A great technique for quickly generating ideas is to use nine-box brainstorming.
Draw a grid of nine boxes – like noughts and crosses (tic tac toe if you’re in the US) – and put your subject in the centre box.
Now fill the eight boxes that surround the centre box with ideas, one idea per box.
Take each idea, and place it in the middle of a new nine-box grid. Into each of the eight surrounding boxes put either a development of the idea or a visual treatment.
That’s 64 possible routes within 30 minutes.
Monday, 21 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Character archetypes and patterning
Thanks to Dr Janis Wilson from Archetypology for a fascinating presentation at Wednesday’s Language Consultancy Association event, The Archetypology of Brands.
Archetypes are derived from neuroscience, psychology and classical studies. Essentially they are groups of certain personality traits and behaviours that can be recognised, categorised and expressed as a persona.
These personality traits and behaviours are laid down in the subconscious brain as ‘loose patterns’. The power of these loose patterns is that the brain is programmed to respond to stimuli that are a close fit. If your message is a close fit to the pattern, it triggers a response that requires fulfillment. If your brand offers this fulfillment, then the loose pattern is reinforced in a feedback loop that is now conditioned by your brand message.
In simple terms, you can use a structure of 12 classic archetypal characters – Innocent, Regular guy, Caregiver, Explorer, Hero, Outlaw, Lover, Creator, Ruler, Sage, Jester and Magician - to describe both your customers and your brand. In theory, if you know what your brand character is, and whom you want to talk to, adopting the correct tone of voice for a conversation between the two archetypes triggers this patterning and helps you to deliver your message. The key is to use the appropriate language between brand and audience archetypes to trigger the loose patterning in the subconscious.
Where it gets interesting is the knowledge that people move through all 12 archetypes at different life stages (although they will have a preferred archetype that they return to), whilst successful brands tend to stick with the same archetypal character.
Then it gets more complicated.
Each archetype has a number of sub-archetypes, and within these are a number of different, sometimes opposing behaviours.
So character archetypes can have a dark side. When a brand expression loses its way it tends to exhibit these opposing behaviours. This could explain why successful brands, for example, British Airways, BP, Coca-Cola, Gap, sometimes get it so wrong. The message no longer resonates as it disrupts the expected pattern. Returning to their archetypal character normally sees the brand refreshed and revitalised as the fit with the audience archetype loose pattern is restored.
As brand strategists, brand managers and copywriters, you can leverage these patterns to connect with and influence your customers.
Archetypes are derived from neuroscience, psychology and classical studies. Essentially they are groups of certain personality traits and behaviours that can be recognised, categorised and expressed as a persona.
These personality traits and behaviours are laid down in the subconscious brain as ‘loose patterns’. The power of these loose patterns is that the brain is programmed to respond to stimuli that are a close fit. If your message is a close fit to the pattern, it triggers a response that requires fulfillment. If your brand offers this fulfillment, then the loose pattern is reinforced in a feedback loop that is now conditioned by your brand message.
In simple terms, you can use a structure of 12 classic archetypal characters – Innocent, Regular guy, Caregiver, Explorer, Hero, Outlaw, Lover, Creator, Ruler, Sage, Jester and Magician - to describe both your customers and your brand. In theory, if you know what your brand character is, and whom you want to talk to, adopting the correct tone of voice for a conversation between the two archetypes triggers this patterning and helps you to deliver your message. The key is to use the appropriate language between brand and audience archetypes to trigger the loose patterning in the subconscious.
Where it gets interesting is the knowledge that people move through all 12 archetypes at different life stages (although they will have a preferred archetype that they return to), whilst successful brands tend to stick with the same archetypal character.
Then it gets more complicated.
Each archetype has a number of sub-archetypes, and within these are a number of different, sometimes opposing behaviours.
So character archetypes can have a dark side. When a brand expression loses its way it tends to exhibit these opposing behaviours. This could explain why successful brands, for example, British Airways, BP, Coca-Cola, Gap, sometimes get it so wrong. The message no longer resonates as it disrupts the expected pattern. Returning to their archetypal character normally sees the brand refreshed and revitalised as the fit with the audience archetype loose pattern is restored.
As brand strategists, brand managers and copywriters, you can leverage these patterns to connect with and influence your customers.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Chickens and eggs
An interesting way of describing the relationship between a brand, a campaign and a creative brief courtesy of TBWA London’s Executive Creative Director Dede Laurentino at MediaPro 2011.
Think of a chicken laying an egg.
Think of the chicken being the big idea and an egg being the creative expression of that idea.
A big idea serves a brand in all its expressions, whether they are internally facing (like newsletters or HR policy etc.), or externally facing (like posters, TV, website etc.). A big idea produces any number of eggs for the lifetime of the campaign.
However, a creative brief only addresses one element of the brand, one egg at a time.
But surely for a campaign to work, the same creative expression must apply to all eggs so that everything looks the same?
No.
And I can give you 26 reasons why not.
Think of an alphabet.
There are 26 different letters in the alphabet. In different fonts. In different colours. 26 different creative briefs.
Put them together and they still work to deliver a message. An integrated campaign. On brand.
If the letters are all the same beautifully crafted letter ‘A’, in the same font, in the same colour, then there is consistency. But there is no communication.
So no matter how many different creative treatments are produced, they all need to remain true to the big idea. To the brand.
That is why the big idea is like a chicken.
Allow a chicken to thrive, and you’ll keep getting new eggs.
It’s the chicken that comes first, not the egg.
Think of a chicken laying an egg.
Think of the chicken being the big idea and an egg being the creative expression of that idea.
A big idea serves a brand in all its expressions, whether they are internally facing (like newsletters or HR policy etc.), or externally facing (like posters, TV, website etc.). A big idea produces any number of eggs for the lifetime of the campaign.
However, a creative brief only addresses one element of the brand, one egg at a time.
But surely for a campaign to work, the same creative expression must apply to all eggs so that everything looks the same?
No.
And I can give you 26 reasons why not.
Think of an alphabet.
There are 26 different letters in the alphabet. In different fonts. In different colours. 26 different creative briefs.
Put them together and they still work to deliver a message. An integrated campaign. On brand.
If the letters are all the same beautifully crafted letter ‘A’, in the same font, in the same colour, then there is consistency. But there is no communication.
So no matter how many different creative treatments are produced, they all need to remain true to the big idea. To the brand.
That is why the big idea is like a chicken.
Allow a chicken to thrive, and you’ll keep getting new eggs.
It’s the chicken that comes first, not the egg.
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