A Creative RIOT
by Harry Hoover
Published on this site: September 3rd, 2005 - See
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Relevant, original and impactful: that's what my friend
Creative Director Jim Mountjoy says that effective creative
must be. With apologies to Jim, I have my own acronym because
I think ROI is only 75 percent of the way there. Effective
creative is a RIOT: relevant, impactful, original and true.
Let's say you are a personal injury attorney who represents
the people. Do you think that a blue collar worker cares if
you have "protected North Carolinians since 1975,"
or would a message like "fighting the system for you"
resonate more? The first is chest-thumping, the second is
more relevant.
A campaign we once did for Verbatim data storage products
is a great "impactful" example. Everyone else in
the industry was doing technical feature ads, but consumers
told us they didn't care how the products were made, they
wanted to know their data was safe. We took that relevant
message and brought it to life. A comet streaks toward earth
and a cartoon bubble from the planet says, "We may not
live but at least the data will survive. Verbatim. Your best
defense against data loss." Sales leads increased by
more than 300 percent. Impactful? I think so.
Original is hard. How many times have you seen lame creative
that steals from the successful "Got Milk?" creative?
That doesn't mean you can't use things from popular culture
in an original way. In a branding campaign I worked on for
First Federal of Charleston, we took the Hal computer imagery
from the movie "2001," turned it into an ATM, and
let it be a surrogate for the big, impersonal banks.
Truth, however, is the most important element. What if you
had an ad that said: "Remember when a small business
had access to the bank president; when you could talk with
a loan officer who understood your business and when the bank
would actually send a courier to pick up your deposit? No?
We don't either that's why" Now, would you believe
that ad from Bank of America? I don't think so. But from my
client, the start-up Bank of Commerce, it is true and believable.
There you have it. Now, what's keeping you from starting
a creative RIOT?
Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR,
http://www.hoover-ink.com.
He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom
line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like
Brent Dees Financial Planning, Levolor, New World Mortgage,
North Carolina Tourism, TeamHeidi, Ty Boyd Executive Learning
Systems, VELUX, Verbatim and Wicked Choppers
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