Creativity for PR

Week 4: Lecture 7 : 17th October 2017

Ideation and Insights

Carolyn Freeman
 Consumer Insights
& Brand Stories

Creativity is the last legal means of getting

an advantage over your competition
(Ed McCabe one of the leaders of the creative revolution in
advertising in the 1960s & 1970s)
 Why do we need insights?
Understand how our brand differentiates from
competitors

Develop a distinct brand personality that fits with our

customers sense of self

Create a sense of equity

Emotionally engage with a specified target consumer

audience (i.e. TRIBES) - in order to build a profitable,
sustainable brand
 What Is An Insight?
Brand, Product or Company Related Insights
can come from
how you build up the structure of the product i.e. its
functionality, personality, positioning, creative direction and how
+ where you are going to communicate this to the consumer

Consumer Related Insights

can come from
knowing how the consumer thinks about your product/brand,
how they purchase it (instore, online etc), what is going on in the
category to influence their purchasing and how competitor
products play a role within your core target markets life
 What Is An Insight?
How your brand is perceived by those who purchase, work with & interact with it
Finding an insight is all about getting into your customers head space

Product Related Consumer Related

Product
Consumer
Functionality
Insight
Insight

Positioning Shopper
Insight Insight

Creative Insight Category

Insight

Communication Competitor
Insight Insight
 How are insights used?

Agencies To create the right message & communication strategy that reaches our target
market, that they can relate to, in order to spur them into action

Company To develop the right product, with the right personality / brand that is differentiated
enough from our competitors, and holds a unique positioning within our customers
minds

Retailer Creating a reason to believe that our product is one that our target market want to
purchase, in order to encourage retailers to stock our products

Customer Ensure that we have a brand positioning & product features that best meet our
specific target audiences physical & emotional needs
An example: Organix
What the brand is all about:
Baby and toddler ready meals that mum can trust,
as every ingredient in the meal is real organic
food.
When mum doesnt have time to make their child
the food from scratch, they can rely on Organix to
be the next best thing to homemade
 5 consumer typologies identified through 4 different child feeding need-states
Controlling childs diet

Natural catch Careful Bulls-eye

Confident Planners
I enjoy preparing home 23%
Improvers cooked food but look out Im very fussy about what my
for new baby food child eats and always watch out
products too and for new products and expert
22% sometimes add extra recommendations. I want to
ingredients to babyfood to make the best decisions for my
make them healthier. I am child and plan every part of
keen to get my child eating their development
the same as the rest of the
family and am not
convinced organic is worth
the extra cost

Confident 18% Looking for

feeders guidance
Home Cooking Stressed
Traditionalists Easygoing I often find feeding my child
Strugglers
difficult and rely on
I love cooking meals for 19% Appeasers recommendations from
my child its my way of experts or other mums. I
showing love. Id love to worry I dont spend enough
only feed organic foods 19% time with my child
and avoid feeding snacks.
I havent found a brand of
babyfood I really like yet
I am relaxed about what my child eats
as long as they are happy. I do not feel
you have to stick to feeding instructions,
and sometimes find feeding difficult

Feeding led by child

 Home (scratch) cooking fulfils powerful drivers, both rational and emotional

Internal drivers
Home cooked = best
Nurture/love
Universally acknowledged
Demonstrated by home cooked food
Control: know exactly whats in it
Quality/type of ingredients Glow of satisfying baby with what
No nasties youve made = doing the best you can
Use fresh ingredients

Home cooked food = cheaper

Baby eats
real food the
Rational Emotional
rest of the
family eats
Authority
Health visitors Peer pressure
All say that
MumsNet home cooked is Shameful to be the only bought baby
Peer group best for baby food user in a home cooking peer group

External pressures
 Scratch cooking is a very broad category
Reflects personal involvement at some stage e.g. chopping,
spreading, combining vs. heat and serve

Quick real food Scratch feel

Archetypal real food
Spaghetti & soft cheese
Veg puree
Chicken Tonight casserole
Annable Karmel recipes
Spaghetti & jar Bolognese sauce
Homemade lasagne/ macaroni
Combination of fresh and short cut
& cheese

Lasagne & Dolmio + extra peppers

Macaroni & cheese (packet sauce)
Store cupboard Fresh

Quick and convenient Picky food

Baked beans on toast (8 months+)
Crumpet and marmite Sandwiches

Plate of cherry tomatoes, malt loaf

and cheese strings

Assembled

If its not coming out of a baby food jar/pouch, it feels like home cooking
 Organix
Getting the range right
 Comparing to other Baby Foods
Industry / Category Focus : end-user physical development
Insight: Insight:
Food preferences & tastes are developed during The very best food for baby is home-cooked food. As a mum, there
weaning. In order to develop a variety of taste isnt really enough time to make food from scratch every day.
experiences, it is important that babies learn, early on, These mums are not very confident cooks, but want to provide babies
the individual taste of each type of food i.e. to enjoy with tasty nutritious meals they have made themselves. There is
broccoli for broccolis sake nothing better for baby than fresh home-cooked food.

