I'd like to talk to you a little bit now about where the concepts come from that tell brand stories. How do we develop those concepts? How do we design them? The most important thing here is, always start with the target customer. Always start with your audience and know as much about them as you possibly can. The important thing here, what are we trying to do with marketing and advertising? What we're trying to do is we're trying to change behavior. We're trying to influence somebody to change behavior in a certain way. And, what we're trying to do is to show them how a particular problem that they have can be resolved or solved by their interaction with the brand and the product, right? And so, this is really where our strategy comes from. In other words, if this is the problem that we want to change, what strategy could we use to then show them that by changing their behavior in a certain way, that is influenced or is a result of their interaction with the brand, we can help them to solve this particular problem that they have. This is the basis for our entire strategy. Now, how we tell the brand's story comes from the strategy and then going into the concept that we create, right? But, the most important thing is, know the target audience. So, how do we learn about our target audience? We can study them online. We can see what kinds of buying patterns that they have. We can see on social media how they interact with the brand. Or, what it is that they're they're saying, what kinds of words that they use, right? So, we can dig and research and get all this information out. Sometimes, your client will actually already come to you with this information. But sometimes, you need to actually go and study it yourself. In fact, it's recommended that you go and study it for yourself because, you might discover certain keys or clues to the concept that come from there, right? So, you need to know, what behavior am I actually trying to influence? And, I need to make sure that it's realistic. In other words, if I'm trying to change this behavior, can I realistically do that through the concept that I have, right? Know the goals and objectives thoroughly, right? So, what we want to do in this case is we want to focus on the benefit to the customer, right? How am I solving this problem that they have, right? Now, when it comes to creative advertising, try to avoid what we think of as just being entertaining. In other words, by just being funny or cute, we might entertain our client but we're not actually going to go through this whole process of showing them how to actually solve this problem that they have, right? So, we begin with all of this information that we have about the target audience. And then, we take all of this information that we have about the brand and the product. And, from there, we go through this brainstorming process, where we begin to connect all these words together, right? And out of that, will then come the concept, the creative concept for the campaign. Important thing, think very, very wide. In other words, don't limit yourself right off the bat by thinking about budget or locations, or how am I going to do this, or am I capable of doing this, or will the client accept it. Just think completely wide open. If money were no object, if location was not an issue, if production was not a problem, what would I do, right? And then, from there, you can begin to narrow down. Now, once you come up with your ideas, there's a very important thing that you need to do and that is check of the competition because the last thing in the world that you want to do is to show up to your clients office with an idea and find out that the competition did that same concept last year. So, once you go through this whole process, then go and find out what the competition has been doing, right? Are there similar ads that have come out, similar concepts that have already been used? The most important thing is, first of all, think of something that is going to solve your target audiences' issues. Make sure that your concepts are tied in with the brand's story. And, finally, make sure that your ideas are unique. And, that way, your client will choose your ideas every time.
