Every day each of us is confronted with some 300 brand names and brand messages. And all decision-makers are familiar with the situation in which up to 50% of the papers in their inbox are advertisements and mailings – unless they have already landed in the office wastebasket. In view of such developments, advertising runs the risk of causing precisely the opposite of what it should accomplish – at a high price: to draw attention, spark interest, and profile the company ordering the advertising.

The flood of images and messages has clearly reached its limits. This is a major reason why publications in which creativity per se is called into question catch our interest. Colorful images may be sufficient for distributing advertisements, but they will not initiate real communication with the targeted audiences. Here, the future belongs to those who transform advertising; agencies are challenged to do more than just market products. They must understand the business of their clients. This means their clients’ markets, marketing methods, employees, visions, and taboos. They must dive deeply into the world of not always simple structures, cultures and communications needs. Only those who understand can advise. Only those who advise can implement correctly. Tim Delaney, President of the British Art Directors Club, formulated it this way in the professional journal “Lürzer’s Archiv“: ”I believe that, in the business world, the issue we are dealing with is more than creativity. . . .The only way that I can work on a project is when I understand the entire business.”

The effect is as simple as it is amazing. If the client’s business, including even its business culture, has been understood and if a coherent communications strategy has been given priority over the creative process, then generally – presupposing the necessary professional quality of the implementation – this yields results that really reach the target audiences. It is no accident, for example, that direct mailings that clearly address a key problem of the target group both in content and design achieve high response rates. It is no accident that a coherent interplay of print and online advertising yields above-average hit rates – also in industries or businesses that one would generally assume to have a rather distant relationship to communications such as business-to-business, which deals with investment decisions of considerable financial scope.

In order to avoid a misunderstanding, we should say that properly understood content and well-conceived concepts do not replace the free play of creativity. But they lend it a systematic framework, substance, and direction. The two together – reason and emotion – produce material from which success stories are written, particularly in a time in which the target groups who are being courted deliberate very carefully before deciding to whom they wish to give their trust and their money

Publication in the IHK-Magazin 09/2003

Author:
Bernhard Pluskwik (37), Management Team member of gernBotschaft Gesellschaft für Kommunikation mbH, Phone: 0911 - 39 36 05-55, pluskwik@gernbotschaft.com