Marketing - Creativity can solve anything

Perhaps like most of you when it comes to movies I tend to watch the creative digital juice oozing out of hits like "Avatar" or an escapist pseudo-reality comedy like "Date Night."  Whatever genre you gravitate towards, inevitably you wind up sitting in front of your TV, thinking, "I wish I could find something on one of these 900 satellite feeds that might actually teach me something of value that I could use in my life.  As a marketing guy I tend to analyze everything I watch and last Saturday I was being lulled into a mindless stupor by yet another totally offensive commercial when I decided to see what was in my Netflix instant play queue. I found "Art & Copy" just waiting there under my remote control button and I can't express how much I enjoyed discovering that the movie confirmed some of what I already believed was 100% dead on right. Unfortunately it also pointed out some facts that I now realize, I completely missed the boat on. The tag line for the movie Art & Copy is “Creativity can solve anything.” Whether you think that tag line is true or false, this movie demonstrates how putting "creatives" in charge of the image your firm can make your brand extraordinarily memorable or disastrously forgettable, depending your marketing philosophy. Just a note here: Art & Copy won the 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival Achievement Award for outstanding Achievement in Film-making and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.  So although the film didn't win a kazillion Oscars, it isn't some boring film student documentary either. This documentary primarily consists of interviews with top advertising and marketing execs who did some pretty legendary campaigns for companies you would recognize instantly like Nike, Apple, Volkswagen, and Hilfiger and even generic products like milk. Although the interviews in the documentary are compelling, the film is more than just talking heads.  It points out the contradictory approaches to the creative process, which we all face daily from competing personalities. Then it demonstrates the reasoning behind different thought processes by showing you the actual marketing ads created.  Believe me; you will recognize every single one of these Ads as though they were part of your own DNA. Who doesn't remember the 1984 inspired Apple ad that only aired on television once during a Super Bowl game or something we've seen on a million billboards and ads with the simple phrase, "Got Milk?" What I found most engaging about the film was that the interviews pointed out that not only are most ads junk and harmful to a firm’s success, but business leaders most often stifle any except the most minute changes in their marketing by playing it safe.  I suppose that is easy enough to understand since all corporate heads rose to their positions of authority through self-assurance in their own competence. Sadly however, they often lose their focus on the creative spark that began their journey.  Here’s how to regain that focus.  Think of one core business concept that exemplifies why you believe your prospects should do business with your firm? – and no I’m not talking benefits or features. Apple doesn’t sell computers and iPods, they sell innovation. Innovation is a concept. Describe why that concept is important to your prospects and how it sets you apart from your competition. That focused concept is all any marketing person worth hiring should need to be able to create an advertising campaign that will define your firm in a way that your competition can't touch.  If you focus all of your marketing efforts solely on that singular concept you will have increased success.  The moment you start to focus your advertising on your bullet list of features and benefits, your status as an industry leader will start to slip. Anthony Robbins, motivational speaker and business adviser said, “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results.” The point of the film is to copy the creative process of innovators in your industry, not to be so conservative that you are indistinguishable from your competitors who depend on unoriginal ideas to generate success.