If you don’t understand these 6 points, you can’t be creative in advertising

Creativity is definitely the most frequently mentioned word in the advertising and marketing circles. Everyone is talking about creativity, and everyone is pursuing creativity.

They often lock themselves in the office, brainstorming with a few people, and then hope that creativity will come or capture the inspiration at that moment.

They always talk about creativity:

What is your creativity?

If you don't have good ideas, die!

Do you have any good ideas?

What a bullshit idea!

This is actually a good thing. After all, only with pursuit and desire can we create good ideas, and only good ideas can solve practical problems.

So what is their problem?

Many people are just pursuing creativity itself, for the sake of creativity, so they are often unable to extricate themselves from creativity. The ideas they come up with after much thought either fail to solve specific problems, or are caught up in public opinion storms and cause controversy.

If we count the creative ideas that have failed recently, we can’t count them all with two hands, including the Chando idea endorsed by Huang Xuan, the Chinese Valentine’s Day idea of ​​Balenciaga, the idea of ​​Durex, the idea of ​​New Oriental, the idea of ​​360 IOU, and so on.

Instead, they rarely think about the most basic and important questions:

What is creativity?

The purpose of creativity?

The role of creativity?

The Achilles' heel of creativity?

Is creativity good or bad?

Behind the creativity?

How to be creative?

This article attempts to answer the above questions. Although it cannot help you come up with good ideas immediately, it can at least help you understand creativity better.

1. What is creativity?

What is creativity?

I believe everyone has their own answer.

Some people may say: Creativity is something that can only be understood but not expressed in words; others may quote the definition of advertising master James Webb Young in his book "Creativity", that creativity is the rearrangement of old elements.

Of course, both are correct, especially the latter, which is very practical, but not easy to understand.

If we understand it in another way, what exactly is creativity?

Let’s think about it first. Under what circumstances do we think that something or an advertisement is creative?

Is it when it’s different from what you normally see?

For example, when everyone says to you, "I like you", if someone says, "I want to accompany you to watch the sunrise in the morning and the stars in the evening every day...", do you think he is very creative?

For example, when other brands are eager to make you only see their advertisements, NetEase Yanxuan actually asks you, "Don't look at this advertisement anymore." Do you think it is very creative?

Simply put, creativity is about creating new ideas, that is, creating something different from what we usually see. The key lies in novelty.

If another brand follows NetEase Yanxuan’s old path and tells you not to watch this advertisement, then no one will say it is creative, people will just say it is following the trend.

Easy enough to understand, right? It is not only easy to understand, but also, to a certain extent, very practical and instructive.

When you are creative, think about that creativity is about creating new ideas. Then think about what we usually see? Then, by doing something different from it, you have already jumped out of mediocrity.

For example, when the promotional posters on the streets are all on A4 paper, how can we be creative? To make it different, can we make it into a fan shape or fold it into a mobile phone shape?

For example, when all promotional posters are filled with content, how can we be creative? You simplify things and only highlight the key points. Isn’t that also creativity?

Now, let’s look at the master’s definition of creativity again, “Creativity is the rearrangement and combination of old elements”, is it easier to understand? The essence of it all lies in the word "renew", and the key is new.

During this year's epidemic, Lao Xiang Ji went viral because of a press conference. Why did it go viral? It's because they are innovative that everyone is applauding the creativity, but the elements that make up the press conference are all existing elements, not new elements, they are just rearranged and combined.

So how can we be creative?

The most basic and most important thing is to always follow these eight words: break the rules and create new ideas.

2. What is the purpose of creativity?

When you know that the key to creativity is to create new ideas, your mind may be full of some novel and weird ideas.

In order to prevent yourself from being creative just for the sake of creativity, and from being overly imaginative in pursuit of novelty without knowing where to go, you must also know the purpose of creativity.

What is the purpose of creativity? Why do we need creativity?

