Another Planning Blog…

I’ve been trying to write up a point of view on how you get to great advertising for an internal project – and I was reminded of these, so I dug them up… If you haven’t seen them before, enjoy. If you have, it’s no bad thing to remind yourself of these every once in a while.

Personally, it reminds me how important it is to keep faithful to really good work. Stuff you’re proud to take to the client. Thoughts that you know will produce real results. Great ideas.
But, NOT to take anything that doesn’t live up to that. Nor to let ideas get worn down to the point where they no longer resemble what you started with.

And, although he doesn’t really talk about it in these rules, it reminded me of something I’d see happen a lot when I worked there – which is to take something that’s damn good, then make it unbelievably good every step of the way – they never stopped trying to add something.

Finally, just a quick point about timings, because we didn’t always have the idea for the first meeting we’d planned. So, we’d keep on working rather than just take the best we had. Sometimes, we go in to client meetings with the best we had to date and tell them upfront that it ain’t good enough, but talk about what bits we did like and why we were still pushing to find something better.

Anyway, without further ado, here they are…

“First, see the process through the eyes of the client. Is the creative right? Not, ‘This would be cool. Let’s tell them that they have to do it.’

If a client doesn’t think a creative concept is going to work, start over. Don’t just keep chiseling away around the edges. It’s really weird. If you say you’re throwing it away, a lot of times, they suddenly buy it.

Admit when you don’t have a good idea.

Admit when you don’t know something.

Don’t talk down to the consumer. Don’t repeat things over and over so it sticks in the consumer’s head like a bad ‘70s song.

See things through the eyes of the audience. Don’t think of yourself as a tastemaker.

The best advertising comes out of a sense of humor and perspective about life and a realistic perspective on the importance of the product in our lives.

It’s not a business of portraying the darker sides of life to people. Advertising is not medicine; it should be like candy.

Do something your kids can see and that makes you proud.

You can easily make money and succeed without doing work that’s a 10 because you can trick yourself into thinking that the stuff is great. Try not to do that.

Be wary of the creative team telling you everybody loves your spot. There are always editors and friends who are going to laugh at just about anything.

Treat each other in a civil fashion so you can have discussions about uncomfortable things; that way, people can talk without fighting.

Take pitches very seriously. It’s incredibly demoralizing to lose. The defense mechanism is not to care and to blame other people, usually the management of the agency, hence my concern.

Forgiveness is a terrific thing.”

Sourced from CIA Advertising Site, although they were originally quoted in an interview with Ad Age (I think!)