Consumer Typology: Consumer Typology:

Mums who are baby led i.e. respond to their babies Mums who are fastidious about giving their baby the very, very best.
needs, but prefer food where flavours are not masked
Product Benefits:
Product Benefits: Home cooked food made by one mum for another. For those days
Because of the simplicity of the recipes, & there are no when there just isnt enough time to make a scratch-cooked meal.
additives, babies get to experience the actual taste of
real food
 Other Competitor Comparisons: Nappies
Industry / Category Focus: product functionality

Insight: Insight:
Babies are individuals Babies need to be taken
who grow and develop at care of within a secure
their own time and in their structured environment
own way
Consumer Typology:
Consumer Typology: Mums who are not-
Mums who are confident confident & routine led
& baby and child led i.e. i.e. follow proven child-
respond to their babies raising techniques
needs developed by baby
experts
Product Benefits:
Dryness, flexibility & Product Benefits:
comfort Fit / non-leakage &
flexibility
 Other Competitor Comparisons: : Low Fat Food
Industry / Category Focus : product taste
Insight: Insight:
Watching what you eat is often about managing your Losing weight can be hard work. Having a regimented eating plan and
weight and low-fat foods are often tasteless a support group around you increases the chance of success
Calorie counting is hard and takes lots of effort, I need something that
Positioning: is simple and easy to follow
100% pleasure, 0% fat
Positioning:
Consumer Typology: Fat free / Low fat
Women who are confident about their body whatever
the size. Consumer Typology:
Women wanting to lose weight
Product Benefits:
Low fat yogurts that taste like full-fat versions Product Benefits:
Having points associated with each product is a simple, easy way to
keep track of how much Ive eaten in a day.
 Other Competitor Comparisons: : Deodorant
Industry / Category Focus : fragrance & functionality
Insight: Insight:
Women want a deodorant that smells pretty, but doesnt Active women want deodorant that will suppress their body odour,
overshadow the scent of their perfume but they dont want to forego fragrance

Positioning: Positioning:
Bring Out Your Feminine Side It wont let you down

Consumer Typology: Consumer Typology:

Women who are carefree and enjoy life for what it is Women who enjoy an active lifestyle and take charge of their
bodies
Product Benefits:
Subtle fragrances helping you to feel feminine Product Benefits:
48 hour protection
 What Do You Do With An Insight?
You create a brand footprint
An equity and a communications tool: the consistent communication of what the brand stands
for, to all those that create marketing communications for the brand

Serves to describe the brand simply, accurately and unequivocally

It is a coherent statement of a brand's meaning and personality

Describes what the CORE of the brand is, and what sets it apart from its competitors

Must work across markets, transcend borders, inspire and endure

Must be actionable

Should help the reader to visualise the brands values

Must make clear both what the brand is, and what it is NOT
 Brand Footprint Models
There are many variations of models that companies use - there are no right or
wrong ways of representing a brands equity
 Who Uses The Brand Footprint?

Brand Team: as a bible to refer to, to guide and align every

piece of communication and against which to judge every
execution

The advertising agency: in conjunction with a copy strategy

The media agency: in conjunction with a media brief

The sales promotion agency: in conjunction with an activity

brief

Other corporate departments: trade/category development,

planning sales activities
 What do agencies use it for?
Establish the consumer positioning of the brand within the
market place against direct & indirect competitors

Used at every level in the agency to aid brand understanding

Influences every piece of communication at every level to

ensure they are all consistent with the brand equity and will
communicate the right messages, with the right wording to
the right people

To explain what the brand is about to those who are

unfamiliar with it

Practically, it helps the agency to compile the creative brief

which is delivered to the creative team when design and copy
is being developed
 Consumer Insight and Brand Footprint leads to:
The ability of an agency creative or design team to
develop a strong, engaging brand profile, including:
o Logo
o Iconography
o Imagery
o Visual Content
o Copy
o Font
o Colours

That: creates a mood, stirs up emotions, tells a story

and engages a tribe

20
The use of logos and semiotics
to entrench a brand identity
Semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics
 Visualisation & Iconography: A Summary
Without consumer insights, its difficult to create a strong brand
image that those consumers can engage with

Having a brand footprint entrenches a distinct brand personality

for everyone working on the brand focussing all
communication, media, images, copy and colours to align with
that personality

Brand imagery & iconography can create a reason to believe and

a visual identity that target consumers can identify with

Semiotics is a powerful tool that is a easy shortcut for target

consumers to recognise the brand values built up through many
years of brand value-based advertising
A talk with Norman Barry
from logic to magic
(2004)
 A talk with Norman Berry
The leap from logic to magic comes from understanding that developing a message is not just
about:
The sender The message The medium The receiver

Where the sender is the boss of the message

But rather in understanding that the receiver [the audience] is the boss
Consumers are in charge of your message
The value of the message is not in what we are telling the receiver, but in how they respond to it
The audience becomes involved in the message either by rejecting, modifying, completing,
repudiating or even endorsing what you are telling them
All advertising communication elicits a response from the audience not simply to the words, but
to the advertisement as a whole
They become involved in the commercials and contributes to them.