Creativity in commercial advertising has one and only one purpose, which is to better solve real problems, rather than the fantasy of advertisers. Many people forget what problems they want to solve for the sake of creativity, which is a disease.

In other words, before you come up with a creative idea, you must think clearly about what problem you want to solve, otherwise, your creativity will be like a headless fly, with no direction.

Why are promotional posters made in the shape of a fan? Because most people are unwilling to accept a piece of A4 paper, the fan is to a certain extent to solve the problem of reception. After all, only if they accept it will they be likely to read it. (You can continue to innovate)

Why should poster content be simplified and the key points highlighted? Because its lifespan may be less than 3 seconds, the audience will often take a quick glance at it and throw it into the trash can. The purpose of highlighting the key points is to let them see the most important information.

Then again, is it necessary to be creative? Is it okay to be creative?

That depends on what problem you want to solve. Many times, there is nothing wrong with being simple, direct, and ordinary.

Many people think that brainwash ads lack creativity. Indeed, many brainwash ads do not have anything but repetitive core appeals and cannot be considered innovative. So why are more and more brands using them?

That's because the problem that brainwash advertising aims to solve is to make the audience remember quickly, and constant repetition is the best way to do this. Because people's attention is scattered, it is difficult to remember something in a short period of time. Repetition can increase the density of information and improve the possibility of being remembered.

Just like the three words "I love you", are they creative? It’s so uncreative, but sometimes it’s worth a thousand words.

We must always remember that the purpose of creativity is to better solve problems. If we can't do better, there is no need for creativity.

3. What is the role of creativity?

So why be creative? In addition to problem solving, creativity also has several specific functions.

1. Make homogeneous products more differentiated

It is difficult for many products to have obvious differentiation themselves. For example, it is difficult for us to perceive the differentiation of products of clothing brands such as Li Ning, Anta, and Nike. However, through the empowerment of creativity, such as different logos, different advertising styles, and different brand values, the overall feeling that the brand ultimately presents will become different.

In recent years, with the rise of cultural confidence and national trends, Li Ning has stepped into the forefront of trends with the creative differentiation of "China Li Ning" and has also entered the hearts of many young people.

In fact, there are so many sportswear brands, just like the Peak, 361 Degrees, Guirenniao, Xtep and other brands that I have worn before, but now they are gradually fading from people's sight. Apart from other reasons, in terms of creativity, you cannot feel that they are sufficiently differentiated.

Are the clothes of Vancl, which was once very popular, very different from other brands? Actually, not really, but the differentiated Vancl style makes Vancl different.

So, when we are working on creativity, can we make enough differentiation among similar products? Instead of calling for differentiation on one hand and homogenizing on the other.

2. Enhance perceived value and improve communication efficiency

Products create value, while advertising spreads value. How to make the value of products more easily perceived through advertising is the key to advertising success.

For example, if the unique selling point of a candy is that it is sugar-free, how do you make consumers better aware of its sugar-free nature?

I am deeply impressed by the above advertising idea , which is simple but very shocking. How can we make sugar-free easier to perceive? Even ants, who are most addicted to sugar, avoid it, as its sugar-free selling point immediately leaves a mark in their minds.

Another creative advertisement by FedEx has the same effect: how can we make speed easier to perceive? From one country to another, it only takes a short while, just like passing objects between two neighbors.

Make the value easier to perceive, focusing on the depth of the advertisement in your mind, leaving you with a deeper impression. To improve communication efficiency, the focus is on spreading the message, making something that originally has weak communication properties more spreadable through creative methods.

When only looking at the left side, most people don’t know how to pronounce the word “莜”, which is a fatal blow to the brand name. How can we solve this problem through creative methods? H&H grafted it into the super word "I LOVE YOU", greatly improving the efficiency of recognition and dissemination.

In addition, many advertisements will create a screen-sweeping effect, which not only makes the audience watch it with relish, but also makes people want to share it. Logically speaking, this goes against common sense. After all, advertisements are disturbing, so how can people take the initiative to share them?

