Creativity in Advertising

Advertising agencies typically have creative departments where print ads, TV commercials,
and other marketing communications are produced. These departments are staffed by
writers who craft the words in advertisements, graphic artists who plan and construct visual
layouts, and other specialists who help in the transformation of strategy into actual
advertisements. The creatives (as they tend to be called by insiders) are the artists hired by
advertising agencies to use their creative and expressive talents in the service of producing
advertisements.
Creativity in Advertising Today
A typical creative team might consist of a writer, an art director, an account planner, and an
account manager who work together to produce ads, commercials, and other marketing
communications. The team begins with a strategy that has been agreed upon by the agency
and the client. A strategy is a statement of the goal of a campaign, such as communicating a
particular message about the brand to a particular group of consumers. The strategy, which
operates at a general level, can be expressed in specific creative briefs, or directives to
creative teams about the specific message they need to communicate, and to whom they are
to direct it. It then becomes the work of the creative team to devise ways of communicating
the message. 
The team, or possibly some portion of it, will begin concepting—in other words,
brainstorming—about possible ways to communicate the message to the intended audience.
For some of the team’s best ideas, the art director will draw images or
even storyboards and the writer will produce the headlines and words to accompany them.
The account planner will attempt to keep the team focused and on mission by feeding in
information about how consumers use the brand, what market research reveals, what the
competition’s advertising says, and so on. The account manager coordinates and oversees
the team’s work.
Eventually, when a number of working ideas have been developed by the creative team,
they are presented to the client, who responds to them. When the client and agency agree
upon a proposal for consumer communication (that may take the form of a print
advertisement, a TV commercial, a billboard, a website, etc.), the creative process moves
into production. Throughout the production phase, the creative process continues as new
words and images are revised and additional
information helps tweak the final product.
Before the creative idea is communicated through
appropriately selected media (such as TV, outdoor,
digital, etc.), various other steps may be taken. The
communication may be tested, reedited, or
otherwise adjusted to the point where both agency
and client believe they have produced the best
communication strategy for the brand.
Creativity Case Study: Old Spice
Old Spice, a 75-year-old brand of men’s toiletries, became one
of the hottest brands of 2010 as a result of a popular
advertising campaign. The original, 30-second TV commercial
for Old Spice body wash was an instant hit with consumers
and won the Grand Prix at the Cannes International
Advertising Festival. A follow-up, interactive campaign
featuring YouTube responses to user comments about the
brand went viral and reached millions of viewers via the
Internet. 
The advertising slogan, “if your grandfather hadn’t worn it,
you wouldn’t exist,” draws on the long history of Old Spice
brand men’s toiletries. First introduced as an aftershave lotion
in 1938, Old Spice probably was the brand used by many younger men’s
fathers and grandfathers. 
In 1990, the Shulton Company, which had owned the brand from its
inception, sold it to Proctor & Gamble. Shulton’s original fragrance had a
reputation somewhat like the original Listerine brand of mouthwash—both
had really strong aromas and both stung a little when used. However, both the
aftershave and the mouthwash promoted their scents and harshness as virtues
rather than flaws. Listerine ads argued that, “it wouldn’t work so good if it
didn’t smell so bad,” and Old Spice encouraged men to slap it on their faces
after shaving. Proctor & Gamble modernized the brand by changing both the
packaging and the scent. The original clipper ship logo was replaced by a racing sailboat
and a variety of Old Spice fragrances were introduced: Swagger, Aqua Reef, After Hours. 
In 2006, Proctor & Gamble hired Wieden+Kennedy, a Portland, Oregon, advertising
agency, to manage the brand. Their goal was to modernize the brand while maintaining its
strong masculine appeal. Although W+K had produced a number of award-winning ads for
Old Spice, it was only in 2010 that they produced a campaign that the public really loved,
got wide media coverage, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes International Advertising
Festival, and eventually went viral via the Internet.
Creative Brief for “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
In late 2009, the client and ad agency agreed upon the essential elements of a campaign
strategy that would celebrate the masculine scent of Old Spice and do so in a way that gets
couples talking about body wash. Both the client and the agency knew that women often
purchase men’s toiletries for their husbands, boyfriends, brothers, and sons. Thus, it was
important to draw women into the advertising message. Although the essence of the
strategy was straightforward, it would take some effort to turn it into effective advertising.
