The Next Big Thing in Advertising

Before its release in 1999, the movie The Blair Witch Project created nationwide interest through a clever marketing campaign that claimed the horror film was actually a true life documentary compiled from the recently discovered film footage of a group of film students who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.  Whatever you may think of the film itself, there’s no questioning the impact of the film’s advertising.  It turned a low budget film into a box office hit.  This year’s release of the film Cloverfield saw similar success through the release of a short trailer that didn’t gave only a scant glance at the film and didn’t even go so far as to give audiences the forthcoming film’s title, which, in turn, created a wave of speculation and rumors about the film that generated word of mouth interest in the film.  What do these two success stories have in common?  Nothing more than clever marketing that hadn’t be tried before.

Granted, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to have a successful marketing campaign and each successive iteration of your color printing doesn’t have to be somehow more inventive than the last.  That having been said, a little novelty can go a long way in winning over customers.  Coming up with something witty and clever is hard enough, but trying to think up a totally new approach to advertising can be downright daunting.  I can’t give you that sort of lightning in a bottle, but I can give you a few handy brainstorming tools to help you pry the stubborn top of that bottle.

Free-writing:  This is like trying to capture that aforementioned lightning.  Stated simply, you sit down with a pen and paper and naturalistically start writing the first things that come to mind when thinking about your product.  The key is to not be rigid and just spout out your own ad rhetoric.  Just let things flow and then go back and analyze your results looking for that special something.

Change Perspectives:  Instead of looking at your product as a simple inanimate object, try to look at it from differing perspectives.  Where did it come from?  How did it get here?  Does it have personality?  Does it remind you of something else?  How does it fit into the grand scheme of things?  What is its relation to other people, places and things?  Any question you can ask yourself that might help you get a fresh perspective is helpful in brainstorming ideas.

Draw:  Get your ideas down in physical form.  Draw charts, relationship graphs, timelines, or anything that will help you determine your products place in the wider world.  This can help you establish point of social relevance and might be a spring board to ideas for expanding your field of play.

Free association:  Bounce words and ideas off of anyone you can tie down long enough to play along with you.  Their reaction may be different than your and can get you thinking about things in a fresh way.  Just remember not to hold their knee jerk responses against them!

These are just tools to help you along in your quest for fresh advertising ideas.  You’re success will depend largely on your application of them combined with a bit of blind luck and inspiration.  Any writer will attest to how fickle inspiration is, though.  Still, a little bit of brainstorming could be the spark that lights the fire of the next hot new trend in advertising.

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