January 5, 2017Comments are off for this post.

Creative & Strategic

Everyone wants to be taken seriously, valued for their contributions, and have a real voice for how to best solve problems or achieve business goals. However, gaining this type of respect has proved difficult for in-house creative services teams. In fact, nearly 45 percent of in-house creative teams report that gaining respect from internal clients is one of their greatest challenges.

It’s all about perception. The internal clients of in-house creative teams often tend to view them as merely, “service providers,” rather than strategic partners, based on several incorrect perceptions that in-house teams lack the talent and skills that an external agency can provide. This perception is one of the largest roadblocks creative professionals face in altering client attitudes and gaining respect. As Bob Calvano, director of Merck’s Global Creative Studios notes, “A lot of the juicy, high-profile projects go out to agencies because folks think that the agencies have better talent.…In many cases, the in-house team is the best agency for the project, but a huge shift needs to take place in order for this to happen.”

This white paper offers the following six tips creative teams can use to position themselves as valued, strategic partners and receive more respect from the rest of the company:

  • 1 Act like an agency
  • 2 Use numbers and data to prove your worth
  • 3 Guarantee on-time delivery
  • 4 Be strategic about how you manage your work
  • 5 Establish the creative team as your company’s brand authority
  • 6 Focus on improving the client experience

 

Full PDF from workfront

May 12, 2016Comments are off for this post.

Why A Brand Matters

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In one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise. Think of some top brands and you immediately know what they promise: McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Budweiser, Ford, Apple AAPL -2.49%, MetLife MET -0.21%.

You know what you’re going to get with a well-branded product or service.

In another sense, a brand is a specific combination of logo, words, type font, design, colors, personality, price, service, etc.

It’s also a bundle of attributes. Think of Volvo, for instance, and your first thoughts are probably going to be something like “well built, comfortable, Swedish” and, most of all, “safety.”

The promise, look, personality and attributes can eventually acquire a special patina of what I call “me” appeal. Buying a certain brand says something about the person who buys it. Apple has that patina. So does Prius. The booze and clothing businesses are filled with patina products: Cristal, Guinness, Ralph Lauren, Manolo Blahnik.

All of this can lead to sub-brands, like iPhone and iPad which acquire the aura of the parent brand.

It takes a lot of time, money and very hard work to build and maintain great brands like that, brands that can speak volumes in just a few syllables.

Source: Forbes

January 21, 2016Comments are off for this post.

Are you being creative?

Vodka-Surrealism

Creativity is one of the most commonly used terms in marketing communication as those who develop marketing communication messages are often referred to as “creative types” and agencies develop reputations for their creativity. So much attention is focused on the concept of creativity because the major challenge given to those who develop marketing communication messages is to be creative. Creativity has been defined as “a quality possessed by persons that enables them to generate novel approaches in situations, generally reflected in new and improved solutions to problems.”

October 27, 2015Comments are off for this post.

Timeless Luxury Watches, ROLEX

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October 13, 2015Comments are off for this post.

Don’t split, fly Banana Air!

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Images are crucial for Social Media Marketing [SMM]

The saying an image is worth 1000 words has never been more important than when discussing Social Media Marketing. It is really not hard to look at the many sites that are moving content and too notice the similarities of those sites. We have only a micro second to reel users in with the hopes of conversion. So the common element of this click bait, are clever images and clever videos. Be very deliberate, engaging and have an overall understanding the true power that images should, would and could play in getting better results with your internet marketing campaigns.