Surface Level Thinking

I haven’t been in the business long. I’ve only worked at a few agencies and seen a few different styles. So when I talk about the industry as a whole, I’m sure there are exceptions. However, from my observations I feel there is a tendency that hinders the ability for creatives to come up with innovative traditional and “nontraditional” advertising. Too often the creative brief will state the required medium in the first paragraph. I have learned and agree with something they do here at Crispin Porter + Bogusky. I call it surface level thinking. Long before you start thinking of a medium, you begin by thinking of the most basic, creative way to express the value of the product. For example, the target of the Volkswagen GTI has a nagging urge to drive fast. What if we represent this urge with a character that says out loud what these drivers are thinking in their heads? You come up with a ton of these small thoughts and present them to your Creative Director. After you have a few good thoughts then you continue to push them out until they eventually fall into the best medium fit for the message. The key is to stay on the surface and let the best ideas find their way to a root (medium). CB+B calls this thinking of creative content. I heard about this process first at a Utah Ad Fed luncheon where Jamie Webb spoke about it. Jamie did a great job explaining it, but now I realize how possible it is that no one really understood him enough to know how to do it. I hope this post helps.

• Why the sumos? www.sublymonal.com