Conference Room Revelations
Every so often I’m reminded just how important the creative process can be – and not just from the obvious and practical perspective of arriving at memorable marketing vehicles suitable for a client’s target audience. Essentially, I’m amazed how often the essence of a client’s brand or products are evident to them only after the first round of creative concepts have been developed. Such reminders surfaced recently with two different clients. One situation involved a well-established consumer-targeted organization rolling out a new product line while the other consisted of a fairly new business-to-business client looking to promote themselves to potential industry partners.
In each case, the agency had gathered what we thought was sufficient background information on the clients’ specific goals to move forward with the creative process. However, in both situations, a review of the initial creative seemed to bring forth a flurry of candid client introspection about themselves as an organization and/or their product. There were broad, big picture questions that arose about who they really were, where they wanted to go and what, specifically, would their customers benefit from given the introduction of their new product.
That’s some pretty deep thinking for a meeting where sometimes all you get is feedback on logo size, font choice and color combinations. And while it would obviously be beneficial for all involved to have such basic insights answered ahead of this stage, I’m finding that often it is the review of design layouts that finally spark the type of collaborative soul-searching that is necessary for many organizations to figure out what it is they want out of their brand existence, let alone from a marketing campaign.
So, when I’m confronted with such a scenario at the conference table, I simply appreciate the fact that it is taking place. Even if it requires taking a step or two back in the creative process, I generally feel good about the role we play as a catalyst for such a critically important dialogue. As they say, it's better late than never.
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