The Marketing Creativity Conundrum

Frequently, when planning marketing campaigns or discussing how to market a brand or product, there’s a demand for creative ideas. The first stage of many people’s planning is looking for creative ways to “promote” their campaign.

how_to_store_a_cakeBut, frequently, what they are missing isn’t creativity but rather a working strategy:

  • What’s the strategy?
  • Who is the audience? Usually there are multiple audience stakeholders
  • What’s the core messaging (values/benefits for each target market)
  • Are you positioned in the right market?
  • Are you going after the people most likely to buy?
  • Tactically – are you running a B2C campaign for a B2B campaign?
  • Have you discussed the ROI: What’s in it for them?
  • Are you using the right channels? If you’re working with a PR company, are they pitching media with the right messages or just posting press releases on free press release sites?

There’s a role for creativity, but that’s the icing. Creativity – or lack of it  – won’t make or break your product/service. However, if you have the wrong strategy, than you won’t succeed. You can have a cake without icing, but you can’t have a cake without flour. Strategy is the flour, while creativity is the icing. Icing’s nice, but are you trying to get the icing without doing the hard work?

Creativity comes after a proper strategy.

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