Creativity in the Modern Marketing Sector
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it; they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”
The quote mentioned above by Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs sheds light over the need and zeal of creativity and its essence in innovating new ideas, technologies and methodologies. Creativity has long been linked with channelising inner ideas, thoughts and practices and bringing them to the foreground. If it weren’t for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity that he had while being in a deep sleep, we would still be ignorant of the energy sources around us; if no one thought of exploring life on different planets, there would have been no efforts made for the same and no space shuttles.
Moving on in the current day and age, creativity has a direct correlation with coming up with new ideas for marketing procedures and ensuring that the consumers interact in a more personalised way with their favoured branded goods and services. The basis of marketing lies in converting leads, attracting target audiences, getting insights about consumers’ behaviours, deploying products and goods that appeal to end-users, and streamlining sales and advertising processes. Today, several brand management courses teach about the subtleties of these domains in-depth and help teach about this sector’s roles and responsibilities to upcoming professionals.
How Marketing Campaigns Involve Creativity?
- What makes modern marketing more creative?
- Does creativity in the marketing world focus more on imagination or innovation?
- What is the interconnection between marketing campaigns and fostering creativity?
The answers to the above questions are common amongst those new and emerging marketing managers who need ideas for starting their campaigns. However, it’s always good practice to understand the basics of this sector and then focus on developing campaigns that bring in more revenues, profits and ROIs.
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Creating Marketing Campaigns with Customers Involvement
Customer-centric is a code word in the modern marketing space that aims at involving consumer-ideated solutions for brands and products. With the advancements in science and technology, the customers today have upgraded themselves and act as creators who love developing and publishing content, overcoming challenges. Creativity is such a content generated domain means taking customers along for establishing impactful marketing campaigns.
The interaction between consumers, aka creators and marketing firms, gives companies insights about what appeals to their target audience and what does not; moreover it gives a customer perspective right from the start for synthesising powerful advertising campaigns that reach more and more people. Online digital marketing courses shed light on some of the potent examples of creativity driven marketing like Intuit and Brocade.
Intuit focuses on gathering intel from self-employed people working from homes and understands their concerns and issues. Through annual reports and research, Intuit’s marketing team was able to fathom that there was a pain point of tracking vehicle gas mileage. In order to curb this, Intuit came up with a new feature in their mobile app that combines location data with Google maps and the user based calendar for automatic tracking of mileage. This helped in simplifying year-end tax planning and becoming an instant success.
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Another example is Brocade, a data and network solutions provider company that developed a “customer first” marketing program to identify top 200 customers. These consumers were responsible for generating nearly 200% of sales for Brocade and worked closely with these individuals for developing and delivering customised packages that took their B2B sales score from 50 to 62.
Investments in End-to-End Experiences
Creating a good and well managed customer experience is a top priority for any marketing firm or agency. Hence, they focus on things that they can control in order to achieve such levels. Creative marketers are entrusted with the job of creating a seamless customer experience by taking a broader view of organisational operations and connecting different marketing processes together.
Several branding and advertising courses from MICA, amongst the elite universities across the country, throw light over the several components that undergo while developing an end-to-end customer experience for a specific brand. The different elements of these value based experiences include- the product that is being marketed, the entire buying process, the ability to provide support and to build genuine customer relationships over time.
Investing in end-to-end customer experiences can help firms increase their bottom lines and serve better to their consumer base. A good experience for customers pays long-term dividends and helps businesses attract more buyers, hence increasing sales of a specific good or service.
Kaiser Permanente is a potent example of a healthcare business firm that has worked on creating a good customer experience for its new plan members. The marketing department focused on delivering value to their new customers by assisting with online registrations, refilling prescriptions, making appointments with doctors and others.
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Businesses need to Think and Act Like a Startup
Successful marketing agencies take a leaf out of startups in terms of developing their policies, budgeting and driving sales by deploying consumer-faceted procedures for facilitating their growth and success. In the modern world of sales and marketing, creative marketers need to operate and envision like entrepreneurs and survey their firm’s topography to maintain a product/market fit.