This is also the uniqueness of creativity. It can weaken the audience's resistance to advertising to a certain extent, and drive them to actively share and achieve the effect of self-propagation. For example, Baidu’s “What did you say” on the Double Ninth Festival was widely circulated in the circle of friends.

4. The Achilles’ heel of creativity?

Everything has two sides, and creativity is of course a double-edged sword. It is crucial to grasp the degree of it, otherwise you will easily fall into the dead end of creativity.

1. Don’t stray from your brand positioning

Every brand has its own unique positioning and attributes, which actually determine the basic direction and style of subsequent creativity from the moment it is established.

Just like Durex, because of its category attributes and its own positioning, all of its creative ideas give people a "bad and romantic" feeling; Jiang Xiaobai, because of its positioning as a youth wine and mainly targeting young people, uses heart-wrenching copywriting to communicate with them.

If Moutai would lower its status and talk to you nicely at this moment. You won’t fit in, and it will suffer by straying from your brand positioning.

Some time ago, BMW was criticized by many users for taking advantage of the "working people" meme, which essentially deviated from its own positioning. It always feels weird to see a luxury car brand and the self-deprecating working people together.

In recent years, Tai Er Pickled Fish can be regarded as a black and white among catering brands, breaking many people's inherent impression of catering brands as being serious. From the brand name to the decoration style, to a series of promotional slogans, they all reveal a strong sense of "stupidity". This is also due to the issue of brand positioning. Different positioning means different styles.

Therefore, before creating any creative ideas, you must examine your brand positioning. What kind of brand is it? Is this creative style suitable?

If creativity goes against positioning, it will only hurt itself.

2. Don’t get caught up in your own self-entertainment

Creativity should not be the self-satisfaction of advertisers, but a three-way joy among the brand and the audience. If the audience does not buy it, all the creativity is just wishful thinking.

One of the most serious problems is that advertisers applaud their own creativity, but the audience is confused and finds it difficult to instantly understand what the creativity wants to convey.

These are two advertisements for seven-seater cars. The advertisement on the left certainly cannot be called creative. A family is happily sitting next to a car, and there is really nothing innovative about it.

In the advertisement on the right, Snow White is shown stopping a car on the side of the road, and in the upper right corner it says “The Volvo XC90 with seven seats, sorry” (Sorry, the Volvo XC90 we drive has only seven seats), indicating that only seven dwarfs can sit in the car.

Any creative ideas? Indeed, the story of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs is used to convey the characteristics of the product. But the question is, if I don’t explain it, can you tell at a glance what the advertisement is trying to convey? Can the target audience?

I think if you are not familiar with the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it would be difficult to understand the creative intention at first glance. But how many seconds does the user give you?

Similarly, these are advertisements for two underwear brands. The left side uses a model to represent the sexiness of the outfit, which is not creative at all; the right side uses a figurative metaphor, using two half-peeled oranges. The tightly wrapped peels on the outside of the oranges refer to the bra that "naturally fits" the body curves. Is it creative? Yes, but it’s still not easy to understand at first glance.

Creativity is not about creating difficult questions that are difficult for the audience to answer. Good creativity must allow the target group to understand the intention at a glance.

5. Is creativity good or bad?

Creativity is about creating new ideas, but not all new ideas are good. Regarding the criteria for judging the quality of creativity, advertising guru Bernbach proposed an ROI standard, namely relevance, originality and impact.

Relevance: It means that creativity must be relevant to business demands and the brand. Don’t let the audience read the entire creative from beginning to end without knowing who the brand owner is. The biggest problem with many creative advertisements is that they are too weakly relevant to the brand, resulting in the creativity going viral but few people knowing who the brand is.

Originality: refers to the fact that the creativity is novel and original, rather than conservative and conventional. You imitate me and I imitate you, which leads to the homogenization of creativity, which is essentially a lack of originality. This is also the difficulty of creativity. It is difficult to achieve 100% originality.

