Cracking the Ad Code

by Jacob Goldenberg , Amnon Levav , David Mazursky , Sorin Solomon

• ISBN13: 9780521859059
• ISBN10: 0521859050
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Do you need to produce successful creative ideas in advertising? If so, then you need this book. For the first time, the secret of inventing new creative campaigns is unlocked, and practical tools are presented to allow quick production of creative ideas in marketing communications. Along with over 100 advertisement examples and numerous case studies, you also get a systematic analysis of the creation aspect of advertising, together with a taste of the real world of advertising and what makes it work. Marketing professionals in companies will learn what to expect from their agencies, whilst agencies will be able to explain their work to clients in an analytic language that is easily understood. This is essential reading for advertising professionals working for agencies and in marketing and communication departments. It is also a useful tool for students of advertising, marketing, communication, and management, from introductory level up to research faculty.

Author Biography

Jacob Goldenberg is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on creativity, new product development, diffusion of innovation, social networks, and complexity in market dynamics. Amnon Levav is Co-founder and Managing Director of Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT). For the past 14 years he has developed and facilitated innovation programs in more than 25 countries, in a wide range of organizations, among them advertising agencies such as BBDO, Leo Burnett, and McCann-Erickson. David Mazursky is the Kmart Professor of Marketing in the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on consumer behavior, creativity, product development, innovation, and interdisciplinary research relating to abstract structures in music and the arts. Sorin Solomon is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Chair of the EU Commission Expert Group on Complexity Science.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Inventing tools that support advertisers in generating ideas	p. 1
Can creativity be defined and quantified?	p. 2
Creativity: An academic perspective	p. 3
Looking for a method in the creative madness	p. 8
Effectiveness of creative ads	p. 10
A brief outline of the tools	p. 13
Fusion	p. 14
Closed World	p. 15
Unification	p. 18
Where do ideas come from?	p. 18
Prisons that set you free	p. 19
The constraint of the medium	p. 20
Paradox: Mixing constraints with daring	p. 20
Definition of advertising media	p. 22
Using the medium	p. 22
Two approaches to using Unification	p. 28
	p. 28
Instructions for use	p. 33
Approach 2: Content creates form: Recruiting a medium in the environment of the message	p. 34
Instructions for use	p. 37
How can we benefit from resources in the environment of the medium?	p. 39
Instructions for use	p. 40
And some for the road	p. 41
Activation	p. 43
Gluttons for attention in a noisy world	p. 43
The message is tuned out before it is spoken	p. 43
Defining the tool	p. 44
Other examples that prove the rule	p. 45
You can't ignore what you create	p. 46
When is Activation useful	p. 47
Activating imaginations	p. 52
Benefits of using Activation: What it provides	p. 54
How to apply Activation	p. 56
Taking advantage of the medium	p. 59
And some for the road	p. 62
Metaphor	p. 63
Splitting metaphoric hairs	p. 63
Getting it in one shot	p. 63
The Metaphor tool	p. 64
Distinguishing art	p. 67
How to effectively create a metaphoric ad	p. 68
An example: Options open to the advertiser	p. 73
Going all the way - fuse all three	p. 74
Brand advertising	p. 77
Brand recognition	p. 79
Instructions for use	p. 80
And some for the road	p. 81
Subtraction	p. 83
Minimalism wins creative results	p. 83
When subtraction is an addition	p. 83
How Subtraction highlights the message	p. 84
Subtraction can be used on any element - and partially	p. 86
Instructions for use	p. 87
Unintuitive thinking	p. 89
And some for the road	p. 96
Extreme Consequence	p. 97
Avoiding cliche - and still highlighting a product's promise	p. 97
Consequence replaces promise	p. 97
Instructions for use	p. 102
Thinking process for presenting a minor trait	p. 105
Provide a new approach to a product	p. 105
Instructions for use of Extreme Consequence, using a minor trait	p. 107
And some for the road	p. 108
Absurd Alternative	p. 109
Focus on the benefit - not the product	p. 109
Generous irony in absurd situations	p. 109
Thinking processes for using the tool	p. 111
Additional uses for this tool	p. 115
Instructions for use	p. 116
When the product should be in the ad	p. 116
And some for the road	p. 119
Inversion	p. 120
In marketing - there's nothing to fear but fear itself	p. 120
The Inversion alternative	p. 121
Absurd situations make it real	p. 122
Using Inversion on our old standbys	p. 123
Thinking process	p. 125
When to use minor trait Inversion	p. 131
Generosity	p. 132
When to use Inversion	p. 133
Instructions for use	p. 133
And some for the road	p. 133
Extreme Effort	p. 137
What to say when you have nothing to say	p. 137
Two types of scenes	p. 137
When to use the tool	p. 140
Instructions for use	p. 142
And some for the road	p. 144
Attribute-Value Mapping	p. 145
The three questions	p. 145
The difference between an attribute and a value	p. 146
Added value of defining the value - the next step of the process: Beginning to seek new messages	p. 147
A few examples: Are these advertisements based on attribute or value?	p. 148
Why don't people do what they know is right?	p. 149
The connection between attribute and value	p. 151
Distinguishing between attribute and value levels	p. 153
What the AV Mapping offers	p. 155
How to build your own Attribute-Value map	p. 156
And some for the road	p. 161
Photograph Credits	p. 162
Index	p. 165
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.