Good ideas = the best moment

Introduction: This article focuses on "advertising creativity" and, through some examples and analysis, clearly points out the definition of "new" in advertising marketing. The "New Year's Eve speech" that was popular not long ago has become a thing of the past because it is not "new", so if you grasp the essence of innovation described by the author, the marketing problems of advertisers will be "solved".

I wonder if you have noticed a phenomenon:

After Luo Zhenyu’s New Year’s Eve speech became popular, Wu Xiaobo also started his New Year’s Eve speech, and Liu Run, Ren Zeping, and Guan Qingyou also started their New Year’s Eve speeches!

When New Year’s Eve speeches are “blooming everywhere” and are no longer rare, we suddenly realize: New Year’s Eve speeches have lost their creativity and are becoming boring!

Why is this? The reason is: if there are too many, it is no longer the “most”.

When something becomes “commonplace”, it actually loses its “creativity” and the communication effect it causes will be greatly reduced.

The essence of advertising creativity is to highlight product features and brand connotations through unique technical means, thereby promoting product sales. Note that the most fundamental purpose of all advertising creativity is to promote sales!

If the creative effect is not good, the attention and touch it arouses will be reduced, and the possibility of sales will be even lower! Therefore, if creativity wants to achieve the maximum communication effect, the uniqueness or shocking experience it causes must be sufficient, and it is best to show a reason to buy a product and ultimately impress consumers.

Simplify the logic of creative generation, in one sentence: connect product points and create the "best" moment.

1. Understanding the “most” moment: an unprecedented spiritual experience

What kind of creativity is contagious? Looking through previous advertising cases, you will find that there are many advertisements that claim to be creative, but there are few truly "inflammatory" advertising cases.

This involves the original sin of human nature: getting bored with the old and liking the new.

Ye Maozhong wrote in "16 Keywords of Marketing": " No matter how the world changes, the fundamental attributes of human beings will not change. Human beings are human beings, advanced animals with flesh and blood and desires. They will not change their tendency to avoid the important and focus on the trivial, to seek profit and avoid harm, to love the new and forget the old, to be lazy and greedy, and to take advantage. Even if fragmentation makes it difficult for them to concentrate, it is not difficult to attract them as long as their instincts are mastered. "

Lin Guizhi also mentioned in "Like in Seconds": ""Money rules the world" is unchanging, and "the consumer's brain is the media" is unchanging."

To put it bluntly, no matter how the world changes, the "original desire" of human nature has never changed. People no longer feel new about things they have seen, they no longer cherish things they once had, and they get tired of the old patterns. Therefore, people call for and desire "unprecedented" experiences and innovations.

This kind of experience and innovation is the "best" moment, which often shakes people's hearts and produces a refreshing spiritual experience.

There are many kinds of "most" moments. For example, the "most scarce" event initiated by NASA, "Send Your Name to Mars", created a wonderful trip to Mars for all participants. A ticket to Mars, you only need to pay a forwarding, you can get it!

In addition, the "most exaggerated" - the creative form of aerial basketball makes the basket fly, creating a "sense of scarcity" that young people like!

"The highest" - On the 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai, Emirates Airlines launched the creative marketing campaign "We are at the top of the world" and had a stewardess stand on the top of the tower, holding up a cardboard with text cards to convey the airline's message of resuming new business routes. This highest creativity naturally attracted a lot of attention.

"Most shocking" - MSG Sphere, the largest spherical experience center in Las Vegas, consists of 160,000 square feet of LED screens and cost $1.8 billion, thus forming the world's largest super media. The design of this spherical theater can play movies, star concerts, and advertisements, which is extremely shocking.

"The cutest" - Japanese rice packaging instantly increases people's favorability.

and “Most Boring” – a billboard intended to remain in place for 12 years to verify the durability of the product.

Those highly creative advertisements that can become super-spreading content often have a "most" moment, creating an unprecedented spiritual experience for the audience. Think about the major events in life that surprise us and make us want to share, and they basically conform to this texture.

2. Creating the “Best” Moment: Distorted Force Field and Physical Deformation

Knowing the basic structure of creativity, that is, experiencing the "best" moment. So, how to create the "best" moment? Based on the summary of many self-propagating content and cases, I found two major methods to create the "best" moment:

1. Distortion Field: Changes reality into dreamlike perception

The distortion field is a sci-fi term from Star Trek, and was later used to describe Jobs' powerful aura. It refers to a kind of "confusing control ability" that relies on this mysterious power to change public perception and even the world.

