Strong, Not Optimal

Occasionally when you talk to a client, they give you clues as to how the relationship is going to go later. But only if you know what to listen for. 

One of the most telling, in my experience, is whether the terms they use show the right amount of intellectual curiosity and complexity... or whether they are hoping to keep things as simple as possible, even if this leads to a drop in performance due to a lack of rigor.

Words, in short, matter.

Which leads to the curious quest for Optimal Creative practices... 

That, well, do not exist. At least, not eternally.

Now, does this mean that there aren't strong and weak tactics? Of course not. You may be using many strong practices already, from calls to action to front loaded subject lines, from easily parsed body copy to entry points above the fold and a clear offer hierarchy and so on. 

I could go on, but there's a lot of channels, a lot of strong and weak practices, and that's not the point of this little exercise.

But no creative practice -- not even the ones that I would be truly shocked to see fail, mostly because I've seen them win in thousands of executions -- is optimal. 

That's because they can't be. 

Optimal implies perfection, unchanging, unquestioned. Can't be improved. And that's just not what occurs in creative testing. Everything can eventually fail, go stale, become overused by competitors or frequency, to the point where it's absence could be a better idea than it's presence. And everything can improve, see a boost from better execution or timing, or relative rarity in the market.

There are no optimal practices. There are simply strong ones and weaker ones, points you are more likely to see a benefit from testing and ones that are (probably much) lower priority to test.

There is no Magic Formula or Holy Grail or Perfect Ad. And if there were, it would cease to be with a quickness, because it would be duplicated and driven into the ground by everyone in a similar market.

And if your client doesn't get this, uses the terms optimal and strong interchangeably, or doesn't seem to want to get into the nuance, or live in a world where testing and data drives, instead of simplistic opinions that reinforce their own sense of being a Marketing Super Genius?

Then you don't have an optimal client.

Or a strong one.

And, if past precedent is any indication, a long term one...

And... we're back!

(Nope, not a political post. Thanks for asking!)

It's never good when a content blog goes quiet for a long time, but since we've last put words to electrons, M&AD has...

> Worked on several start ups with NDAs (but I can say that we now know *way* more about medicinal cannabis and personal protection equipment than we used to)

> Completed a long-term contract with Creative Circle working for Google (and yes, that was also Highly Educational), and

> Executed exploratory calls on several new exciting initiatives in new consumer categories for us (and honestly, after 20+ years in the game, when something is new to us it's Downright Exciting)

All of which would be very, very cool if it made for more short-term billing, which it has (at least so far) not.

So... ping us! Bandwidth available, at least for a limited time. 

With fewer exclamation points in person.

Talk to you soon...