Strategies and planning processes should not just be about writing down what you want your
advertising message to say you should be agreeing what response you want and looking for the
best way to get that response.
o Strategies should be written down and developed in a disciplined and logical way
o Make it plain what you are looking for a jump from strategic logic to executional magic
o Express what response you want the target audience to have and the emotional appeal you might use
e.g. love, fear, anger, patriotism, nostalgia, peace,or to humour, parody, hyperbole,
understatement,fantasy, wish fulfilment, responsibility, romance, sex, shock value, news, etc?
o Your task is to get your audience to respond in the way you want them to
 A talk with Norman Berry
Some examples:

Dunlop SP33 Guardian

Brief summary:
All weather market segment. Third into the
category. Competitor product is as good, but
not demonstrably superior to competition
Brief summary:
We wish to persuade potential readers that
the Guardian presents news and views in a
full, balanced, unbiased way, i.e. it is not
bigoted or narrow in its reporting

Once youve seen these ads, you never forget the emotional response you felt when viewing them.
 A talk with Norman Berry
The key things to remember when making the jump from logic to magic are:

1. Give yourself (and your agency) the right to be wrong

2. Outstanding, brilliant work (that is original and relevant) often involves risk

3. If any work (however creatively brilliant) is not relevant to the marketing or

communications problem it is designed to address, it is by definition, bad

4. No work should be approved or presented that is irrelevant or off its agreed brief

5. Your strategies should be written and developed in a disciplined and logical way

6. Express what response you want the target audience to have what emotional
appeal might you use

7. The viewer is active, not passive they will interpret, respond, react, reject or
endorse your message
 Ideation

If you dont stand for something, you

will fall for everything
(Paul Fireman, CEO Reebok)
 At its core

Ideation is the process of developing great

insight into great creative
And taking the brand values from logic to magic

Give me the freedom of a tightly defined strategy

(Norman Berry - Creative Director at Ogilvy)
 Definition(s)
Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas,
where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual,
concrete, or abstract.

Ideation comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to

actualization.

As such, it is an essential part of the design process, both in education and practice.

Ideation is the process of forming and relating ideas, oftentimes in a business setting.

It is used to describe the sequence of thought, from idea generation to idea

implementation, which is the result of mental activity that can be based on past or present
knowledge, thoughts, opinions, convictions or principles.

Ideation is meant to conceptualize an idea and is the thought processes involved in

apprehending and expressing a new concept, sometimes in a graphical or other similar
depiction.
 Ideation Process

Ensuring that concepts, ideas and tactics are researched and

tested during the process

This could be through:

o Analysis and understanding of customers, consumers and trends
o Researching prototypes, ideas, packaging, products and
communication

By putting it in front of the right people to get feedback

In order to better develop, shape and prioritise ideas

To understand if the product or idea is going to work

 Some steps in the Ideation Process
Product/Service

Client Customer/Need Brand Marketing Team

Agency Brief

Creative Brief Account Manager

Normally 2-week

Brainstorming Key Agency Members

process

Agency
Idea Refining
Account Manager &
Creative Team
Campaign Build

Pitch/Presentation Account Manager

Client
Client Review Brand Marketing Team

If business won
Client Feedback

Campaign Refining &

Client Sign-off
Agency Account Manager
Campaign Launch &
Action

Campaign Review

Campaign Results
Client Feedback to Client Brand Marketing Team
 Key Ideation Periods
1. Understanding of customers core needs (linked to product /
service)

2. Development of creative communications brief

3. Translation of client brief to creative brief

4. Brainstorming sessions

5. Idea refinement and testing (including primary research)

6. Campaign build

7. Client presentation (storytelling)

 An example that didnt work
Organix
Consumer Positioning: join us on a real food journey

Focus: product innovation that met consumers

functional needs, not on consumer emotional
engagement with real, organic food and the
essence of the brand

Strength: passionate consumers who fully

bought in to feeding organic and wouldnt be
dissuaded by the plastic fruit represented

Weakness: data driven insights - brand footprint

and creative concepts were not researched

Result: no impact on sales or consumer

emotional engagement

Poster Campaign
 And an examples that didnt quite work
Sveltesse
Insight: Watching what you eat is often about losing weight and low-fat foods are often tasteless

Consumer Positioning: liberate your belly button

Consumer Typology: Women who are confident about their body whatever the size.

Focus: 100% pleasure, 0% fat From 2:01 2:32

Strength: Well researched concept that had strong
consumer buy-in throughout western Europe
(Low fat yogurts that taste like full-fat versions)

Weakness: Consumer positioning & concept

assumed to transfer directly to UK & Ireland
consumer

Result: creation of a new emotional segment

within the diet yogurt category but not one that
resonated with the UK consumer
 Ideation Learnings
Great creativity is a process, not a moment
The ideation process is a continuous one

It involves sensor checking at every step to ensure that the message will
engage correctly with the intended audience

Requires both the client and the agency to ensure everyone in the process
understands the customer, the insights, the brand, the objectives and
strategy

Memorable creativity comes at great risk, but if it works:

o the intended audience feels the emotions that the message wanted to achieve
o remembers the emotion that the message conveyed
o engages with the product or service that sets it apart from the competitors
o resulting in the desired sales uplift and profitable growth for which it was
originally intended