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10 Things to Look for in a Good Creative Partner
By Todd Lerner (President, Todd Lerner Advertising)
Behind the scenes: A peek at the methods good creatives employ to help your marketing campaigns succeed.
Whether it’s for social media, email, print, video... good creative people will apply fundamental principles to consistently deliver responsible, hardworking solutions.
Here are ten things to watch for – spot them in a creative colleague and you will have found yourself an invaluable marketing ally.
1. They know nothing
Good creatives seek out those who best understand the product and marketing situation and they ask for their thoughts on the matter. They request any relevant marketing research. They get cozy with the message delivery platform. They want to have as much context as possible.
They relax their brain during this first stage. They listen. It’s not yet time for them to have any big ideas to contribute.
2. They make a poster
They ask to see past related communications. And since the human brain integrates by means of comparison, they like to spread everything out so they can view it all at once. They organize and group samples. They might even make a giant taped-together, low-tech reference poster or two.
3. They chew on coffee beans
The world is full of lazy people who seem to put a lot of effort into… well… sidestepping effort. These are the people who churn out weak creative.
By contrast, good creatives forgo hackneyed, timesaving “tricks-of-the-trade.” They steer clear of preconceived thinking. They chew on coffee beans. They step into the heavyweight ring, ready for the good fight.
4. They show some balls
Big successes often come from bold new ideas. Ideas that at first might seem controversial. Good creative people don’t hold back. At times their thinking lies outside the conventional and they know they’ll be raising eyebrows. Still, they share big ideas and welcome your feedback.
Of course they also come up with more-traditional approaches to present. But to have a chance at a jackpot winner, they believe it’s worthwhile to include something ballsy for consideration.
5. They go wide
They have an overall strategy in place for each and every project. They don’t want to myopically piece together a message without guidance from a wider, overarching plan.
6. They don’t copywrite
Good copywriters don’t recommend clever headlines. They don’t fall in love with lone sentences. Their only aim is to write fresh, persuasive copy where every word works hard to advance the wider cause.
The job might actually call for them to not write much copy and to instead lean on the visual aspect of a communication. They don’t blunder into the major copywriting pitfall of overwriting. They don't feel they must quantitatively justify their paycheck, which would be an understandable but fatal temptation.
7. They don’t design
Good art directors let the wider strategic concept take the lead. Design should never submit to the expressive whims of an artistic personality.
Even if the aim is to launch and brand a hip new product, the scope of appropriate design options will be delimited. This doesn’t mean your art director or designer can’t make an eye-grabbing visual contribution. But after studying the target demographic, after considering the competitive environment, after focusing in on the particular challenge… the range of on-track design solutions necessarily narrows.
8. They are John Lennon plus Paul McCartney
For many Beatles’ songs, John Lennon had a fearless broad vision while Paul McCartney was a songsmith who troubled with arrangements and production details. Together, they delivered one successful hit after another. But after The Beatles separated, didn’t it seem like Lennon’s material was undercooked and McCartney’s work lacked intensity?
The best creatives function like Lennon-plus-McCartney. They start with a broad vision, but they also muster stamina to dig in for the grunt work. They embrace and master new technologies. On all components and aspects of a project, they not only consider large-scale issues of strategic angling … they also make sweet love to every small detail right down to caring about the legal mice type.
9. They smell the advertising
Good creative people sniff the advertising they’ve made. Does any part of it smell scammy? They ask how they, as a consumer, would react to the message. Would they trust it?
They assume the prospect might be skeptical of sponsored messages. Who isn’t? So they build credibility by respecting the intelligence of the consumer and by being very careful not to over-hype things.
10. They summon not the muse
Your good creative colleagues don’t believe in shortcuts or mystical nonsense. They know it takes comprehensive preparation and committed effort to pull off effective advertising… a philosophy of integrated copywriting plus design… wide-scope angling along with a capacity for detail.
Granted, all this doesn’t sound very “creative” Doesn’t ad creative also require a bit of lucky inspiration? I defer to Pablo Picasso when he said: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”
Todd Lerner Advertising clients include: Disney, The Financial Times, Rolling Stone, Prudential, Scholastic, Microsoft, Radisson, Condé Nast, Consumer Reports, The Danbury Mint, Smithsonian, and others. Feel free to email Todd with any questions or comments about this article: todd@toddlerneradvertising.com
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