Creative Development Process for Agency
03-1014812-478

Planning and creative processes
Process is important – important to the agency because it means we have
a way of doing things that we want our people to follow. And important
to clients because it provides the assurance that promised results can
actually be achieved. What follows are the key components in our
planning process that leads to creative that is informed by business
goals.

It all starts with a Vision or defining the future you want. It is your
vision of where you see taking the brand five years into the future.
Defining vision is stepping back from the problems of today and looking
for opportunities. It is an exciting future. This vision is a
destination that guides all our thinking.

The next stop is Perfect Customers, which is finding the people who
will buy excitedly into your future. They may be a current consumer or
a totally new consumer. Regardless, your understanding of your customer
must go deeper than their articulated needs and wants in order to give
you the ability to anticipate what they will want even before they can.

Market Essence is finding the advantage. It is based on an
understanding of not only your immediate competitive set, but, because
consumers transport benefits across categories, it should also include
an understanding of what conversations advertisers in unrelated
categories are having with your consumer.

The Return on Opportunity or, what is the payoff? Before we move
forward, we need to develop a reasonable idea of the size of the
opportunity we have developed and whether or not it is affordable.

The Brand Point-of-View is the intersection or the place where your
vision intersects with the consumer and market essence and articulates
what you believe about the category, consumer or product.

Tough Choices recognizes that power lies in selection. No one ever has
enough funds and there are many exceptional ideas to choose from. But
choose you must. No compromises, because compromise leads to
fragmentation.

The Road Map covers everything from today to your Vision of the future.
Having an exciting destination is fruitless without a plan to get
there.

Legs is about consistency. If you are fortunate enough to get the
consumers’ attention, don’t confuse them with conflicting messages.
Every contact you have with them must from the same strategic platform
and Brand Point-of-View.

Last and most important is the Work, which is making the connection to
the consumer.

Markets, and therefore businesses, change too quickly for clients not
to continually question the veracity of their chosen direction. So, we
also sit down with the client once a year to make sure that they
hypothesis and plans are still correct.