Creative Strategy and the Business of Design
Page 20
To my former professors in the Masters in Integrated Marketing program, as I learned the curriculum from you, I experienced what it meant to be taught by NYU professors. I attended Dr. Kalter’s capstone class with the mindset that it was my job interview and being asked to join the faculty among you on graduation day in 2010 was one of the most validating days of my career. Your example is what I aspired to during my time at NYU. To my cohort at NYU, iron sharpens iron. Thank you for making me better, Veena Ramesh, Gabriela Urvina, Lenny Vyater, Aditi Kapadia, Robert McCutcheon, Ping Pan, and Husbi Ahmed, and a special thanks to Sally Shapiro and Kyla Malone for being there to bounce things off of in a pinch. Thanks to Fred Nickols for allowing me to use your Strategy-Execution Matrix, and to Tom Fishburne, the Marketoonist, for the laughs I’ve had over the years from 8 Types of Creative Critics. To my dependable, talented, and loyal squad of freelancers, Rick Redznak, Danny Shaw, Travis Bonilla, Anthony Clarke, Hajime Yoshida, and Horace Maxwell: without you there would be no Davis Group. Thank you.
To the Department of Communication Design faculty at New York City College of Technology, thank you for the outlet and freedom to do what I do. I’m amazed to see how much we accomplish with so little. I’m inspired by your commitment to providing a public avenue to an industry with a high barrier to entry. Thank you MaryAnn Biehl for your leadership, your sacrifice, and the flexibility to write this book. Special thanks to Professors Joel Mason and Bob Holden for taking a chance on a twenty-five-year-old kid with two years out of Pratt and three years in the field. Fourteen years later I’m grateful to serve our students alongside you at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. To the Masters in Professional Studies in the Branding and Integrated Communications (BIC) program at the City College of New York, thank you for my outlet on the graduate level. To Nancy Tag, whose vision and dedication has built something really unique from the curriculum to the distinguished faculty, thank you for your trust. Thank you Dana Miller at Gotham Writers Workshop for finding my freelance editor Clifford Thompson, who helped me with shaping the manuscript before I submitted it to HOW. Big thanks to Ryan Britt’s Essay & Opinion class at Gotham—wow, that class with those characters was worth double what I paid (please don’t double your prices). To my 206 family of friends and Fine and Performing Arts Department at Hampton University and my Brooklyn brothers and sisters Nikhil, Janice, Pelin, Chad, Sanders and Tam from Pratt Institute. You were my support system then and you are my support system now. To Luke Sullivan and Pete Barry, thank you for writing the words that help me help my students. I hope that this book becomes to others what your books have been to me in the classroom.
To my students, the reason I am here, you are my wealth. I am your biggest fan and will be here for you until I’m cold and dead in the grave—e-mail me@douglasdavis.com. You make me proud when you do your best, not because you succeed or win. Take advantage of your learning environments no matter what form they come in because your education is your winning lottery ticket, your NBA draft, your NFL draft. Compete with yourself. Help others. Use what you’ve learned. Stick together. Make sure they know Brooklyn is in the building. Push. Lead. Rise. Grind. #getit Thank you to my wife Janelle for being here for the adventure that is our life. The last five years have been a whirlwind of work and play for us both and I’m proud to see you finally reach your Broadway dream. Last but not least, thank God for my statistics tutor Michael Malenbaum.
Copyright © 2016 by Douglas Davis.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
HOW Books
an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street
Avon, MA 02322
www.howdesign.com
ISBN 10: 1-4403-4155-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4403-4155-7
eISBN 10: 1-4403-4161-3
eISBN 13: 978-1-4403-4161-8
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, Douglas, author.
Creative strategy and the business of design / Douglas Davis.
Blue Ash, OH: HOW Books, [2016]
Includes index.
LCCN 2015050757 (print) | LCCN 2016007011 (ebook) | ISBN
9781440341557 (pb) | ISBN 1440341559 (pb) |
ISBN 9781440341618 (ebook) | ISBN 1440341613 (ebook)
LCSH: Commercial art. | Design. | Advertising. | Marketing.
LCC NC1001 .D39 2016 (print) | LCC NC1001 (ebook) | DDC
741.6068--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015050757
Cover letterform design © Tony Di Spigna.
Interior art by Douglas Davis.
Diagrams in Chapter 8 by Judy Abel.
Tactical and strategic images in Chapter 9 by Rick Redznak.
Interior cartoon by Tom Fishburne, Marketoonist, www.marketoonist.com.
This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.
Tables
Product Target Audience Feature
(What does the product offer?) Benefit
(What’s in it for me?)
Planet Fitness People who want to get in shape without feeling like a loser No “lunkheads” allowed You won’t feel intimidated every time you work out.
The Disney Rewards
VISA Card Moms Comes with 0% vacation financing Save money on your trip.
Nike running shoes Weekend athletes Built-in extra cushioning Your knees won’t hurt when you go running.
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Product Target Audience Feature
(What does the product offer?) Benefit
(What’s in it for me?) Value
(Why should I care?)
Planet Fitness People who want to get in shape without feeling like a loser No “lunkheads” allowed You won’t feel intimidated every time you work out. Feel confident as you get healthier.
The Disney Rewards VISA Card Moms Comes with 0% vacation financing Save money on your trip. A magical family experience at an affordable price.
Nike running shoes Weekend athletes Built-in extra cushioning Your knees won’t hurt when you go running. Look great. Feel great.
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CREATIVE STRATEGY FRAMEWORK
Target Facts Feature/Benefit Message or Objective
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CREATIVE STRATEGY FRAMEWORK: COLUMN BY COLUMN
Target Facts Feature/Benefit Message or Objective
Define Targets
in fragments that state demographics, psychographics, and/or behavioral terms.
Look here for logical ways
to create segmentation. You could look for differences in life stage or why the group would seek the brand, product, or service.
Decide whether the job should be focused on the brand or a particular product or service within the brand.
Look beyond the brand’s website for good and bad items to list here. Blogs and reviews will show any gaps between what the company says and what the customer is experiencing.
A Feature is a physical quality or tangible attribute that defines the product.
Tangible features often have intangible benefits and thus these are written as a ratio. This Feature enables this corresponding Benefit.
A Message is what the target should take away from your brand communications.
A client Objective usually begins with a verb: Convert, Drive, Engage, Build, Grow, Increase, Decrease, etc. by % among X target. Place both messages and objectives here so that you can give yourself flexibility to determine which is more important to focus on in your pitch or develop solutions that focus on both.
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Target Facts Feature/Benefit Objective or Messages
> Target 1 defined in a short fragment with demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data Historical information about the brand 1 Feature enabling 1 Benefit M: What Target X should take away from the communication
Target 2 defined in a short fragment with demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data Information from blogs about the brand 1 Feature enabling 1 Benefit M: What Target X should take away from the communication
Target 3 defined in a short fragment with demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data Information from the brand website 1 Feature enabling 1 Benefit O: Increase traffic by X%
Target 4 defined in a short fragment with demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data Brand perception information 1 Feature enabling 1 Benefit O: Convert Target 3 by X%
This target > would be interested in a conversation centered around this Fact > using the Feature/Benefit in the headline to get their attention > to deliver this message or accomplish this objective.
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