Finding “Threads” in Your Framework
As we discussed in the last chapter, one of the framework’s top benefits is that it allows you to visually connect your target, facts, features/benefits, and objectives/messages to inspire creative business solutions. These “threads” can use this basic framework—but remember, this is just a guideline and the threads do not need to read exactly like this.
View a text version of this table
The statement doesn’t always have to be written in this specific template. Just use this as a guideline and a way to make sure you’ve captured all the relevant information for a sound strategic foundation. Get in the habit of making it your own. In our Fire TV Stick example, this statement might read:
Amazon Prime members > would be interested in a conversation centered around consolidated access to both their existing Prime Video library and multiple streaming services on the big screen > using a headline focused on the Apps/Experience to convey a message focused more on experiencing the entertainment you’re paying for versus spending time trying to access it in different places > for an objective of increasing sales of the Fire TV Stick among existing Prime members.
Next Steps
Keep in mind that the thread isn’t the idea itself; it is a starting point on which to build concepts and visual directions. This tool helps me to ensure that the ideas I’m entertaining are all using the relevant information and goals.
If you are writing from this stage, you could write a targeted brief knowing that the content is relevant to the goals, messaging, and target you would like to reach.
If you are designing from this stage, look to the words in each column for visual thought-starters.
The Feature/Benefit column is where you’ll break down what the product is and connect it with what the benefit is in the consumer’s eyes. This connection between the product and the people that will use it is key, and if you understand the common values between the two it is possible to create strong connections. The “value proposition” (or what the brand offers the target in exchange for her money, personal, details, or attention) will be expressed in the headlines and body copy that come from this column. This is why it is so important to get the specifics right here.
Turning Words Into Inspiration
When looking at each individual category, ask yourself specific questions to determine what should be modified or eliminated.
Target
Be sure that you haven’t become so specific that you’ve drilled down too far and missed too many people. “Tech-savvy grandmas wearing red sweaters who have one grandchild and who live on the ground floor of a third-floor walkup” is too specific. Likewise, “Librarians who own HDTVs” misses so many people.
Be sure that the target is actually a person and not a profession. Think tech-savvy middle-aged bookworms versus librarians. List people who exhibit behaviors instead of listing job titles to hone in on your target.
Don’t forget to consider B2C or B2B options as well.
Remember that just because you are using a clown, or a grandma, or a deer in your creative work, it doesn’t mean that you are only targeting clowns or grandmas or bucks.
The Facts: Product/Brand/Service
Be sure what’s in this column are the facts that you can build a campaign on. Think through the objectives of the campaign to determine how to address those specific needs.
There will be and should be discussion and points of view concerning how best to meet client objectives. Don’t let that ruin the flow. Try to settle these by asking why or why not and then move on.
Feature/Benefit
Resist the temptation to write more than small fragments here so that you don’t begin to write copy. Just state in the simplest terms what the benefit is.
Be sure that each feature you list is an actual feature of the brand, product, or service.
Have you listed two features instead of some sort of benefit that comes from the feature?
Remember that the feature is most times a physical characteristic and the benefit is often an intangible result of that physical feature.
Objective or Message
Be sure the objective is written as a verb and connect it to a target.
If possible, drill down to how you would like to move the needle. Is this a brand campaign, or a promotion, or a pitch where you’ll need to recommend multiple campaign ideas?
Allow what you are trying to accomplish to determine what you recommend, but be strategic on the options you present. If you’ll have at least three options, center each option on a different objective or message based on what is most relevant to your client’s business. Be as specific as possible.
When writing messaging, write what you would like the target to take away from the communications and not headlines, taglines, or body copy. It doesn’t have to sound polished here. Let the wordsmith polish the words; this should be the essence of what needs to be communicated and not the exact way to communicate it. As Luke Sullivan says in his essential book for creative people, Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This, “Say it straight, then say it great.”
There is no rule that says you can’t clean more than once—if there’s a lot of debate, leave what’s there and review it again in another pass.
8 Finding the Gold
Turning Data and Insights Into Creative Solutions
I was never good at the Rubik’s Cube, but I remember the year my brother, cousins, and I got one for Christmas. Six sides, six colors, nine individual squares per color, and the ability to twist it left, right, up, or down. I was fascinated with the concept but it was just too complicated for me. I loved to watch my cousin Allen twist that thing. He understood how to get one individual square from one place to another in a series of twists and turns. And over time, I watched as he learned to get one of the six sides all the same color, then two, and so on until he solved it. It was awesome. I would soon learn to solve it as well, just not with the same strategy expressed in twists and turns. My method was simple: pop off the squares of color and snap them back in. Done. It was just not as fun and never as cool to watch. I still have respect for people who can twist that cube with deliberate intent, bringing order to all those variables.
