Kristin Smith on "Working with Creatives"

I think, first and foremost, when you’re working with a creative team the most important thing is to enter, integrate them into the core team from the get-go. From the outset, include them in client meetings, in strategy meetings, in brainstorm. And what that does is it really immerses them in who are you talking to, what are you talking about, what are your messages, the barriers, the motivators; and, by doing so, they are going to be working off the same plate of information that everyone else is. So, first and foremost, that is the most important thing.

Secondly, work off a creative strategy, also sometimes called a creative brief. And in that you are outlining your strategies, who you’re talking to. You see the project in the context of the larger program. And make sure that -- it doesn’t matter who writes it; if it’s the creative team, if it’s the account team, if it’s the client -- but it’s vetted through all three groups and that approval is gained along the way so that you, that becomes the roadmap and the template for everything that you do. And once that creative brief is approved, then you have something you can go back to and develop creative on and judge creative on. Now, obviously, sometimes creatives go off on their own direction, and you may come back with an idea that’s not completely on strategy. And the best way to deal with that is to be very forthright and direct, address it head-on. Explain why it’s not on strategy but don’t necessarily just give up on the idea because there may be a good nugget of information. It might be a good strategic direction with minor tweaks that can evolve into the best creative concept that’s on strategy and does exactly what you want it to do.

I can’t emphasize enough that integrating them into the core team from the outset is vitally important. That’s including them when you go into focus groups and you’re talking with your target audience, when you’re having strategy meetings, and brainstorming. They really are going to be working off of the best base of knowledge if you do that. But then there’s a really hard part. You have to let them go. Let them unleash their creativity and understand that the creative process is an iterative process, and it usually starts with written concepts. And with written concepts, you have the ability to look at seven, eight, nine, ten different ideas that can span the gamut from very conservative to really far-thinking out of the box. And from that you’re going to be able to see what ideas percolate, which ones resonate, with you, what you think’s going to work with your target audience, what is on strategy, what may need to evolve, and it’s an iterative process of client review, of testing, of revisions, and it eventually evolves into layouts and copy treatments; but you do have to let the creative team go and just work.

Let them know what budgets are up front because then they’re going to be able to best manage your resources. Agencies know when they’re working on a PSA campaign that they can’t have casts of thousands, and it will be very important for you to listen to their suggestions and recommendations because they’re going to be best able to recommend how to economize while not sacrificing any of the quality. Working with an organization that understands you know the governmental approval process and can allow for timelines that keep that you know top of mind, who understand the client and are very familiar with your graphics standards because oftentimes with a government account they’re very particular on what logos go where and color treatment. Open up the idea to maybe a two-color project instead of a four-color project if you’re doing something from a print perspective. Those are all things that the creative team and the agency can work with you to economize while producing high quality, beautiful work. That’s going to gain attention. It’s going to be able to help you meet your goals.

There are a number of ways that you can gain efficiency as both from a project management standpoint as well as media planning. Oftentimes, if you can select an agency such as Ogilvie P.R. or a number of larger agencies, they already are very familiar with your messages, with the diseases, with, social marketing and can hit the ground running without having to do a lot of background research. So that is one way that you can gain efficiencies. It’s choosing your agency as really based on their knowledge and experience.

From a media perspective, if you happen to have money that you can apply to a paid media campaign, there are a number of things that you can do, and working with a reputable agency who has very strong contacts with advertising reps is a great way to start and just to throw off a couple of things that you can do to maximize efficiencies with the paid placement. With a social marketing message, you can oftentimes negotiate for free PSA placement as part of a paid media buy. So if you want to pay for one TV spot, you can negotiate for one free spot for every paid one -- sometimes up to two or three. It depends on the market, depends on the message, and it depends on the time of the year. There are certain times of the year that are more cluttered than others, and it’s more difficult to do that. But that’s a very effective way of increasing your message.

Another thing that you could do is focusing your investment only on one media partner, whether it’s a magazine group, a cable network, and what you say is, “I will give you all of the money, but you need to increase the value of the investment.” We were able to do something like this with WebMD where we paid $50,000 for an online presence, but got $250,000 worth of value. So by going with one media partner, you get a lot of exposure that garners significant value.

Another thing that you could do, if you’re doing a local campaign especially, is work with the local advertising bureaus, and those are associations where all the local media participate. And what you could do is go to that local advertising bureau and give them your money and say, “Can you leverage this investment with your member stations?” And that’s another good way of really stretching your advertising buck as much as you can.

And then the last thing is don’t underestimate the value of your advertising sales reps. Recently, I had the New York Times come in to talk to some of our PR accounts, and from that we were able to garner a full-page placement in the Sunday Times, which is something that you don’t normally expect and normally can’t get from your advertising reps, but you never know when they’re going to be a really strong ally.

…all agencies like to take on some sort of pro bono work that’s important to them, to their agency missions, their agency goals. But it’s important when you are approaching an agency for pro bono work that you understand the economic climate that we’re in right now. It’s very challenging. And to approach this question a couple of ways, one, it’s how you approach the agency and how you set up your contract. Understand when the agency is planning their, for their next fiscal year. Usually in third and fourth quarter you’re going to be able to approach them and talk to them about what do they like to do from a pro bono standpoint, how can your project strategically fit in with the goals of the agency? And give the agency as much lead time as possible, because then you’re going to have a much better chance of not only getting the agency to agree to do work up front but to really get top tier talent who’s going to be working on your project. When you talk with the agency, there will be either a letter of agreement or a contract, depending on the scope of work; and that is going to be very important, because what that will outline is the scope of work, timelines, what deliverables will be developed, who is responsible for the project from both the client perspective as well as the agency perspective, and also anticipated costs because oftentimes an agency will work for free but may have to pass along some of the print costs or whatever, some of the out-of-pocket.

I just have two little pieces of advice. One, keep the lines of communication open. Obviously, when you’re doing -- when you’re working with an agency, the whole goal is communicating, but when you share as much information with them as possible to the account team, to the creative team; when you invite them into the meetings into your offices; you’re going to get the best quality of work. And look at your agency as a partner, not a vendor, because you’ll be surprised at what brilliant ideas can come up from that partnership, what new creative avenues can be tapped but you may not have necessarily thought it because that’s what agencies are in the business of doing -- improving communication. And so use your, your agency as a partner, not as a vendor.