NO BUDGET? NO PROBLEM!
January 29th, 2008, Len MitschAs those of you who’ve been in the business a while know all too well, creative people CONSTANTLY complain about two things:
1. Not enough time to come up with a brilliant idea.
and 2. Not enough money to execute that idea properly.
My experience has shown, however, that 85% of the time, the first ideas a creative team comes up with are the best. The rest of the concepting time usually just validates how good the original ideas are. Why is this true? Because the first solutions are THE SIMPLEST. They are the most direct way to get from point A to point B. And in today’s world where we are bombarded by more print, TV, online and viral messages than ever before, SIMPLICITY SELLS.
Take look at these two TV spots for Apple. The entire campaign is just two guys against a white seamless…and each spot makes one single point. Memorably. The only prop in the first ad is a Kleenex! Pretty darn inexpensive.
The second spot is a little more elaborate, adding a third actor and another prop: a pair of sunglasses.
(They don’t even look like RayBans..a further cost saving.)
The entire campaign shows that you don’t need a lot of production dollars to make an impact, sell product and, yes, even win some creative awards!
This next spot, however, is the ultimate in simplicity. It has NO on-camera talent, not even a voice-over. It doesn’t even show the product! And my jaw dropped when I saw it over the weekend.
It’s unbelievably good!! Take a look.
No elaborate production. Just a writer that sat down and stubbornly and persistently worked a bunch of words until a truly brilliant piece of advertising emerged.
So the next time you get a project with a tight timeline and a tighter budget, I hope you’ll remember how powerful a simple, uncomplicated idea can be. Go to it!
Len
January 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am
These pieces are some amazingly beautiful work (another great example
are the Lego pieces). The advice about keeping things simple is great Len.
Keeping it simple is a strategy that can be applied to all levels of
advertising and marketing.
All of the most successful Facebook applications are things that are
easy to use and offer some very simple output. As more bells and
whistles are added to things, the more time it takes to figure them out
and the less attractive they become.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:37 am
i did the big switch and now a mac man. i bet it had something do do with being like the cool kids!
January 31st, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I loved this one. The last ad was brilliant and probably (as you noted) VERY economical. Great post.