Most of the emails I get offer webinars, white papers and services promising to help me create better email campaigns, develop more effective social media and search engine strategies and offer superior online tracking methods. Recently there has been an emphasis on the rapidly growing necessity for developing phone apps. All of these urgent offers promise to help me realize greater marketing ROI (gosh, am I sick of that term).

These email promotions (and tweets) center mostly on changing technologies, often with little mention of the need for creative marketing strategies. While all of this technology is extremely important, we seem to be living through a time in advertising where we are more intrigued by the medium than the message.

Recently a friend gave me Juicing the Orange, a book about how creativity is THE key to successful advertising. It chronicles eight major ad campaigns by Fallon Worldwide, an ad agency based in Minneapolis, MN. While Fallon is not among the largest agencies in the world, it has served an impressive list of major brands including Purina, Citibank, United Airlines, Holiday Inn Express, EDS, BMW and others. What the agency is best known for is their “single-minded devotion to, and the belief in, the power of Creativity.”

Of course the changing technologies necessary for reaching customers are highlighted in their case studies. Like all other major agencies, Fallon has lived through the decline of mass-market advertising. In fact, they were the first agency to forego television advertising in lieu of web advertising for an auto account. Way back in 2001 they created 3-minute, action-packed mini-movies (starring hunk Clive Owens) for their client BMW. This was truly radical as no car company had ever considered that an online campaign could be as effective (and in the case study in the book, perhaps more effective, and much less expensive) than the then-prescribed TV spot of the beautifully polished, high performance car driving through pristine mountain roads.

The emphasis of the book is definitely not on the medium of delivery, but on the research and development of the creative ideas and strategies behind the campaigns. And their creative solutions were often a hard sell to their clients. As quoted in the book, “Publicly announcing our devotion to creativity put us in risky territory. In the world of marketing communications, ‘Creative’ typically means ‘self indulgent,’ the kind of art for art’s sake ads that win awards but don’t affect the client’s bottom line. In the larger business world, creativity can be an even more pejorative word. Innovation is prized, but creativity conjures images of an improv group brought in for a team-building exercise, or empty exhortations to ‘Think outside the box.’”

But time after time Fallon proved this stereotype false. By focusing on creativity to reach their clients’ customers and taking risks, they rung up an impressive resume of often wildly successful campaigns (that at times saved their clients from financial doom).

Why is this book so timely right now? Because of the sheer amount of media we all have to deal with on a daily basis. Whether serving major clients like Lee Jeans or the Bahamas Tourism board (both case studies in the book) or, for smaller firms serving mid-sized local clients, the need to stand out creatively has never been more important. Think about it. Has there ever been a successful advertising campaign that you can recall that is boring, uninspired and derivative? So, it’s not enough to be ranked number one in your industry on Google, if you don’t retain your site visitors with a compelling and creative brand message. Without the creative, you will have lots of site visitors but you may not be gaining many customers. And it’s not enough to have an extensive marketing campaign if it’s forgettable, because it won’t define you against the thousands of other boring and forgettable campaigns we all immediately dismiss and forget.

Creative content and strategy, not technology, is king. (Actually, you need both.)

By the way, I highly recommend you set down your book about search engine supremacy (if only temporarily) and pick up Juicing the Orange by Pat Fallon and Fred Senn. They also have a wonderfully entertaining website where you can see (via videos) many of their now famous, and hugely successful campaigns that are discussed in the book. You can also purchase the book on the site if you are so inclined. Visit juicingtheorange.com. You won’t regret it, and you will see the power of intelligently applied creativity firsthand.

Tags: creativity in advertising, Dave Hile, Fred Senn, Juicing the Orange, Pat Fallon

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.