The Power of Advertising Ideas

Companies are finding that the power of their brands comes from doing few things well. Not from the wide range market they serve.

Does your brand keep it's promise? Your performance and perceptions should in sync or you are breaking your promise.

The price you charge reflects the value of your brand. The greater the perceive value, the greater the price your brand command.

Competing on price is the weakest of positions. Marketing should provide consumers with a reason to believe to do business with you.
Retail experience is the brand experience. Home delivery will kill your Brand Experience. Though it gives faster sales respons.

The power of advertising ideas "Very few people are good at judging the value of advertising idea and executions..."It was a deliberate compromise, so I could focus on advertising. But I've now been challenged to write on advertising ideas, so here goes...Understanding advertising ideas First things first: in a client / agency relationship it is the responsibility of the advertising agency to develop advertising ideas. A good agency will always start their creative presentations with the advertising idea. There are two key points to understanding advertising ideas:

1. The role of an advertising idea is to dramatize the benefit to the consumer. A good idea brings the consumer benefit to life and communicates it in a powerful and compelling way. (This is why big advertising ideas are so valuable.)

2. An advertising idea can be expressed independent of an advertising execution (an idea is NOT the storyline, the location, the use of a celebrity or any other element of the execution). 

Why the advertising idea is so important understanding the idea, when you are evaluating advertising, is important because it allows you to do two things:

1. It allows you to consider the idea itself. Is it a big idea? Does it dramatize the correct benefit? (The one in the brief!) And is it powerful and compelling?

2. Once you have evaluated the idea, then you can move on to the execution. Is it the best execution of the idea? Are there other executions that could work? Is the idea 'campaign able' (can it produce a number of good advertising executions)? These are all vital considerations for the client. And for the agency presenting the work focusing on the idea demonstrates the value they have created much more effectively.

One example...The only way to fully appreciate the power of advertising ideas is to practice identifying and evaluating them. To do this I'd like to refer you to another website, the personal site of Neil French, one of the most successful creative directors in the world (he now has a global role at Ogilvy). Have a look at the Dove print campaign on his site. I would suggest that the advertising idea can be expressed as:"Taking bizarre and irrelevant facts from the animal world to illustrate that all the reader needs to know about is Dove."To view the Dove campaign, click here (the images are 'thumbnails' and will expand if you click on them). Have I expressed the idea correctly? Is the idea appropriate to the brand? Does it dramatize the benefit? Take a look and let me know what you think. And if you'd like to practice more,  browse the other campaigns on the site (or start looking at your own work!) If you'd like to browse the site from the homepage, it's www.neilfrench.com.Make a habit of looking for the advertising idea first and you'll have a new and more effective approach to evaluating advertising.

Regards

Colin Bates Founder, Director Building Brands Ltd