The Commercial
The W+K team devised an idea for a commercial for Old Spice body wash that featured
handsome Isaiah Mustafa in a humorous, single-shot spot in which he transitions from
being in a bathroom, to standing on board a boat, to sitting on a horse—all the while,
talking about the brand. The finished commercial contains the elements called for in the
brief—the focus on the scent of Old Spice and the engagement with both women and men.
2010 Old Spice ad: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/407306/video/video15.mp4
The Genesis of the Idea
The task of turning strategy into an actual ad mp4es through the various levels of an
advertising agency: account executives work with client companies to formulate the
strategy, then creative directors decide on the best ways to translate the strategy into
creative executions, and finally specific creative people are given the task of coming up
with the words, images, and vignettes that will make up the actual ad.
It is at this latter point where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. It becomes the work of
specific creative people to brainstorm, work with one another, try out this or that idea, and
finally to give outlines of their ideas back to the creative directors. The idea begins to make
its way back up the chain of command. Creative directors work with and tweak the
concepts and eventually work with account executives to develop a presentation for the
client in which typically a small number of possibilities will be discussed.
When the client has approved one of them—in other words, when the client gives the go-
ahead and agrees to pay for the production of the commercial—the production work begins.
The creative team invites a few directors to make proposals about how they would film the
commercial. These must include plans for solving any technical problems—in this case, the
transition from bathroom to boat to horse—and so on. A selection is finally made and the
actual work begins.
In this particular case, Craig Allen and Eric Kallman were the creatives who were assigned
the task of coming up with specific ideas. They spent a week bouncing ideas around and
finally had a script, the basics of which were: “Hello ladies! Look at your man, now back at
me, now back at your man.…” It had one of the critical key elements of the strategy:
addressing the women who often buy toiletries for men. It also cleverly involved men as
well: “Look at him, look at me, look back at him.” It also had the other key element of the
strategic plan—a focus on the masculine scent of Old Spice: “Sadly he isn’t me, but he
could smell like he’s me.” This was the first step in the development of the idea. Allen
claims that the concept came to him while he was in the bathroom and that he rushed back
to Kallman to tell it to him. Kallman loved it and they ran with the idea, fine-tuning and
developing it until they pretty much had the full script.
Choosing the Spokesperson
The W+K team faced a challenge in finding the right man to represent Old Spice in a
relatively short time frame. They needed to produce the commercial in time for the Super
Bowl season. They settled on Isaiah Mustafa, a thirtyish, aspiring actor who had had a brief
career in the NFL. He had the right combination of characteristics: charisma, attractiveness,
humor, great delivery, and athleticism. 
Finding the right person and casting him in the role of brand spokesperson is always one of
the most difficult parts of making any commercial. With the wrong person, the entire spot
fails. With the right one, however, the commercial comes to life and becomes an effective
vehicle for the client company to communicate its advertising message to potential
consumers.
Just what kind of man would be right for this commercial? W+K wanted a man that women
would want and that men would like to be. Sexy, handsome, athletic, and suave Mustafa fit
the bill. 
The Next Steps
An enormous success also creates a large problem—how to follow it up. W+K created two
additional spots using Mustafa. They built on the same type of humor that made the original
commercial so popular. However, neither the client nor the agency thought it would be a
good idea to make Mustafa “the Old Spice man” in all its advertising. Doing so might limit
the broad range of users that Proctor & Gamble wanted for the brand.
Although the public liked both of these commercials, neither achieved the success nor got
the publicity of the original bathroom-to-boat-to-horse commercial. However, W+K did
devise another totally new mechanism for engaging consumers with the Old Spice brand of
body wash. In July 2010, the agency produced what they term the “response campaign.” It
was based on a simple premise: have Mustafa respond in real time to consumer questions
and comments about the brand. 
The response campaign worked like this. The team monitored websites and social media for
any mention of Old Spice. The most interesting ones were selected and passed on to a team
of four writers who would devise and tweak responses for Mustafa. Within ten minutes of
the original posting, Mustafa was on camera delivering a response with help from a
teleprompter. After a swift editing job, the response was posted on YouTube. The campaign
lasted two days.
The team worked to get the word out about the YouTube responses from Mustafa and the
campaign went viral. People looked for the videos. They viewed them, kept looking for
new ones, told their friends about them, and forwarded URLs to others. Almost instantly,
the Old Spice response campaign became the biggest viral campaign to date.