All Great Creative Work Falls into One of These Five Buckets
After a deep-dive into an extensive amount of advertising over many, many years, the majority of work pretty much lands in one of the following buckets:
Funny
You’ve got to see this, it’s absolutely hilarious. There are many ways to be funny, slapstick, witty, sarcastic, random. For that reason, this bucket is packed with work. But while everyone thinks they’re funny, it’s rare when someone truly delivers.
Moving
You cry, you hurt, you love, you empathize, you buy. These ads raise the emotional bar. They go all out to get you to feel something.
Beautiful
These elevate the predominantly commercial endeavor of advertising to an artistic level, where it’s no longer an ad, but a work of art. They are often driven by art direction, and speak the universal language of beautiful.
Smart
These are the great thinkers, the sharp and intelligent, driven by a brilliant insight, a clever headline or an ingenious product demo. If the “moving” ads make you feel, the “smart” ads make you think.
Shock value
Holy sh#t, look at that. Naked, offensive, bloody, there are many ways to shock, and these ads do it best. A small percentage of advertising falls into this bucket because a small percentage of advertisers are willing to go there…to turn off some in the hopes of really turning on others.
Why care about these buckets? Two Reasons:
1. You need to figure out which is right for your brand. Which approach has the proper sensibility? Because if you try to be something you’re not, you’re a poser.
2. Once decided, you need to really go for it. If you’re going for funny, is it pee-your-pants, I-have-to-share-this-immediately funny? If you’re going for beautiful, is it stunningly, stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful? Because there are a lot of really funny and really beautiful things out there. If yours is kinda funny or sorta beautiful, it has zero chance to cutting through.
Decide which of the five buckets you’re going for, then really, really go for it. If not, you’ll end up in the sixth bucket, the largest of all, mediocre.