Today young and aspiring marketing managers are shifting towards following a lean startup and agile development path for carrying out their business particulars. These new tactics have developed as a result of rapid iteration and customer testing for the promotion of products, goods and services. The subtle changes taking place in consumer behaviour, technology and media are redefining and revolutionising the nature of creativity in marketing silos.
Marketers of the past liked and hired promoters, artists and managers. In contrast, today, these PR and marketing managers need to think and act like innovators that thrive on offering value to their loyal customer base through their products, customer service and other practices. Startup based planning and structuring give organisations scope to try out new things such as remodelling promotion channels, bringing in influencers for product advertising, launching a new brand, attracting prospective buyers, amongst others.
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Creativity and Marketing: A Combination that Gives
As seen from the points described above, creativity plays a vital role in setting up appropriate marketing practices that lead to greater returns for organisations. Several modern advertising jobs in India demand that applicants filling up these applications need to be well-versed with concepts that can be learned via online digital marketing courses. The advancements made in other advertising and sales domains require marketers to stay updated with the latest trends and influences taking place in these industries.
Therefore, young and emerging marketers need to set out in their career roles by having a clear and concise understanding of various rudimentary elements that form these sectors. As shown by the section above, creativity can be bolstered in marketing scenarios for developing effective campaigns, channels for promotion and other aspects. One needs to possess a rudimentary understanding of its fundamentals and apply them successfully while deploying strategies.
Marketers need to round up these facets and develop a robust plan for achieving both marketing and organisational objectives. A marketing plan deployed utilising these parameters can successfully implement marketing procedures and help businesses grab more attention and lead.
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Developing a 2022 Marketing Strategy: How to Bring in those Customers?
The year 2020 was just like the cricket game (T-20), which the entire world never hoped for but just came about instead as an aberration for most businesses. The past year taught the human race (apart from that, they’re point objects!),that nothing is guaranteed, and hence organisations should be well-prepared in advance to face the uncertainties and cash on the opportunities they bring.
In the current year, 2021, businesses and their owners have learnt from last year and incorporated digitally backed mechanisms for driving their niches and achieving marketing objectives. There are several reasons for taking a digital path- first that whatever may come, the IT department will continue to advance. Secondly, with the world transgressing towards digitised methodologies, shifting businesses online is the only way they can stay relevant maintain economic growth.
In such a global scenario, the rules need to be rewritten, and marketing games require different players that can drive a corporation’s success. Marketing agencies have made it their priority to review their policies and ensure that they pay dividends in the long term to keep linearity in their business value. However, before starting out afresh in developing a marketing strategy for the year 2021, business owners need to self-reflect and ask the following questions:-
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- What was the company’s growth in last year?
- Which of the marketing channels deployed by the company brought value to the company’s customers in recent years?
- What does the annual/half-yearly growth timeline look like?
- If any changes have been noticed in an organisation’s competitive landscape?
- Are the organisations facing any market saturation?
The questions as mentioned above are self-reflective in nature that marketers need to ponder over before setting out their strategies. It’s always advisable to look at different rationalities and evaluate the insights such as sales metrics, growth trends, no of leads, new leads and regular customers for developing future marketing plans. These questions suggest the interaction between combining sales, promotion and marketing environments to come in together to drive revenues for a specific corporation.
Business marketers need to understand how their policies can help firms sustain growth and bring in successful projects. One of the critical areas for developing a marketing strategy in the year 2021 is to educate the target audience and general public about the pain points of their upcoming products, goods and services, foster an amicable relationship with end-users and their brands and give out red hot leads to sales teams. The top-rated marketers always keep a tab over the latest developments and trends taking place in the marketing atmosphere. After that, these are incorporated in new strategies, technologies and future plans.
