1.Goals
This is the most essential part of the creative formula. If we don’t know where we are going, how can we hope to get there? What are we trying to accomplish and how will success be measured?
2. Budget
The importance of a predetermined and accurate budget cannot be understated. Let’s work together to establish the budget in order to present creative options, resources, and timelines.
3. Audience
They have many labels Personas, Customer Journeys, Consumer Insights, Stakeholders. Essentially, I want to know who we are talking to and what motivates them; individually, culturally, socially?
4. Time
Some types of creative work takes longer to execute than others. If I know the timeline at the outset, I can provide more informed and accurate guidance as to our creative options.
Guiding the Creative Process
Define & Discover
Ask questions. Gain insights to your brand, your voice, and your audience. Ultimately, these are the most crucial connections to brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, and reaching your business goals.
Concept & Create
This is where the metaphorical rubber meets the road. I take the newly discovered brand insights, customer knowledge, and project goals and requirements and mold them into a unique, relevant, and engaging sensory experiences.
Implement & Integrate
Roll it out! Integration with existing technologies, vendor distribution specifications, legacy systems, or campaign timelines. I understand, appreciate, and can help plan for these additional requirements.
Evaluate & Improve
Measuring is a key ingredient to the process. Did we accomplish the goals? What worked well? What can we change or improve? Evaluation leads to discovery… which brings us back to the beginning!
I Put Customers First Video
Concept, production, casting, direction, shooting, and post-production for this Home Depot video celebrating their unique customer service culture.
The Home Depot wanted to highlight the unique, challenging, yet rewarding nature of serving customers in their stores. Diversity, problem solving were client requirements as well. We decided to do a voice over narration with scenes highlighting the customer/associate relationships.
Communication & Collaboration
This is essential in business, but it is exponentially more important in the business of creativity. Creative can be a very subjective experience. The importance of hearing and conveying expectations, motivations, intentions, etc. becomes magnified in a collaborative creative setting.
Problem Solving
How do we best communicate with the audience? How do we complete this project on time? How do we accomplish the stated goals of this marketing strategy? Professional creativity is about knowing how to use creative to solve business problems.
Competence
Being a competent creative professional means more than having big ideas. It means finding amazing creative solutions that fit within predefined criteria like budgets, timelines, brand standards, and other creative resources. I call it pragmatic idealism.
Leadership
Perspective, best practices, innovation, efficiency, communication, inspiration. I am a servant leader with a lead from the front philosophy. Finding and keeping the best people is a complex and sometimes daunting process. It starts and ends with meaningful relationships. Take care of your people and they’ll take care of you.
Customer Service
I get hired not just based on my creative abilities, but on my ability to listen to your needs, to keep you in the loop throughout the process, to provide constructive feedback, and to maintain composure and provide solutions when things don’t go as planned.
Creative Strategy
Every successful creative execution starts with strategic ideas and innovative thinking to meet market changes, researching business objectives, assessing the competitive landscape, keeping up with creative industry trends, and supporting strategic plans.