A Creative RIOT

Relevant, original and impactful: that's what my friend Creative Director Jim Mountjoy says that effective creative must be. With apologies to Jim, I have my own acronym because I think ROI is only 75 percent of the way there. Effective creative is a RIOT: relevant, impactful, original and true.

Let's say you are a personal injury attorney who represents the people. Do you think that a blue collar worker cares if you have "protected North Carolinians since 1975," or would a message like "fighting the system for you" resonate more? The first is chest-thumping, the second is more relevant.

A campaign we once did for Verbatim data storage products is a great "impactful" example. Everyone else in the industry was doing technical feature ads, but consumers told us they didn't care how the products were made, they wanted to know their data was safe. We took that relevant message and brought it to life. A comet streaks toward earth and a cartoon bubble from the planet says, "We may not live but at least the data will survive. Verbatim. Your best defense against data loss." Sales leads increased by more than 300 percent. Impactful? I think so.

Original is hard. How many times have you seen lame creative that steals from the successful "Got Milk?" creative? That doesn't mean you can't use things from popular culture in an original way. In a branding campaign I worked on for First Federal of Charleston, we took the Hal computer imagery from the movie "2001," turned it into an ATM, and let it be a surrogate for the big, impersonal banks.

Truth, however, is the most important element. What if you had an ad that said: "Remember when a small business had access to the bank president; when you could talk with a loan officer who understood your business and when the bank would actually send a courier to pick up your deposit? No? We don't either that's why..." Now, would you believe that ad from Bank of America? I don't think so. But from my client, the start-up Bank of Commerce, it is true and believable.

There you have it. Now, what's keeping you from starting a creative RIOT?

Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Levolor, New World Mortgage, North Carolina Tourism, TeamHeidi, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX, Verbatim and Youth Link USA.

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