The Twists and Turns of Strategy
In business, marketing, and creative problem-solving, clients choose our firms and agencies for the way we twist the Rubik’s Cube. Our strategy. Over time, I realized that looking for the one “right answer” in a profession that thrives on imagination is the wrong approach. There is no one right answer, just your right answer and why you think it’s right. There is only viable and not viable according to the resources available, objectives that need to be met, and the metrics to measure whether it’s working or not. As a result, there are infinite solutions differentiated by the strategic thinking of the person twisting the cube.
All of this brings me to my friend Judy Abel, Vice President of Strategy at Method Savvy and owner/principal of 32 Degrees North. Judy’s thought process caught my eye on LinkedIn one day when I was looking for a guest speaker for my graduate classes at NYU. Specifically, I was looking for someone with a greater understanding of how to best leverage strategy within the creative process. After reviewing her site I fired off a tweet, and many guest lectures later, I haven’t come across a better strategic approach. Judy’s ability to twist and turn strategic insights into actionable communications planning consistently earns my respect. I am honored to have her present her approach to strategic thinking here in her own words.
Turning Strategic Insights Into Actionable Communications Planning
by Judy Abel
In my career, I have found that three strategic questions appear with some frequency and directly impact any creative output:
What are the real underlying beliefs or behaviors of our target audience and how can we connect with those beliefs and behaviors?
What is the best way to actually reach our target audience?
And, how does this st
rategy become real and concrete?
In some cases, these questions may overlap and in other cases they fall at different points in the conversation. Either way, I have found knowing how and when to address each of these questions is instrumental in creating strong creative work that answers clients’ real business needs.
CASE STUDY 1:
FINDING THE RIGHT INSIGHT
In 2011, Nestle Purina decided that it wanted to re-launch its Pro Plan dog food brand in Latin America. Purina has made minor forays into the LatAm market, but this was going to be a concerted push to gain prominence in luxury dog food for the region. However, it was up against some serious competition. In Latin America, very few people buy luxury dog food. Those who do buy it are buying it on the recommendation of their veterinarian and generally buy whatever brand the vet recommends initially for the remainder of their dog’s life.
Unfortunately, one of Purina Pro Plan’s competitors, Royal Canin, had already made a deal with LatAm vets. If the vets in Latin America recommended Royal Canin, these vets would get a percentage of the sales profit. This meant that Purina could not tap into a key consumer insight—within this market, people not only value but adhere to expert opinions and recommendations. And it begged an additional question: If people ask about Pro Plan, will the vet still push them towards Royal Canin or will they be transparent about the positives of Pro Plan?
Luckily, research from the region demonstrated the latter. We now knew that, if we could get people to ask their vets about Pro Plan, it would open a transparent, honest dialogue and give Pro Plan a fighting chance. However, since we couldn’t leverage the consumer insight around the societal value of authority, we had to dig deeper in order to understand our target’s beliefs and behaviors around their dogs. To give myself some direction for my hypothesis, I wrote down some general questions:
What are distinct ways people engage with their dogs?
If these dogs were persons, who would a dog be in its owner’s life (e.g., the best friend, a wacky cousin, a child)?
What type of person would pay the extra money for a high-end dog food like Pro Plan versus feeding the dog table scraps or buying generic dog food at their local store?
In order to get answers to these questions, I started writing down my initial thoughts based on my experience or knowledge of dog owners. However, I didn’t stop there.
My next step involved looking through Purina’s primary research and my own secondary research. As I combed through the video of Purina’s focus groups, I started to notice something interesting. People who fell into our target audience demographics across all the various Latin American countries were referring to their dogs as their children. Additionally, these were people who already had human children but were also elevating their dogs to a similar level. It lined up directly to my hypothesis and ultimately our key consumer insight—one of the main reasons people buy their dog higher-end dog food is because they view their dog more like a child and, as with a child, they want the best things possible for it.
Now that I knew the consumer belief we wanted to tap into, I needed to figure out how we could connect Pro Plan to it. Our research showed that people who buy high-end dog food in Latin America start buying the food when their dog is a puppy and stick with this food for the remainder of the dog’s life. This meant it was essential to build a connection to these dog owners early in the dog’s life.
