The biggest file among agency archives can be found in the cabinet of award-winning creative concepts that were never used. They were killed instantly by a lone perp or slowly tortured by committee. Either way, it’s criminal.

Companies will hire agencies for their creativity and pay lofty fees for same, only to neuter powerful concepts. Age, gender, political persuasion, sexual orientation, team colors and myriad other factors often are brought into play after a creative concept has been crafted to maximize the medium and achieve results. The neutered concept wastes the power of the medium and underachieves.

Even within agencies, it is not easy for those outside the creative department to keep from meddling. It is understandable that clients, who are paying the bills, have an even harder time holding their breath until the end of the presentation of creative concepts.

Meddle not.

The key is to let the creative folks be creative. That means no handcuffs. Even if the first concept is not perfect, often it will lead to a revision – or a second concept – that is stronger and answers market challenges. It all begins with a clear understanding of campaign goals relative to the desired result. If the client needs inquiries, the goal should be quality leads at an acceptable cost per inquiry. If the need is for votes, the goal should be to make a compelling case for the candidate and motivate people cast ballots. If it is for sales, the goal should be to present features that differentiate the product or service (and the company behind it) so it is not viewed as a commodity and judged by price alone. If it is brand awareness, the goal should be to take the brand from a measured benchmark of consumer awareness to an appropriate targeted level of awareness that is measured in the same manner.

Two more things. Clients who are as serious about their marketing a) budget to appropriate levels and b) ensure the agency folks have regular contact with senior management. This hastens marketing success and reduces the turbulence your agency’s creative folks will encounter while taking your profits to the stratosphere.

As recently as the late 90’s, no TV spot produced in an electronic format (digital beta, Beta SP, etc.) had ever won a Clio or One Show award. The great spots were all shot on film, mostly 35mm, transferred to digital beta, usually on a Rank Cintel telecine, digitized into and edited on an Avid or other non-linear editing system, processed through audio post and mastered out to digital beta.

Today, many award-winning spots are shot on some form of HD, digitized into an Avid or other non-linear editing system processed through audio post and are generally mastered out to digital beta. Obviously, the primary thing that has changed in this basic process is the origination format.

Now, I’m a film guy. I’m actually a cinematographer by trade and I always disliked the look of video tape formats for production...The news looked too... “real”. Film has a texture, depth and image quality that looks wonderful, like the fantasy of reality. To combat that electronic look of video, directors forced to shoot on tape (usually for budgetary reasons) would use several filters on the lens to try and make it look like film. It never worked. It just looked like bad, mushy video. Well, those days are gone.

With new HD camera formats, electronic origination now looks very “film-like.” We have shot numerous recent campaigns in HD, using either the Sony Cine Alta F900 or the Panasonic Varicam, and for the first time in my career, in the edit suite, I don’t review the footage and wish it were shot on film. I also don’t feel that we have made a major visual compromise by originating in HD. It looks so much like film that most people have to ask which way it was shot.

Most of our recent campaigns required a large portion of on-camera dialogue--one area where shooting in HD can save huge dollars. Anyone who’s ever worked with an actor who couldn’t remember his lines knows how expensive 35mm film can run through a Panaflex on 17 blown takes. HD tape is far less expensive than 35mm film and also comes in 30, 40 and 60-minute lengths so you don’t need to re-load as often, saving valuable production time. You also have no need for film-to-tape transfer, resulting in a tremendous savings. The fact is, a 20-spot package of studio-originated TV spots shot on HD will cost considerably less than the same package of spots shot on 35mm film. And they’ll still look good.

Lower production costs with little quality difference. What’s not to like about that? It lets more of our clients’ production dollars end up on screen.

In the world of media planning, the presentation of technique methodologies tends to go in and out of fashion. For example, remember “Recency vs. Relevancy”? It was just another way of stating the correlation between product purchase cycle and media weight. In other words, is the advertising message received when it is most relevant to the consumer?

For example, if you are marketing soft drinks by the can, you would utilize a low reach of message with high frequency over a shorter period (so the right small targeted group of people hear it very often). Since soft drinks are often a daily purchase, it is good to consistently remind these consumers.

Conversely, if you are marketing toothpaste, you would utilize a high reach with low frequency over a sustained period (so a lot of people hear it less frequently over more time). The same 100 gross rating points are comprised of a different reach-to-frequency ratio, thus changing your strategy for placing media. A 25% reach/4 frequency equals 100 GRPs, as does a 50% reach/2 frequency, and a 100% reach/1 frequency, etc.

Return on Investment (ROI): Another popular methodology today.

ROI has come into fashion of late - and it should. After all, why spend the money if there is not a trackable return? But how do you measure ROI? How do we isolate the various elements and measure them independently? The very nature of ‘the science of media consumption’ makes clean measurement of the effectiveness of individual elements a real challenge. After all, the consumer’s ‘decision to purchase’ is not arrived at as a one-step process. Rather, it is arrived at through the culmination of messages received over time that weave themselves throughout the consumer’s decision-making process. Most importantly, how and when does your message become an integral part of that decision-making process?

New ROI research becomes available.

One advantage of methodologies becoming popular is that the research providers and media associations put money against them. For example, the Radio Advertising Bureau just completed Radio’s ROI Advantage Study (radiolab.org). The study concluded that incremental radio campaigns were linked to significant sales increases of up to 4.6%. While national TV campaigns chalked up sales increases of up to 7.7%, when you factored in media costs, radio’s ROI was 49% better than television’s ROI.

Many of our direct mail letters have achieved results higher than the national average for our clients. Here are three effective devices that we use to make our direct mail letter successful.

Let’s start. The envelope, please.

When people flip through the day’s mail, you have a split second to catch their attention. Do so with an intriguing line on the envelope that teases their curiosity about the letter’s content. Once they open the envelope, you have already won half the battle.

Conversely, there is another tactic we use for client’s existing customers—put nothing additional on the envelope! It makes it look more important, like some sort of official notice as opposed to an advertising message. As Andy Rooney once said, “the less words on the envelope, the more important its contents.”

Inside the envelope, use a Johnson Box on the letter. It summarizes the key points of the offer and is positioned prominently on the letter, sometimes in a box. This device was named for Frank Johnson, a direct mail writer credited with creating it. The logic behind it is simple: if you pique the reader’s interest, he or she will spend more time with your letter—and the more time they spend, the more opportunities you have to make the sale.

P.S. Use a, well, post-script.

Direct mail studies have revealed that when prospects open a letter, they look first at the signature and post-script. That makes the P.S. extremely important. So here it is wise to communicate the benefits and urgency of the offer.

Want more proof?

If you use another agency or direct mail house, consider trying a split-test run. Let your incumbent mail to half your prospects and let Lord & Lasker mail to the other half. Be sure the mailings are coded and that your customer service reps record the responding buyer’ codes. Then compare results. We’re up to the challenge. Are you?

Who we are.

Lord & Lasker is headquartered in Tampa, FL with additional primary offices in Lakeland, FL; Daytona Beach, FL; Washington D.C.; and Wichita, KS. Our Office in Daytona Beach was established in 1981, followed by Lakeland (1984), Tampa (1989), Washington D.C. (2000), and Wichita (2006).

Each location offers our clients a wide range of services: strategic account planning, research, marketing and positioning, media analysis, implementation, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations and complete creative and productive services.

Affiliate offices, in which Lord & Lasker is a Worldwide Partners shareholder, are located in over 120 markets and 40 countries thoughout the world. This alliance assures our clients of an unprecedented depth of marketing and strategic branding intelligence.