Not just “thinking up ideas”

        Anyone can come up with an ad. Ask your neighbors. Every one of them has “a cool idea for an ad.” They’ll even let you use their idea, free. All it needs is a product to go with it.
        Which is fine, provided the idea really is cool and your objective is to have a really cool ad.
        If your objective is more substantive — say, to sell something — then we need to delay the cool ideas. First we must put ourselves and our clients through rigorous questions geared to produce a solid strategy.

Some questions we ask our clients

        We begin with, “Who is the market?” Demographics offer a starting point, but we like to dig deeper. You can’t persuade someone you don’t know. The better we know your customers, the better we can create strategies that connect.
        We ask, “What do you want people to do upon receiving your message?” This leads to an objective, which, believe it or not, many ad campaigns overlook. But if we’re going to track the effectiveness of your marketing, it’s important to know, in advance, what you want it to do.
        Then we ask a host of questions about your company. Your products, your services, your sales methods, your history, your practices, what about this, what about that.
        It’s not unusual for clients to say, “Other agencies don’t ask all these questions.” Which, whether they’re praising or complaining, we take as a compliment.

Putting ourselves through the internal paces

        Once we have an objective, we must create a system that tells us when we reach it.
        We spend a good deal of time figuring out how to reach the target market, because a great message before the wrong eyes is a waste of money.
        A crucial question is, “What does our client’s customer want to buy?” Not, “What does our client want to sell?” You may think you’re selling blankets, but your market might be buying comfort, a good night’s sleep, elegant room decor, or all of the above.
        We must devise strategies that compel people to take immediate action. We believe our clients can’t afford advertising that makes people defer action for someday. Our job is to sell — now.
        We must be able to track results. The best hypotheses are useless without a test laboratory.
        We look for other useful information we might learn from tracking. There’s no law that says you have to limit what your advertising can teach you. Besides learning which headline sells best, we might also learn which media, days and times produce the most sales; which offers deliver the most profitable customers; if a pink outsells a beige border, etc.
        Finally, the creative work begins.
        We write first, and do layouts second. Words do the selling. A layout’s job is to appeal and draw eyes, but most of all, to make reading the words easy.