Strategy_Scraplets v165
The great laughter-class divide
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If you havent already, I’d love for you to take less than 2 minutes to answer 3 questions re; having fun at work.
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One of the most important things you can learn as a freelancer (or employee tbh) is that clients value time above all. Time is more valuable than money.
Yes, I sell my expertise – but I am also selling a short term partnership/extra set of hands that gives the client back time.
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Sometimes a brand will experience natural, sudden growth.
Which often prompts the brand to launch a big ad campaign.
I wonder how often a big ad campaign that follows natural growth helps vs hurts?
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Clients love saying a concept is too nuanced for consumers.
but…
I’d rather have my ads be noticed and not understood than not noticed at all.
Yet the norm seems to be “this campaign is going live if it passes the rounds of review, internal politics and then creative testing – otherwise we’re doing nothing.
We’re still not communicating the biggest risk in launching brand campaigns – it isn’t the cost, it’s that the investment gets wasted if no one notices the work.”
thought exercise…
WHAT ARE THE WORST CASE OUTCOMES OF PUTTING CREATIVE COMMS OUT INTO THE WORLD?
The work is not understood
Doesn’t appeal to the consumer
the consumer doesn’t resonate with the tone
Comms are not single minded
Campaign is divisive
Campaign causes cultural backlash and mass negative perception
Nobody notices the work in the first place.
When it comes to the function of advertising, only the last two are actually an outcome where it would have been better to not spend the budget. The rest fall under “not as high of a rate of return as we would have hoped"
It’s like pulling money from a high yield savings because you’re only seeing marginal year over year growth.
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So what’s the barrier to getting work made?
Internal politics and career ambitions. A good marketing campaign can make or break a brand manager’s near-future career prospects. Same to be said for CMO’s.
this is why agency teams need to think through the lens of “how can we help get our client promoted?”
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This is wild:
the UK relinquishes a small island atoll and the .io domain is suddenly at risk of disappearing. (source)
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Chesterson’s Fence. A good reminder for all those looking to fix internal problems.
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One of the most difficult things to embrace as a human is ambiguity and uncertainty. That’s the core of a strategy job
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One of the best strategy deliverables nobody will ever ask for:
Either alongside or following a presentation, deliver a word doc version of the slides. Make sure it includes: “here is what has been decided” “what was presented” and “what needs to happen coming out of this”
You’d be surprised how much better this will make your own presentations as well if done concurrently.
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Freelance tips
try not to sell the diagnostic separate from the prescription.
Don’t provide a single solution; give 3 options and the consequences of choosing each.
Don’t ask open-ended questions and expect clients to make a decision – then get upset if the decision they made was bad. You were hired for your guidance as well as your time.
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re; the survey at the top (and the subject line):
This is horrible research methodology, but so far the findings have been binary. People are either having a lot of fun at work or havent even laughed in the past year.
There is a shrinking1 “middle class” of people having fun at work.
WEEKLY MONSTER
An oldie from when I was still doing collage.. a medium I have been missing recently.
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Need help selling in work? briefing in creative? or overseeing strategy work/teams in general? reach out: alex@stratscraps.com
I say shrinking, but I have no historical data. just an assumption.