A golden rule of marketing one of my ex-bosses taught me was avoid platitudes and clichés in your advertising. With a warming smile I saw this add currently hanging at Twickenham station.
"we mean business" is a classic platitude and the visual does nothing for the product benefits either.
But it still got me thinking about the positives.
Clichés and platitudes become so as they are used so often right? and....?
Granted I have grown a little tired of seeing images on proposals and documents featuring light bulbs, handshakes and my favourite; plant shoots growing out of cupped hands of soil. But aren't these images used often as they capture the exact metaphor you want to use? What's the issue? For some this kind of creative is exactly the safe and steady paid of hands (see what I did there) some business need.
I remember being briefed to create 'something new and different' and on returning the feedback was 'oh, but not that new and different'. Had I opted for a "we mean business" approach, perhaps the outcome would be different.
That's the magic of a creative brief. No idea is any less imaginative to the client than the next submission from the agency. We'd go along way if we stopped over giving and tweaked just a little of the edges (bugger, done it again!).
Happy analogies and as I was coached once "think about your pitch as the opportunity to create mediocrity and succeed in style."
"we mean business" is a classic platitude and the visual does nothing for the product benefits either.
But it still got me thinking about the positives.
Clichés and platitudes become so as they are used so often right? and....?
Granted I have grown a little tired of seeing images on proposals and documents featuring light bulbs, handshakes and my favourite; plant shoots growing out of cupped hands of soil. But aren't these images used often as they capture the exact metaphor you want to use? What's the issue? For some this kind of creative is exactly the safe and steady paid of hands (see what I did there) some business need.
I remember being briefed to create 'something new and different' and on returning the feedback was 'oh, but not that new and different'. Had I opted for a "we mean business" approach, perhaps the outcome would be different.
That's the magic of a creative brief. No idea is any less imaginative to the client than the next submission from the agency. We'd go along way if we stopped over giving and tweaked just a little of the edges (bugger, done it again!).
Happy analogies and as I was coached once "think about your pitch as the opportunity to create mediocrity and succeed in style."
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