Since these dog owners were essentially new parents, I decided that we could learn and adapt the best practices of brands that cater to new parents such as Gerber and Pampers. New parents need a network of support from doctors to babysitters to other parents. They are looking for expert advice, they want guidance from others who have been there, they want to meet other parents, and they want their baby celebrated. These were the areas that needed to be applied to Pro Plan’s social media presence in order to provide the support these “new parents” needed. Our creative execution became a multifaceted “network of support” for new dog parents and allowed Purina to begin to make a mark in a difficult to break-into market.
CASE STUDY 2:
USING THE RIGHT CHANNEL
In 2013, the Partnership at Drugfree.org (formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and later the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids) decided to create an integrated campaign to convince teens who are considering abusing over-the-counter cough medicine containing DXM not to try it. About 5 percent of teens in the United States annually are on the fence about abusing DXM to get high. Our research indicated an interesting trend. While a number of teens were on the fence about abusing the drug, they could be easily dissuaded once they learned about the physical and, ultimately, the social ramifications of the drug use. What we realized is that teens wanted the ability to “test drive” the DXM experience, not necessarily to jump directly into taking it.
Our clients loved the idea of creating an experience to “test drive” DXM abuse. The next question centered on channel usage. We all agreed that an integrated digital experience was the best and most impactful place to get our message across. However, we didn’t necessarily know what that meant. Were we going to create a social media–centric campaign? Were we creating videos? Were we creating an experience teens would engage with or was it more a piece of content we just pushed out? Did we want to ask teens to share the content via social channels? Everyone on the team had different opinions and different answers. Finally, we aligned on an idea. We would create a game called DXM Labworks. In this game, teens would use robots to experiment with the effects of DXM and see the ramifications socially as well as physically. But where would the game live? Should it be a desktop experience, a social media experience, or a mobile experience? Again, everyone on the team had different opinions.
I decided that we needed to answer the question by looking at research around teens’ behaviors in each of these channels. Since we did not have primary research that was specific to the channel question and research on teens is generally expensive, I leaned heavily on secondary research sources. After spending some time reading through various sources, the answer became clear through these three points:
First of all, there was a trend of teens leaving Facebook. This does not mean that they were necessarily deleting their accounts, but they were becoming less active, especially as their moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and grandfathers were becoming more active. This meant a Facebook-based social media campaign was not the right location and other channels didn’t have the critical mass to ensure success.
Second, most teens shared a desktop or laptop with their family members. Therefore, any site or game on this device would likely not allow for the privacy teens were craving.
Finally, I saw that mobile was a teen’s “private sanctuary”—the place where teens are most likely to search for things they “shouldn’t.” Teens were using mobile devices to download free apps that allow them to explore and connect with their peers in ways that entertain them. And mobile gaming such as “Dumb Ways to Die,” “774 Deaths,” and “The Moron Test” were already places teens chose to spend time.
Using this research, we made the decision to develop a mobile game that built on the negative perception of DXM abuse and teens’ fear of social disapproval to make DXM more undesirable. This game would be available through an app so it would not require an Internet connection. Additionally, teens who were curious but didn’t want to download the app could see trailers of the game on their desktop via the iTunes store. Because of teens’ concerns about privacy in the digital space, we made the decision to not ask teens to push any elements of the game via social media channels. If they did want to share a GIF of their robot, they could download it via their phone and share via their phone’s operating system.
Because we truly paid attention to how teens were using various media channels and devices, the game was a massive success. It had more than 67,000 downloads in the first three months, surpassing our original goal by 557 percent with 1.3 million experiments com
pleted and an average gameplay of over 7 minutes/session.
CASE STUDY 3:
APPLYING A STRATEGY
In 2011, Renaissance Hotels and Resorts were facing stiff competition in their category. Competitors like the W Hotels & Resorts had made enormous strides as leaders in lifestyle and luxury. Renaissance was desperate to catch up. It became clear that we needed to create a content strategy that would drive brand awareness and excitement. Ultimately, our goal was to make Renaissance increasingly relevant in the lifestyle space while building off the brand promise that “No matter where or why you travel, there’s always something wonderfully new to be found.” We had two defined targets with intersecting desires, the True Discoverers and the Armchair Discoverers.
The True Discoverers were defined as the people who find the latest gourmet spot before the food critics do, who are the first to tweet the latest breaking news, who constantly seek. They value being first to be “in the know.”
The Armchair Discoverers, on the other hand, were defined as the people who enjoy learning about the latest interesting events through curated e-mails for those in the know, who are among the first to tweet the latest breaking news, and who may aspire to be true discoverers.
Creative Strategy and the Business of Design Page 10
