Don’t be so literal!

How to develop creative pieces effectively
 
If there’s one thing that drives us nuts, it’s what we call the “slide show.” This could be in print, in a TV spot, a social-media ad, pretty much anything. It refers to the rigid pairing of one type of content with another. Like a slide show. Example: That annoying car-dealer commercial in which you’ll hear: “Sales! Service! Selection!” and, in perfect sync with “Sales!,” you’ll see that cringe-inducing salesman-shakes-the-customer’s-hand shot. For “Service!”, you’ll see the shot of the mechanic working on a car up on a lift. And for “Selection!”--
 
—we don’t have to tell you. You know. It’s that big panning shot across the showroom or lot. Maybe it’s even from a drone. 
 
Oooh. 
 
These kinds of creative approaches, well, suck. Because they’re anything but creative. In this article, we’re going to tell you how to escape this mind-trap, how to do a better job of surprising and delighting your audience, and to use these approaches to better motivate your prospects. They’re really all the same thing. 
 
What is the “slide show”?
 
That car-dealer commercial we described above is the quintessential example. But you’ll see this kind of lame approach in print, too. The advertiser will tell you something, and then show you the exact same thing, too. 
 
Why is this so egregious? It’s not just that it’s boring or uninspired. It’s because it’s insulting.
 
“If you tell me you have great service, I get it. I don’t need to be bludgeoned over the head, seeing the exact same thing.” That’s the unconscious thinking that feeds a reaction to this kind of approach. 
 
It also paves your way to a delightful opportunity. If you flip it on its head, you generate all kinds of goodness. Consider: “I’m smart enough to understand Copy Point 1, even while I look at an image of Copy Point 2.” That’s called synergy. It’s your opportunity to break this non-rule, and have a lot of fun, too. 
 
2 + 2 = 5
 
That subhead, above, is a brief description of “synergy.” It’s when two things add up to more than the sum of their discrete parts. 
 
So what if you intentionally make Point A not line up with Point B? What happens when you purposely insert dissonance into your work? The results can be powerful. 
 
We worked on a piece recently which described a situation in which half of the people in an office setting might go missing. Literally, this could have been interpreted in a straightforward way: You could “ghost out” half the people in a group shot. You could depict a row of desks, with workers at only half of them. 
 
But do you know what worked even better? Showing the office setting as completely empty. If the copy tells you that “half the people are missing,” yet the visual shows you a workplace entirely devoid of people, you instinctively grow a little uncomfortable looking at it. It gets a sort of Twilight Zone vibe to it. It’s compelling. It’s spooky. It entices you read more, to turn the page, to find out what’s going on. (This, incidentally, is quite true. This piece garnered excellent response.) 
 
Note, by the way, what you don’t do when you look at the piece we just described. You don’t throw it down in anger and say, “Hey! There’s supposed to be people in this visual!” No. You automatically accept what you’re seeing and what you’re, implicitly, being asked to compare and contrast. If you think about it, you’ve been conditioned to think this way by good movies, good books, and good art, all your life. 
 
Play it loose
 
Picture this in your mind: Imagine a pretty, frilly typeface. Something that’s very beautiful, script-like, the kind of thing you’d expect to see on, say, a wedding invitation. Now use that font to typeset the words “Nerve gas.” 
 
Arresting, isn’t it? 
 
You didn’t even see this example, but you can picture it sufficiently in your mind to appreciate its power. 
 
The trick, in case you haven’t guessed already, is figuring out which direction to pull when you’re providing counterpoint to your main message. You also need to decide which message—the “melody” or the “harmony,” to use a metaphor—goes with which element, e.g., headline text vs. visual, or musical tone vs. announcer. In our “Nerve gas” example above, the visceral power of the words themselves punches straight through the frilly font. The words are the “melody”; the font is the “harmony,” using the above metaphor. 
 
Here’s our last piece of advice as you venture down this creative path: Experiment. Go crazy. Purposely push things too far. You can end up with stuff that’s uproariously funny, or perhaps chillingly serious. But you won’t know you’ve pushed too far until you’ve actually done it. Be prepared, though: Odds are, you’ll find yourself pushing yourself far, far harder than you’d thought would be acceptable, before you cross the line that clearly tells you you’ve overstepped your bounds. Only when you get to that point is it appropriate to take a step back—and admire what you’ve created by purposely avoiding the “slide show.” 
 
Need assistance with that next creative assignment? We help with these kinds of challenges all the time. Contact us for a no-obligation call today. 

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