.

Often, finding the best solutions aren’t found through a linear thought process. Although our
brains are wired that way, opposite thinking can help us question the norm.

With this type of thinking, you consider the exact opposite of what’s normal. You can even
think backwards to find unconventional solutions.

4. Brainstorm Cards

Brainstorm cards are a useful tool created by the Board of Innovation for coming up with

dozens of new ideas related to whatever challenge or problem you are currently working
with. Brainstorm cards help you consider external factors such as: societal trends, new
technologies, and regulation in the context of your business.
This approach allows you to generate a great number of ideas with little effort. Although
many of the ideas won’t make sense, this tool can still be very beneficial for getting you out
of the rut if you’re suffering from a creative block.

5. Analogy Thinking

Analogy thinking is a technique for using information from one source to solve a problem in
another context. Often one solution to a problem or opportunity can be used to solve another
problem.

Analogy thinking can, for example, be used for analyzing a successful business, identifying
what makes it great, and then applying those same principles for your business. This is an
effortless method for coming up with new ideas that are pre-validated.

You’ve probably heard of the countless start-ups that are the “Uber for [insert industry
here]“. This is exactly the method every one of those companies has used. However,
although this is such an easy and intuitive tool to use, the obvious combinations are likely to
be very competitive.

The aforementioned techniques are some of our favorites for generating ideas but
definitely not the only ones out there. The ones that work for you can be found by testing
different options.