Phrases like “psychiatrip” and “supply pain” probably didn’t make it into Bill Bernbach’s vocabulary. But these terms—which refer to the influx of psychedelic therapy and economic frustration—are examples of the coined vernacular that lives at the core of Day One Agency’s culture reports, also known as its Predictionary.
“Projects like the Predictionary help us to identify and understand the shifts that are affecting consumer behavior, while building a strategic roadmap for our clients to navigate the future,” said creative strategist Clara Malley.
Introducing work outside of creative briefs helps both agencies and their clients better navigate culture—whether that means coining new terms to define trends or writing up reports that sum up what’s happening on TikTok. These are the things defining today’s creative process. And in a competitive talent market, agencies that lean on outdated practices that once defined creativity lose their best people.
The best creatives are the ones who are 60 years old and still want to learn.
Ish Traoré, Wieden+Kennedy
Consumers’ ad fatigue on platforms also means brands and agencies have to be thinking about how their content organically fits into a conversation, requiring a strategy that puts creators at the core. But rather than taking advantage of their space by micromanaging briefs, marketers must hand over creative control.
“If you put a creative piece out there that really taps into culture and gives people more of that shared language, then you’ll see it be more successful,” said Caitlin Bishop, associate director of strategy at Deloitte Digital. Some of the shop’s work includes creating an augmented reality experience for the USGA, reimagining Target’s mobile shopping experience and delivering a new web design for Fox Sports. “That used to be a bonus, but it’s just table stakes now.”
Quickly responding to culture
If you ask Wieden+Kennedy creative Ish Traoré what the future of creativity should entail, he thinks of the man who invented the doorknob. Very few people know his name (it’s Osbourn Dorsey, if you’re curious), but everyone touches his invention every day. Traoré believes the best creative comes from the “thoughtful, thankless work” that has the weight and power to become universal.
It’s all about making “egoless work” that allows the right people to take control, Traoré said, stressing that agencies need to ditch the red tape, long processes and overcrowded rooms associated with traditional creative.
“It’s about giving you an out-of-home that is a real joke that you could see in a meme, not something that was overthought by 18 writers,” he said. “If we want the work to be more uniform with where society is and where it’s going, it needs to be more seamless.”
According to Traoré, the best work comes from people who have a clear understanding of culture rather than from out-of-touch, exhausted creatives who refuse to update their practices.
“The best creatives are the ones who are 60 years old and still want to learn,” he said. “It’s about being ignorant in a positive manner and knowing that you don’t know much. Thinking you have all the knowledge will only lead you down a very weird path.”
Day One Agency senior creative strategist Eli Williams emphasized that the best creative work is “founded in human truth and shaped into a story.” A brand that makes people want to stop scrolling is Liquid Death, which has “successfully connected to younger consumers with meme-ified marketing tactics that help them stand out.”
“The pace of culture is moving faster, and is far more decentralized,” said Williams, noting that brands and agencies must keep up with the niches and subcultures across platforms like TikTok in order to remain relevant and craft believably genuine relationships with creators.
Selling stories over products
Valerie Moizel, CEO and CCO at creative shop The Woo Agency, was tasked with the seemingly impossible: make people feel something about a vacuum cleaner. Moizel knew she needed to create a social campaign, but instead of just pasting the LG Cord Zero TV commercial across platforms, she tapped The Marrs, an influencer family with four kids under the age of 2, to film an episodic series that focused on storytelling more than product pushing.
“What we’re trying to communicate with Jenny Marr and her family doesn’t feel like product-first,” Moizel said. “We’re genuinely interested in learning about the joy and craziness that this woman deals with. You feel like you’re in the room and you want to root for her.”
Bishop stressed that when working with influencers, brands must consider how their product organically fits into the story that the creator has already worked to craft.
“Is this product believably something they would use? What kind of reaction are their fans going to have?” she said. “Context is king here because part of the reason you’re partnering with them is for fan engagement, the wild card that you can’t control.”
As creative and media agencies continue to get back together, the two processes are becoming less siloed, and audience insights and creative work can no longer be considered separately. At Deloitte Digital, that means first identifying a problem that the consumer is facing and addressing it through creative work.
“The results of the creative process are less limited than they have been in the past,” Bishop said. “Creativity doesn’t just play a role in the execution anymore, it plays a role in defining the problem and the types of solutions.”
Creating connections across communities
When creating content for social, tapping into multiple communities in unexpected ways is always a safe bet. Babe Wines founder Josh Ostrovsky demonstrated this when he built a branded monster truck, and when brands with different fanbases—whether that be Kraft and Van Leeuwen, Slack and Cole Haan or Mountain Dew and Flamin’ Hot Doritos—join forces, consumers tend to pay attention.
When Julia Neumann, chief creative officer at Johannes Leonardo, thinks about the work she is most proud of, the Oscar Mayer face mask campaign comes to mind.
“We brought something to life in a way that is completely different from what you would expect from a meat company,” said Neumann. “Meat people and the beauty industry don’t usually go together, so that crossover is super exciting. It really resonated with people and increased sales of bologna.”
Johannes Leonardo also just launched a campaign called “Stupid or Genius” for Oscar Mayer, which asks the brand’s Instagram followers to weigh in on ideas like a wiener rake for toasting dogs on a grill, a wiener cake and a wiener bouquet. According to Neumann, this campaign is a perfect example of the type of two-way conversation that modern-day creativity should be facilitating.
Neumann stressed that the “simplicity and clarity” of a good idea is a constant in the process.
“We can talk to people in places where we haven’t shown up before,” Neumann said. “It’s a freaking exciting time to be a creative.”