It is similar to the fundamental principle of creativity. By recombining/processing real materials, it creates a dreamy perception, forms memory and desire to share, thereby triggering the public's desire to forward.

The core of dream perception is to bring about a super experience, produce a sense of transcendence of reality, form the most unique memory and cognition, and activate the mechanism of self-propagation.

① Fulfill impossible wishes

Everyone has dreamed of flying. If creativity can realize it, it can "fulfill" this wish, leave a mark on people's senses, and give people a reason to share. In my memory, there are two "flying" advertisements that still seem creative and novel when I think of them.

One is the special effects advertisement "Bounce" for AirPods, which tells the story of a man who, after putting on the headphones, has the world he touches become a trampoline and has the ability to bounce. The comfort brought by the music is embodied in the tactile sensation of "bounce", which has since become a classic.

The other is Burberry's "Floating Dance", in which a group of dancers in the field wear the brand's down jackets, jump and dance, floating freely and comfortably in the air. It not only highlights the product's characteristic - lightness, but also conveys the comfortable atmosphere created by the brand.

Making people fly is a perception that is out of reality and similar to a dream. The key point of the distorted force field is to turn reality into a dream, creating an extraordinary experience and thus generating creative ideas that trigger dissemination.

② Create emotional scenes that evoke emotion

The dream state itself is a feeling, an abstract experience, and an emotion. Creating a moving emotional scene, different from the content of daily life, naturally forms the "most" moment.

Touching, laughter, fear, anxiety, freedom, etc., inject these emotions into boring and stereotyped real-life scenes, forming a kind of "tension", thus making it creative.

How to operate? The thinking model is: product features + emotional scenes. For example, if your product is a razor, how to combine it with a love scene to create a creative idea? What is the image of love? Rose. If you want to combine roses with razors, you can use the creative perception of "after removing the stubble, men will have new surprises". The Valentine's Day billboard of Wilkinson razors is the idea of ​​"remove the beard and receive a rose".

For example, when you feel lonely, do you want to hug yourself? If you magnify this emotion and make a poster, it may look like the following. Amare Sex Shop, a Brazilian sex products e-commerce brand, uses the emotion of loneliness to show the form of "hugging yourself" to make people empathize with the content.

The key to the distorted force field is to add a dreamy emotional atmosphere to the ordinary and common reality. It is like a coconut tree growing in an endless desert. People will rush to that place of shade and thirst quenching. Creativity is to plant a "dream tree" for the boring reality and create a touching "most" moment.

2. Physical deformation: breaking through the shackles of realistic scenes

Different from the creative method of "distorted force field", another creative idea is more formal and the thinking logic is simpler. In real life, things have their own physical boundaries. For example, tables, chairs, mobile phones, computers, etc., all have applicable ranges of size, and too big or too small is not practical. Because of this, things are solidified by their own physical properties. Once you are used to it, it is no longer the "best".

Good ideas must break this boundary and break through the shackles of realistic scenes, thus creating an unprecedented "first time" experience. The specific method is also very simple: the big becomes smaller, the small becomes bigger. The more decreases, the less increases. The non-existent becomes something, and the existing becomes non-existent.

①The big one becomes smaller

This is a typical form of miniature photography, which shrinks real objects to create a sense of novelty and trigger dissemination.

②Small becomes bigger

Small things become big, and this kind of form is used in many creative ways. For example, products are enlarged, Vans makes shoes run like cars, and Midea uses air conditioners to form a moving QR code.

The scene is enlarged, MINISO has turned a building into a calendar.

③ Reduce the number of

A hollowed-out portrait, stripped of its concrete referent, becomes a photo that is forwarded all over the Internet. At this point, nothing needs to be expressed, and the hollowed-out part can be filled in by anyone.

④ Less brings more

Countless marine debris are aggregated together to form a giant whale, reminding people in the city to pay attention to environmental protection at all times.

In addition, Durex recently staged a fashion show using 200,000 boxes of products, which sparked a lot of heated discussion.

⑤ Bring the distant closer

Pulling the moon closer to you is a close-up experience. Changing physical properties creates a unique new experience.

⑥ Close distance

The space journeys in various product promotional videos all push their scenes into outer space to create a sense of fantasy.

In short, any form that can change the physical properties of the original product can creatively create imagination space and create unprecedented "best" moments.

In a word: good ideas are equal to the best time, and the best time will lead to self-propagation.
Source: WeChat public account "Qu Tailang (ID: qutailang1991)"