Businesses need a planned and well-orchestrated approach for tickling off the boxes to maximise their results from evergreen digital marketing techniques and methodologies. There’s a 70/20 rule that comes into play while setting out on strategies. It includes focusing on the things that are a core part of business nearly 70% of the time, and 20% is the space wherein marketing managers try to push their firms towards new shores and extend their boundaries. Doing so helps in unearthing the unknown and recognising new opportunities, challenges and other prospects.
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The last 10% is reserved to bring out the inner experimental scientist who navigates uncomfortable scenarios by meeting failures. Marketers need to survey the digital platforms, new and innovative marketing techniques, social media channels and other areas for implementing their strategies. Continuous review of last year’s business procedures, highlighting the critical indicators for growth and other mechanisms, can clearly picture an organisation’s position.
Marketing Strategy 101: Bringing it into Reality
The video link provides a quick look at the basic principles that undergo a marketing strategy.
The digital marketing strategy is brought about by combining different constituent elements described in the above section. It is built in association with the company’s objectives, the trends that rule the international markets, other growth parameters and metrics, and planning out the expected five to ten-year success rate. Taking and comprising all these leads to a successful, result-oriented and achievable marketing strategy that helps in the development of great campaigns.
A well-defined and clearly stated marketing strategy sets up measurable, achievable, and realistic goals in compliance with corporational long-term goals and mission statements. Many brand management courses online teach about the nuanced mechanisms that monitor and assess different measurables that help reach a wider audience.
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In order to write a successful and goal-oriented marketing strategy, it’s vital to address the areas that it needs to focus on and formulate planning accordingly. The current technological space offers lots of opportunities for the digital marketing sector. Still, it’s up to the management team to capitalise on tools that help in reaching the right set of customers and segmented groups within the target audience.
The marketing strategy needs to include the following steps:-
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Step 1: Identification of Business Objectives
The first step for building a marketing strategy is to identify and map out the business goals that are consistent with their projected mission and vision statements. Furthermore, there needs to be an alignment of marketing procedures, resources, intel and data insights with the overall goals set up by organisations.
Marketing managers need to keep a close tab over predefined objectives laid out by firms and ensure that they don’t flicker away from those while developing their strategies.
The goals defined need to be smart in nature i.e. S for Specific, M for Measurable, A for Achievable, R for Relevant and T for Time-Bound
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Step 2: Stating and Laying out Marketing Objectives
Once the organisational objectives have been aligned with what the marketing strategy needs to achieve, it’s vital to set up the required goals that can help firms reap their benefits, profits and other revenues. Marketing objectives serve as a motivating factor for employees to perform their tasks as per their capabilities and for managers to manage their team and other resources.
Marketing executives need to make sure that their overall strategies and plans are practical, measurable and sustainable. The mark of a great system is the one that requires minimal changes and refinements and is a long-term procedural document that identifies the goals for the next 2-3 years.
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Step 3: Profiling Customers and Competitors
Marketers need to conduct in-depth market research and vet out their customers based on their target audience and their needs. Profiling customers helps segregate audience groups based on their purchasing trends, frequency of purchases, the product they bought, end-users location, and other demographics that allow marketers to develop their policies with a better customer focus.
Marketing agencies also need to develop a profile for their competitors and identify their goods, services, supply chains, pricing of products and the various marketing tactics involved.
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Step 4: Developing Contingency Plans and Making Adjustments
Marketers need to preach and profess to their subordinates that not only plans will meet success, and hence failures are a part of strategy development. Working in a creative field, there are several ups and downs, and thus adequate measures should be set up in place for tackling them positively.
Furthermore, with changes in international markets, the emergence of different trends and practices, the strategies need to be refined and changed to incorporate those amendments. Staying up to date with the latest technologies, market analysis, competition, customers, suppliers, and other facets will assist in auguring a well-formulated strategy.
The steps described above are universally followed for developing successful and well-managed strategies that help change the quality of products, goods and services. Along with this, there need to be meticulous marketing campaigns that help firms with product promotion over different channels.
