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Merry Bass-mas!

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Causes, Cures, Efforts Appreciated

Food for thought.

Where's the cure?

creative feedback

We live in a strategic age, and also in a creative age.  Weird.  They converged, and snuck up on all of us, I think.

Advertising used to go in cycles.  Creative renaissance, followed by focus-group-creative-direction, followed by creative renaissance, ad infinitum.  The 60s were great, from a creative standpoint.  The 70s brought us all kinds of new testing, and creative went in the toilet.  Fallon ushered in the renaissance 80s by just making up good stuff.  The 90s were a bit bland, and then the web hit advertising across the chops, and it's getting very cool now.

Now we have numbers that actually tell us about creative.  We can see, instantly, what's working, and what isn't.  And if we're good, we adjust to make it better.

This isn't the old "the group of housewives in the focus group doesn't like your casting choice."  This is real, real-time, audience feedback on your stuff.  That's cool -- because it gives us a chance for do-overs that only make the end product more appealing.

Ever see Blue Man Group?  My old apartment in NYC was right around the corner, and I used to go a few times a year, long before they became the franchise they are now.  BMG was/is odd, but in a way that broad audiences find appealing.  But the whole concept was originally just a statement about the art world as it existed in NYC, twenty or so years ago, and the absurdity of what passes for art.  It was dreamed up by artists, and they performed in their apartment for friends --  until too many people started showing up.

My point is, with experimental theatre like BMG once was, you can adjust your creative on the fly to react to the tastes of the audience.  Hard to do with big-production musicals or feature films.  Much easier with underground stuff, and standup comedy.  Corollary: hard to do with traditional advertising.  Easier on the web.

The feedback you get from users is a double-edged sword.  Sometimes it tells you your instincts were right.  Sometimes it tells you the idea sucked.  Either way, though, it's a boon to creative, because it gives us a chance to make it better.  More than that, actually.  It demands that we make it better.  Fast.

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Advertising  Marketing   Creative   Interactive   Online Marketing Design  Digital Design Blattner Brunner  Ernie Mosteller  BB Digital 

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Changing tastes in video

My newest article for adotas is here.