Whenever I’ve had a creative brief for a product (a food, a shower gel, a new type of power tool… whatever), one of the first things I’ve done is sat and looked at it (from all different angles), held it in my hands, tried using/eating it … sometimes for two or three hours.
Why? Because sometimes, the simplest, most creative, attention-grabbing idea might be staring you right in the face, rather than some complex, ‘clever’ campaign.
Sometimes, the simplest idea is to be found within (or on) the product itself… like this Christmas ad for Hovis:
As one person commented (on Twitter, I think): ‘It’s so obvious that I’m sure it’s been done before’.
It hasn’t.
The number of advertising creatives, account execs, planners, in-house marketers who must’ve looked at a Hovis loaf, over the years, and not seen that ‘Ho Ho Ho’ (and the cute white dusting of flour / snow on top) …. it seems crazy.
It took one person to see that – one person with a clear mind, geared towards simple, lateral thinking, with no clutter in the way.
Whether you’re a huge multinational or an SME; if you sell a particular product, have a good old stare at it, run your hands over it, and just see if you might be missing a really obvious, simple, creative idea/marketing campaign that will blow people’s socks off. It might be staring you in the face.
In fact, to round off, here are some ads that came straight from the product itself: