In a world where consumers are constantly bombarded with information, brands face the challenge of capturing and maintaining attention. To achieve this, it is essential to adapt the creative approach, offering relevant and personalized content that responds to the needs and tastes of users; this requires deepening the brand-user relationship and understanding how creativity generates unique types of connections if the right support is found amidst all the noise.
Over these 22 years of leading creative and strategic teams, I have had the fortune to develop innovative and effective campaigns for global and regional brands, and I have learned that understanding and connecting with the end user is fundamental. My approach has always been to interpret data creatively and build personalized strategies that transform the way companies communicate with their audiences. I have been guided by a simple yet powerful question:
“What’s in it for me?”
From the user’s perspective, offering meaningful and valuable answers that create healthy and lasting interpersonal relationships.
What is Creativity?
For me, creativity is the most powerful asset in the world of marketing and communication. It is the most effective and efficient way to achieve a goal and present the truth like never before. How do we work on creativity for the brand? Well, I propose a formula to understand this dynamic:
Brand = E / C + PS
E: Emotions
C: Consumer
PS: Product or Service
A brand encompasses all the emotions that occur between a product and/or service and a consumer, the people.
These emotions arise from thousands of variables: price, packaging, advertising communication, history, service or product excellence, customer service, distribution channels, origin, history, and many more variables. In this sense, as marketers, using creativity to generate the greatest amount of positive emotions is fundamental. And also resolving creatively when a negative emotion arises.
Thus, this equation reflects that all the emotions between a consumer and a product or service are essential to building strong relationships. Creativity becomes the trigger for that emotion, and there we have the next challenge.
The Brand-Consumer Relationship: the Share of Attention
Just like in human relationships, relationships with brands are based on similar emotions. To establish healthy and lasting relationships, we must understand the “The (Human) Funnel”:
- Awareness: Know
- Consideration: Converse
- Conversion: Date
- Loyalty: Established relationship
Today, a user receives an average of 6,000 daily brand impacts. In this context, the main challenge is capturing the attention of a consumer saturated with information. To achieve this, it is essential to integrate the brand into a type of content that truly adds value to the user, so that this desired share of interest can be achieved; always keeping in mind that “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM).
Talking about the brand is not the same as talking with the users. It is crucial for brands to offer content that responds to the needs and desires of consumers, avoiding the egocentric approach.
The Importance of Data: the Turning Point
Today, thanks to the development of technologies oriented towards the digital world, we can find more and more spaces for conversation that are filled with likes, dislikes, preferences, and needs; these data become the turning point, as they provide the input to create those invaluable connections we seek so much. Data is essential, but mere information is not enough; its creative interpretation is what turns it into powerful insights; the one that sheds light on opportunities often unknown even to the audience itself. The tools to obtain information are accessible, but what will make the difference is how we read, understand, and make sense of those data.
Copying and pasting a report or text to create or justify a strategy only leads to common places. The creative interpretation of data is what truly matters, transforming information into effective strategies that resonate with the audience.
SANTIAGO LUCERO
GLOBAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR
