All Campaigns Should Be Treated The Same
The word "campaign" can mean a lot of things these days. In the Madmen days a marketing campaign may have consisted of a combination of print ads, billboards, and televisions spots, but these days a campaign may not even touch those traditional channels. Even if a campaign is focused on search engine marketing, programmatic digital ads and YouTube video, the initial process to develop that campaign and the creative that drives it should remain the same.Maybe it's because the budgets spent on digital campaigns are less (although I learned recently that General Motors was spending many millions a month on Facebook advertising at one point) or maybe it has more to do with the perception of a digital ad on a Google affiliate vs a billboard on the side of a freeway, but a common mistake with digital campaigns is to focus more on the strategy and targeting of a digital campaign than on the creative that drives the whole thing. Like all of our projects, we follow a DISCOVER, DESIGN, DEVELOP, DRIVE approach when we're engaged to develop a campaign. And no matter the scope or channel, we make sure the strategy drives the creative.
GO OLD SCHOOL
We start the design of all of our digital campaigns just like our traditional campaigns: With concept boards. They aren't formatted to look like a digital ad. In fact, they probably look more like a magazine ad than anything. But we've found this format inspires the most focused feedback from clients when they're unfettered by the constraints of the various digital sizes. Once the concept is developed it's much easier to scale it down to fit on a banner ad.
GO BACK TO BASICS
When it comes down to it, an ad is only going to be effective if the creative catches the attention of your audience and either engages them with your brand or inspires them to take some sort of action. The beautiful thing about digital is you can be extremely targeted with your audience so you can really tailor your creative to your audience. But remember, you can have a massive number of impressions, but they're useless without top-notch creative.So no matter what type of campaign you're setting off on, make sure and treat it like you're advertising at the Super Bowl. You'll get better results if you give it the effort it's due.