Playing to the Wrong Audience?

Too often creativity is worshipped as the pagan god of advertising, leading the advertiser down the broad road to egregious marketing sins and billions of wasted advertising dollars.

Unfortunately, marketers congregating at the false altar of “creativity” tend to leave their good business sense behind. Instead of selling, their ads simply confuse, irritate or entertain. The intended audience shifts from client sales prospects to other “creative” types whom the ad’s creators are trying to impress. So your desired ad response changes from “This could help solve my problems!” to “What a clever ad!”

Instead of eschewing proven advertising principles as passé and mimicking the latest design trends, it’s important to focus on your objective to promote the sale of your products or services.

If your agency talks more about award-winning “creative” than it does about supporting your marketing and sales objectives, watch out! They may have your communications playing to the wrong audience...at your expense. Will your business grow by winning creative awards or sales prospects? Don’t count on ad judges to truly understanding your customers.

Creativity’s only purpose should be to capture the interest of the target audience relative to what’s being advertised. Real creativity takes place before an ad is designed. It happens during the definition of concepts that support product positioning and selling strategy. And real creativity also helps integrate the production with other communications.

Creativity is important. Don’t abandon it. But be sure to stay true to your audience, and they should respond to you.

Melinda