Advertising Methodology (12) - The Creative Process

From this point, the Advertising Campaign enters a Development Realm. The project takes on a distinct creative flare. The Creative Team looks to the strategy work done to date, and brings in previous campaigns and the brand standards to start building the campaign’s Concept.

The Concept will be vetted with the client. This is often a very passionate moment for the client and the Advertising Agency. If the Concept survives this trial at all it may be chewed up and spit out as a sad semblance of its former self. How do you avoid this trauma? There are two tasks that the Advertising Agency has. First of all the Concept shouldn’t be a surprise to the client. The Agency must socialize the Concept with the client throughout its development. Secondly, the Agency must constantly evaluate the Concept against the Advertising Plan and everything that went before it.

The Creative Build may be a relatively long and complex process, and can include everything from writing copy, to shooting & editing commercials, to animating banner ads, to setting up landing pages, to building interactive games, to recording voice-overs, etc., etc., etc.. If the creative involves integrating with a client’s systems – like their web-site, transactional systems, CRM systems, and so on – then the appropriate IT or similar teams from the Client should be closely involved in the development of the system.