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Brand Campaigning: A Look into Genius Campaigns over the Years
Let’s take a layman’s look into what exactly marketing means; it’s actually a practice that is associated with putting forth the right message across the right target audience by developing the right sort of products. Brand campaigns are another facet of the marketing world involved explicitly in raising awareness for brands and their equity.
Today, several types of branding strategies help brand campaigns embody their image, public perception and segregating the organisation from fellow competitors.
Here are some of the brand campaigns that have been popular in the marketing world and stood out with their creativity.
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Dove Campaign for Identifying Real Beauty
For decades, brands have fed off women’s insecurities and deployed products that can help improve their appearance, outer beauty and other touch-ups. However, this was the norm until it came with a different opposite approach altogether. They did some background research and concluded that social media has a significant role in defining beauty.
Dove marketing managers came up with a successful campaign that “Tested on Real Curves”, thereby making beauty a universal concept by embracing all body types, not just for toned models. Dove successfully launched products used by women of all ethnicities, ages, body types, and others.
Old Spice Products for Men
Old Spice marketers arrived at a glaring conclusion back in 2009 when they realised that most of their body wash shampoos and conditioner purchases were made by women. Therefore, the marketers had to rethink their target audience and make themselves relevant to the male population.
They came with an ever present but often overlooked advertising formula- “to say what you’re seeing”. This meant in the following adverts for the Old Spice shampoos when the characters said he was on a horse and actually on one! This had a massive impact on their market standings and became the no.1 brand for male shampoos and body wash.
ALS: Ice Bucket Challenge
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ALS was amongst the first marketing techniques wherein the customers were given the option to play out their own campaigns instead of relying on one provided by the firms. Under this brand, the campaign was started by a golfer Chris Kennedy whose relative suffered from ALS, and he proceeded to pay charity for the same by dousing in ice-cold water.
The influence of social media alongwith the Internet made the video viral. In the space of the next few days, several elite personalities, celebrities, sportspersons and others across the world joined the challenge. The end result was that nearly $15 million was raised for charity.
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Kmart: Ship my Pants Campaign
Kmart today offers everything that a new house owner, university student and an old couple need- clothes, electronics, sports items, gifts for your kids, shoes, home decor, bicycles and others. There are several memes doing rounds on social media that show the “magnetic power” of Kmart in buying different goods offering products at affordable prices.
However, there was a time when Kmart used to struggle with brand image and perception and was the place only old folk used to visit for purchasing their clothes. With their “Ship my Pants” Youtube campaign, Kmart highlighted their online shopping feature and garnered widespread attention online that helped drive sales.
Apple: Get a Mac Brand Campaign
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Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign worked on keeping things simple and displayed features through personification backed by humour. After that, a comparison between Mac and PC was made by standing them side by side. There were 66 short TV advertisements for the “Get a Mac” series that explained differences between the two through tackling viruses, user experience, special functions, amongst others.
This campaign was focused on interacting with customers all over the world. Hence, Apple selected different actors that embodied nerdy/cool personalities for offering fresh, informative and funny approaches to the campaigns.
Apple Inc witnessed an increase in sales by 12% after the first few commercials, and by the quarter of 2006, Apple sold a record breaking 1.6 million macs.
Google Chrome: Dear Sophie
As Google expanded its business and gained more and more competitors, the marketers realised that in order to stay at the top in terms of technological giant’s list, they need to interact and engage with their customers via a different message. They took the help of emotional branding through their campaign- “Dear Sophie” that tugged at the heartstrings of their loyal consumers.
The campaign showed the sharing of heartfelt messages via various Google owned services and how they came together to create an impactful marketing niche for attracting customers. The campaign showed how Google and its products were instrumental in leaving a lasting impression on their users.
Coca Cola
The multi-million beverage industry constantly comes up with adrenaline and positive campaigns for marketing their product. With Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” brand campaign, the company focused on expressing love for their consumers by making it more personalised.