Shock: It can also refer to the influence of creativity, that is, how big the psychological reaction of the audience is after seeing the creativity, whether they are shocked or feel nothing.

Of course, you can also add some more dimensions on this basis, such as feasibility: How difficult is it to implement the idea? For example, spreadability: Can creativity spread among the audience? For example, risk: What risks will arise after the creative execution?

I saw an advertisement for a battery brand some time ago, which can definitely be considered a great idea.

It is not difficult to see from the video that the commercial purpose of this idea is to convey the durability of the battery, so how can we make it easier for users to perceive it? Or even let the audience spread the word actively?

The product's selling point is highlighted by creatively using toys and batteries to simulate a scene of firefighters climbing a building to put out a fire. The entire idea is a very good match in terms of relevance, originality and shock.

When you are cheering for your creative ideas, you might as well examine these dimensions one by one.

6. What’s behind the creativity?

The success of any creative idea is more than just the success of the idea. There must be insights and strategies behind it. Creativity without the support of insights and strategies cannot be considered a good idea.

What is the relationship between the three? It can be deduced from the 3W rule that insight solves the question of why: why do we do this? What is it based on?

Strategy solves the problem of what to do. After knowing why, what should be done to achieve the goal?

Creativity solves the problem of how to do something. After knowing what to do, how can we make the result better?

Taiwan's PX Supermarket focuses on affordability and the prices of items are quite cheap. The proposition at that time was to save money, coming to PX Supermarket = saving money, but what's the problem? For many people, buying cheap things and saving a little money is something they don’t care too much about, and they will feel embarrassed. What should I do then?

PX Supermarket adjusted its money-saving proposition into economic aesthetics, telling the general public that coming to PX Supermarket is not to save money but to prove that you know how to spend money. It changed people's original view of saving money as being petty to a very cool attitude.

Based on insights and strategies, we came up with a series of creative copywriting ideas, such as the very classic one: "Being beautiful is a capital, but spending money beautifully is a skill."

There is no good creativity without good insight, and insight is actually the level of understanding the problem. What can you see about a thing? Can you only see the surface, or can you see the essence behind it at a glance?

The level at which you understand problems will affect your level of creativity to a certain extent.

7. How to create creativity?

I have talked about so many things to pay attention to when it comes to creativity, but I haven’t talked about the specific methods to create creativity. Then it is still impossible to come up with good ideas. Indeed, creativity is something that makes it difficult to become a master in a short period of time.

Even if someone tells you a method, it certainly won't work in all situations. We still have to go back to what James Webb Young said: " Creativity is the rearrangement of old elements ."

The answer lies in this sentence.

First of all, you must have enough old elements in your mind, which is accumulated from books, life, cases, etc. Secondly, you have to know the methods of permutation and combination, that is, how to rearrange and combine the old elements, such as exaggeration, metaphor, personification, analogy, disassembly and so on.

For example, the creative idea of ​​the power bank above uses two elements, power bank and playing cards. The arrangement and combination uses the method of analogy, the purpose of which is to highlight the small size of the power bank.

For example, the recruitment advertisement above takes the element of "recruitment" and uses the method of breaking it down and rearranging it. The broken down elements correspond one by one to the company's requirements for talents. For those who work in the advertising industry, the creativity of this advertisement will surely increase its appeal.

In short, if you want to reach the level of perfection in your creativity, you have to accumulate enough old elements and have enough ways to rearrange and combine the elements.

8. Final Thoughts

If there is no creativity, there will be no novelty, and there will not be so many interesting things; if there is no creativity, every brand may use a rude way to shout out the selling points of its products, which will not only disturb but also hurt the users.

The importance of creativity is self-evident, but if we don’t understand the basic points of creativity, it is easy to fall into the quagmire of creativity and pursue creativity for the sake of creativity.

Finally, remember that creativity is for better problem solving rather than for showing off.

Author: Qi Shao

Source: Qishaomkt