TPN :: The Connections Show - Episode #036
‘Exploding Book Sales via LinkedIn’
Download Mp3 [12:49m]

Featured Guest: Gary Unger - Author & Advertsing professional

Being a Creative Genius does not mean that you are the only creative genius in the room. The biggest mistake we creatives make is to think that “its my idea” or “I am the creative person here”. Granted you probably wouldn’t be in the room if you weren’t good at what you do. But you are not the only one in the room that is good at what they do (ok, I’ll give in here a bit. There are some morons in the room for some unknown reason). The idea here is to understand you are not the center of the universe. Understanding and working with others will likely get your idea farther than if you tried to do it all yourself.

Question:
Why does online creative and offline creative never sync?

Answer:
Because offline is like hunting with a shotgun and online is like hunting with a rifle.

Long Answer:
I wouldn’t say that they “never” sync up with each other, but there is an enormous gap between traditional advertising and online advertising creative within the same campaign. I would also say that traditional advertising has to play on a mass media appeal, in that the advertiser doesn’t truly get to hand pick its audience to sell to. There is some selection as far as time slots, media brand, and media show that it will play around. But still the audience is very broad and may or may not be interested or watching at the time(s) you have selected to run. Those that are watching when you run your spot may not be interested, but you also want to appeal to them a bit to keep your product in mind. You don’t want to alienate them even though they are not your target audience.

However, online creative is for the most part directly solicited from your target audience. Meaning you can zero in on your market more accurately. Viewers go directly to a website with specific content. The web page that you place your ad on will likely be a very narrow or niche market and appeals to a limited type of people. So in essence online advertising allows you to not water down your ad message and you can “go for the throat” if you will, with your creative. Usually this means very few people will find your message appealing where others would see it as offensive, rude, or meaningless if placed in the mass market.

Still marketers are using the Internet to do stuff that the client wouldn’t allow. Recently a large ad agency won an award for an ad that did not fit what the client would want broadcast in association with their product. The big agency likely hoped that in the vast anonymity of the Internet, the client wouldn’t ever see the ad online. Given the bureaucracy of this large agency, someone who was “proud” of pushing the limits put the ad up for an award. The client found out and is very upset. So my guess is that some of what you see as far as creative advertising on the Internet may not fit the traditional campaign creative is because the ad isn’t supposed to be running. But the agency people think the client doesn’t “know what good creative is” and puts the rejected spot online –paid for by the client no less. I think eventually you’ll see clients tightening the reigns on agencies wasting client money on ads that shouldn’t have been produced in the first place. Then you’ll see creative synchronicity of online and offline.

Well, that’s my five minutes for the day. Now go be a Creative Genius!

www.garyunger.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/garyunger

Get the critically acclaimed book on creativity: here