The organisation installed differently “Hug Me” vending machines that gave a Coca Cola can tell when one hugged the machine. It helped in providing a more personalised and helped in increasing their sales across countries.
Another aspect of the “Share a Coke” campaign was that it invited the target audience to share their Cokes with others, thereby giving off feelings of happiness and togetherness.
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Spotify
Spotify is a music streaming platform that plays music based on custom playlists, mood and other factors. The company always comes up with eye-catching billboards, animations and other digital signages. Spotify went a notch further with the end of 2017 campaign “2018 Goals” that displayed the company’s take on New Year’s resolutions in a humorous way and suggested a song name for the same.
It showcased the power of analytics and featured a variety of artists and funny takes on demographic and analytical data generated for providing personalised playlists and songs. It allowed commuters to laugh at something while they sip coffee and wait for their train or bus to their offices or place of work.
Spotify is aimed at bridging the gap between real life and the digital world.
Nike: Just Do It
Whenever one sees a Nike product, one automatically visualise its “just do it” tagline. The brand campaign has been a vital cog in creating blood-pumping and adrenaline-filled advertisements to promote their products, sportswear, and other goods. Nike’s Just Do It campaign was first launched in 1988 that capitalised on the fitness craze building up around the same time.
The Just Do It was a short and precise marketing campaign that cleared thoughts when people went for a workout or did some exercise. For example, when people went for a mile-long run, walking up a flight of stairs or anything related, the slogan was repeated in their heads, and it led to high turnovers for the company.
Absolut Vodka: Absolut Bottle
Absolut is one alcohol company that, despite having no distinct shape for its bottles, has become the most recognisable bottle in the international markets today. It has its “In the Wild” brand campaign to thank for its widespread consumption. The campaign was immensely successful that it went for a record 25 years and has now become the longest uninterrupted brand campaign ever.
When the campaign started, Absolut Vodka had a mere 2.5% stronghold of the vodka market. When the brand campaign finally came to an end in the late 2000s, Absolut Vodka imported nearly 4.5 million cases across the globe and more than half of vodkas in the US.
Volkswagen (Think Small Campaign)
There was a gold standard branding campaign launched by motor company Volkswagen “Think Small”. The campaign was brought to light in the year 1960 that questioned people’s perceptions about a specific product and therefore created a change in the general public.
In order to create a target audience amongst American consumers, the German company played right into the audience’s expectations by their tagline- “You think I’m small? Yeah, I am”.
The best part about Volkswagen is that they never showcased something that they were not, and it helped them make their motorcars a success within the US.
The greatest lesson learnt from this campaign is that honesty in branding goes a long way in establishing a loyal customer base.
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California Milk Processor
The California Milk Processor ‘Got Milk” campaign was instrumental in taking up the milk sales up to a 7% increase in California. The company roped in Hugh Jackman to market their milk production and focused on those who already drank milk.
What can be learnt from this ad campaign is that it’s not about always getting a brand new audience for marketing products and goods but rather involving the current audience for appreciating and using the product more often by turning the audience into advocates and creating appealing content for enjoying the product.
Starbucks #Unicorn Frappuccino
The coffee and beverage chain Starbucks came up with an engaging online campaign with its #Unicorn Frappuccino that went for a week in February 2017. The branding and advertising campaign were again fuelled by customers, aka coffee drinking millennials, who shared and posted pictures of their beverage online on Instagram.
This brand campaign was a huge success, and it helped in driving significant organic traffic. Marketers came up with a glittery pink and white coloured coffee unicorn frappuccino that helped in the viralling of Starbucks drinks online. It led to successful brand communication across the popular social media channels.
Gillette #TheBestManCanBe
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Gillette went down the unconventional path for marketing its products online back in 2019. They took a stand against toxic masculinity by pointing out bad behaviour citing “men would be men”. The Youtube video garnered attention and became the most disliked video of the year, but Gilette was able to build trust, encourage awareness and profess social change via their advertisement.
