{"id":1249,"date":"2023-08-21T16:06:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T20:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2023-08-21T16:06:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T20:06:19","slug":"creativity-the-key-to-a-successful-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/?p=1249","title":{"rendered":"CREATIVITY&#8211;THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL BRAND!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KEN BANKS\u2019BLOG AUGUST 2023<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ii_SyxmaTow\" width=\"560\" height=\"314\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>PRESS PLAY&gt;&gt;TO VIEW THIS MONTH\u2019S WELCOME VIDEO<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CREATIVITY\u2014THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL BRANDING!!<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve followed my blog over the years, you know how important I believe a comprehensive brand strategy is to the success of a product or service.\u00a0 I mentioned my five-step process again last month and will continue to remind all of us to follow the strategy as we develop our brands.\u00a0 This month I want to focus on creativity in our message.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been disappointed over the past couple years\u2014especially at seasonal selling seasons\u2014by the lack of innovation and break through message in the marketing messages that pervade all of the media today\u2014both traditional and digital.\u00a0 I find that many campaigns suffer from what my former colleague and Doner Agency CEO, Alan Kalter, \u00a0called \u201cemulitis\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s the tendency of major advertisers to copy what their more successful competitors are doing in their marketing messages.\u00a0 That leads to a lack of individuality and rarely provides the reason for being nor the memorability of the message.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisers for years have sought to have their messages to be memorable and to catch the attention of a customer base that has been inundated with an overwhelming amount of similar advertising.\u00a0 They usually demand more creativity from their marketing staffs and agencies.\u00a0\u00a0 However, just being unique or intrusive (or oftentimes, silly) is not enough.\u00a0 During my years as both a client and an agency exec, I found that whenever a new campaign or creative execution was presented and it fell flat or just didn\u2019t seem to be on the mark, it was because those creating the messages had failed to revisit the brand strategy and its unique selling proposition adequately before developing a script, layout, or storyboard.\u00a0 The creatives often became so focused on a unique, funny, or out-of-the box execution, that they neglected to remind the audience of why they should try or continue to use the product or service they were selling.<\/p>\n<p>I remember going through 3 or 4 rounds of presentations with our agency (who had done award winning campaigns for us and who were some of most creative minds I ever worked with) and getting frustrated that all of the ideas seemed to be off-target.\u00a0 No matter what we reviewed, the ads simply fell flat as we reviewed and discussed. In frustration, I suggested that we take a look again at the original brand strategy that we had developed several months earlier and had resulted in great, memorable campaigns that we were able to extend to in-store and internal communications as well.\u00a0 During that review, one of the creative directors admitted that they really hadn\u2019t discussed the strategy again and that this really clarified the direction. A week later they came back with a campaign that we ran successful for three years with simple updates and modifications.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Advertising legend, Leo Burnett, always emphasized that you should never insult or talk-down to your customers\u2019 intelligence.\u00a0 As I watch and observe some recent campaigns in the market today, I have to say that many are thinking that their customers are still in junior high or simply not thinking.\u00a0 Creativity is determining the message that you need to convey and then finding a way to make it not only appeal to brain of the customer, but also touch the heart,<\/p>\n<p>Ken<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KEN BANKS\u2019BLOG AUGUST 2023 PRESS PLAY&gt;&gt;TO VIEW THIS MONTH\u2019S WELCOME VIDEO CREATIVITY\u2014THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL BRANDING!! If you\u2019ve followed my blog over the years, you know how important I believe a comprehensive brand strategy is to the success of a product or service.\u00a0 I mentioned my five-step process again last month and will continue to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1251,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}