AreYouExcited.com

This is about presenting ideas in a one shot – I call it the one page pitch. When I first get a brief I always endeavor too come up with a range of ideas in an attempt to cover off some different directions. Without working them up too much I will summarize the concept, explore how it could be executed and then represent it with a singular image that encapsulates the idea visually. This allows my client to see a cross section of solutions to their brief without committing too much investment into any singular idea.

One the best creative concept and strategy has been established and approved by the client the next step is too map out the consumer / audience experience of the campaign as a whole. How will they discover it? What happens once you’ve got their attention? How do you sustain attention and inspire an active response. How can different media platforms work together to create awareness and interest. It’s essential that this is clearly mapped out, well understood and thought through before any creative development is done.

A solid and approved plan is essential to ensure that creative time is well spent and that timelines are realistic. This is all about picking the right people for the project and also operating within realistic expectations – don’t bite off more than you can chew. I think scope creep is the probably the single biggest problem in production and if it’s not kept in check all of a sudden you’re out of time and budget. I believe in thorough planning and militant execution. If you do a great job of mapping out the experience and then plan every phase of that production wise carefully then you can’t really go wrong. But if your campaign is full of “kind of’s” and “then something like this happens” – f’geddaboutit.

If you want to execute a project with flair and precision then it’s a great idea to engage specialist vendors. Utilizing the best of every specialty I like to spread the production load across multiple vendors. This method not only guarantees quality results, but with the help of a good producer makes things – not more complicated – actually much easier to manage. If you hit a problem here or there the whole project won’t grind to a halt.
Take a game. Games are complex things. There is the strategy, game play, programming, Interface design, animation or perhaps live action, Illustration, photography maybe, Backend and prizes yada yada. The reality is no one shop is going to be excellent at all these things. Divide the job into a series of parallel productions each produced by specialists and get the “Best of Every Discipline”.