This led to nearly 1.5 social media mentions in two days; the hashtag #TheBestManCanBe was used 187,400 times in a day and created value through their outrage marketing campaign. It was a great brand engagement technique that brought dividends for the company.
National Geographic #YourShot Campaign
National Geographic brought its dramatic visuals and iconic photographs to light by starting the #YourShot Instagram brand campaign. The campaign allowed professional and amateur photographers across the world to tag their clicked photos for a chance to get featured on their @natgeoyourshot page.
Over 10 million photos were submitted on the page that led to powerful user-generated content, and today this hashtag has a colossal 14 million images! Moreover, this campaign was a massive success since it gave NatGeo much more fame than its 14-year-old website ever did. Social media is a resourceful tool for delivering impactful and powerful messages to its people.
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World Health Organisation
The WHO put its hand up in the mix for online brand campaigning for fighting with Covid-19. Its #SafehandsChallenge aimed at guiding people with the correct techniques for maintaining their hygiene in order to avoid transmission of the virus.
Users around the world joined this campaign by sending their videos on popular social media platforms and even on Tiktok that led to nearly half a million mentions within a space of an hour.
Pepsi “Is Pepsi OK’ Campaign
The “Is Pepsi OK?” campaign was launched during Superbowl advertisements in 2019 that focused on influencer marketing for conversion of leads. The famous soft-drink company roped in Steve Carrell (The Office TV show fame), rappers Cardi B and Lil John for promoting their product in their advertisement.
Within minutes, the campaign became quite popular and garnered attention from numerous viewers and other celebrities present during the Super Bowl and amongst several others watching at home.
Chipotle: The “Back to the Start” Campaign
Chipotle’s “Back to the Start” campaign was a huge hit back in 2012 when they launched their range of new products in the market. The marketing team put forth a loyalty program for their new customers and made an animated video for the same.
The brand campaign was first made public at the 2012 Grammy’s award ceremony that ushered in the branded content era. Interestingly, the campaign was Chipotle’s first-ever national spot and the two-minute video helped in attracting consumers. Advertising is amongst the several pathways for increasing brand visibility across platforms.
BMW “The Hire” Campaign
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BMW’s “The Hire” campaign was deployed way back in 2001 and 2002 that leveraged the power of the Internet for marketing their vehicles. The marketing team developed a series of eight short films, each with a well-defined plot that aimed at projecting the cars to consumers.
It was the first-ever form of branded content that had a series of videos for its marketing and promotion. It also featured actors and actresses such as Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Don Cheadle, and Madonna.
Allstate: The Mayhem Campaign
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The state is an insurance company that came up with a humorous way of suspecting damages caused by unforeseen calamities. The brand campaign was launched in 2010 about how disasters can ruin any day.
Its advertisement is full of mayhem and unrest in the house with leaking pipes, crevices through walls and other aspects that show that it’s never too late to book an insurance agent for homes.
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If it’s Viral, It Will Sell
The article above speaks volumes about how a thriving and sustainable marketing agency is built on involving customers with policy-making stages and taking their feedback for deploying customer-centric pathways. Furthermore, credible brand management courses are vital in creating a seamless and streamlined end-to-end consumer experience that acts as the backbone for reaping profits for organisations.
This is an excellent technique for establishing value-driven brands learned via branding and advertising courses from MICA to help in developing products that appeal to end-users. Moreover, with the rapid changes and fluctuations in international markets, modern marketers need to don the hat of entrepreneurs and seek out advertising jobs in India to carry out their duties successfully.
More Information:
Future in Digital Marketing as Career
Is Digital Marketing a good Career in India?
Why to Choose a Career in Digital Marketing?
10 Best Digital Marketing Courses to Advance Your Career
Growth & Opportunities for Digital Marketing Professionals in 2022
IIM KASHIPUR Executive Development Programme In Strategic Brand Management
