Sep 29th 10 Posted by Fritz McDonald in Featured Articles, Strategic Creative

Strategic Creative: Why Breakthrough Creative Is More Important Than Ever

Note: This is the first in a series of articles & posts on strategic creative marketing

You can hear the noise—you don’t have to try too hard. In an oversaturated, hyperactive, media-driven world, it doesn’t take much effort to pick up the constant flow of news, imagery, advertising, and information constantly streaming by on flat screens, Sirius radio channels, Twitter feeds, iPads, laptops, smart phones, iPods, podcasts, digital billboards, QR codes, RSS feeds, websites, blogs, online and offline magazines and newspapers, airport lounges, Facebook pages, YouTube channels… Most of us, in fact, are drowning in it. Which makes deciding who we believe and what we buy infinitely more complex. The average American takes in roughly the same quantity of information per year it took our ancestors 100 years to absorb in the 17^th century.* We live in a cultural media mix that is continuously accelerating—and it will only get faster thanks to the digital revolution now transforming nearly every form of media… faster and in more places and physical spaces and much more multidimensional (heard of 3-D printing technology yet?).

 The college and university world is as buried as everyone else. Your students grew up in this media space, have watched it expand and accelerate, and have taken to it much better than the rest of us. Which brings the whole notion of conventional creative marketing into question. Just how much longer will a viewbook featuring classic campus shots and friendly faculty be able to make a dent in a consciousness that has seen this trick over and over and over again—and is beginning to ignore it (take a walk through your local college fair to test this assertion. And yes, this is exactly what we were thinking when we developed the famous Drake campaign). In a world in which the same old marketing is not just losing ground—it’s falling off a cliff—your marketing has to do something different, really different to catch prospective student attention. And then hold it. And then inspire students to take the next step. Thanks to this massive change in the way everyone takes in marketing, in one sense every marketing tool in your arsenal is a form of direct mail and social media—it has to drive action and build relationships. That step you need students to take is much more than just filling out a form, although that’s a good place to start. Increasingly, you want them to make a stronger commitment to actually becoming involved in the life of your institution, much sooner, much faster than ever before.

And while there are several strategies and tactics that will help—ranging from more precise calls to action to social media—the one thing all of them require is a powerful creative foundation. Whether it’s an edgy viewbook cover, a feed-driven home page, or a series of discussion topics on your Facebook page, a distinctive creative approach will not only separate you from the crowd, it will silence the noise surrounding your audiences. Powerful creative wins at the point of sale… there is no greater truth in marketing.

 What’s different today is that your creative needs to be multidimensional and work on several levels and formats, from the look and feel of your banner ads to the kinds of conversations you generate on your social platforms. Yet, it all starts with a creative idea… and that idea has to be powerful. Digital marketing is lost without the kind of creative thinking that will help it accomplish its goals.

 So how do you start? In the next piece in this series, I will define the different ways strategic creative works in this dynamic new marketing environment. We’ll then move on to developing a strategy and executing it. But for now, remember that the best strategies on paper will disintegrate without powerful creative.

  *Jay Pattisall—Brand Strategist, Modernista

Photo by Brown University