BUILDING STORYTELLING PLATFORMS FOR NEW BUSINESS
To understand the difference between an ad campaign and a brand platform, consider the difference between a movie and a Hollywood franchise. Any movie that’s franchisable contains more than just one story. It suggests an entire world beyond its own borders, a world...
LEVERAGING TENSIONS TO CREATE BRAND NARRATIVES
One of the most effective ways to jumpstart the creative process and get to big ideas quickly, is by leveraging creative tensions; by using polarities to spark story. Wherever you find conflict or opposing energies, you’ll find conflict. And where you find conflict,...
EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MARKETING IN FOUR STEPS
In this presentation Sullivan reframes social marketing with a simple process of four steps, one that participants can use immediately. By reverse engineering successful social campaigns, Sullivan breaks it down to what he calls “Do > Invite > Capture >...
A CREATIVE WRITES THE BRIEF
The brief is the single most-complained-about thing in creative industries.(“What are we supposed to do with this?”) Every client, agency, and strategist on earth has a different idea of what makes a great creative brief. So do creatives – and this is one creative’s...
OPTIMIZING CREATIVE OUTPUT (OR HOW TO MANAGE CREATIVES)
It’s a good thing many creative people are often cynics and eye-rollers. It’s their well-tuned B.S. detectors that make them effective communicators. But motivating cynics and eye-rollers in an industry full of B.S. is tough. How do you manage people who don’t like to...
Figure 14.7 Geico Raccoons
Concept for one screen, design for big screens, and optimize for small. That advice (above) is from Joshua Baze, a respected digital strategist. He goes on to say, “People consume media on big screens and snack on media in small screens.” An absolutely fabulous...
Figure 14.6 Pringles
For my money, a great spot is a joy to watch from beginning to end, over and over, because there’s something new to look for in each frame. This is the kind of commercial which racks up huge views on YouTube. You probably have your favorites. A recent favorite of mine...
Figure 14.4 Volvo’s Epic Split
Big-ass spots are cool. They take forever to produce and you’ll likely be out of town on location or on a set for weeks. But when they finally air? Oh, man. As of this writing, one of the most awarded big spots is one for Volvo created, again, by Forsman &...
Figure 14.2 Embrace Life
TV is a visual medium, and it begs for visual solutions. Me? I happen to prefer visual over verbal approaches in any medium. I’m not the only one. There’s a whole school of thought that says: “Don’t talk at customers. Tell them a story with pictures. Start with...
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Luke Sullivan
Author, speaker, and ad veteran available to recharge, reinvigorate, and refocus marketing, advertising, and branding firms.
I give a hugely energetic series of presentations on innovation, creativity, branding, and marketing. I spent 32 years in the trenches of advertising (at agencies like Martin, GSD&M, and Fallon) and I’ve put everything I learned into my book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. But for me nothing beats taking the message out and speaking to living breathing audiences at clients, agencies, and conferences. You can book me on the button below.
