I have a sign on my office door with a famous advertising quote on it. It says, “Creativity. The last legal means of gaining an unfair advantage over your competition.” I have seen variations on that theme, used it to sell our creative boutique, Barrelhouse Creative and made it the subject of our Tuesday Trend Talk this week. And you know what? It’s truer today than it was years ago, when it was first uttered.
People have more ways than ever to avoid advertising. They have satellite radio, TiVo, iPods and online downloading services that deliver content without commercials. They have signed up on the National Do Not Call Registry. They have ad blocking software. And there’s an entire generation out there that grew up immersed in advertising and marketing that’s very savvy and very aware of all the marketing tricks of the trade. One way to get through all that is to have a creative message that they actually want to see/hear and enjoy being subjected to. Or at least we need to be creative in the way we make the message relevant to them.
In their book, Juicing the Orange: How to turn creativity into a powerful business advantage, Pat Fallon and Fred Senn address this issue. They talk about how they use Creative Leverage to create advantages for their clients and capture the attention of customers. It’s really a methodology that puts the quote I started with into an actual business practice. And chances are, if you’re reading this you know about the phenomenal success Fallon (the agency) has had creating outstanding creative that creates success for their clients. If not, you can click here to go to a site where you can buy the book and see some of their work.
Fallon/Senn are careful to point out that creative for creativity’s sake alone will not get the job done. It has to be creative work that is “backed up by insightful research, rigorous strategy, and the right execution.” That’s something I’ve always believed. You have to do good creative to stand out from the crowd. But it has to be on strategy. You need to do your due diligence. Your researchers, your account managers… everyone down the line has to approach problem solving with a creative flair. That’s how you get an unfair advantage for your clients.
Mike McClure
Executive Creativity Broker
I think creativity is definetly a means of gaining an unfair advantage over the competition. But I don’t know if I would agree that it is the “last” means.
I would take budget and investors into great consideration also. It is completely legal to have a budget bigger than your competitor, allowing greater media control and coverage. With the larger budget spots get better talent, better FX, better CGI, and better overall production value, possibly even custom music.
So while I do agree that creativity will undoubtedly be the driving force behind any good strategy, One can’t deny the simple power of money.
Here is a comparison to explain my point. Two growing artist: One has craft paper and crayons, never payed for any lessons and displays his work on the home fridge.
The other artist has top of the line brushes and paints, wonderful textured canvas’s, lessons from knowlegable instructors and an investors that show his work in local galleries – who has the “unfair advantage”?
There are obvious political campaign comparisons I could make too.
Creativity. The last legal means of gaining an unfair advantage over your competition.
– I suppose the the time this statement holds most true is when both competitors are working within similar budgets?
I suppose you have a point there, it is often spoken in terms of clients with simular budgets, the one crafting more creative ideas and more creative strategy wins. A great idea can make a smaller budget work as well or better than a bad idea with a huge budget. But,if you don’t have the budget to be heard over the noise of a free spending competitor, you might have trouble.