Creative Architecture

How do you actually build an effective campaign, brick-by-brick, decision-by-decision?

There's more than a smidge of mysticism involved. Sometimes it's luck. It's rarely done by repeatedly running through a set of algorithms. But there are patterns that make the luck more likely. Rituals that can make the mysticism more replicable.

The Attention Blueprint

There's no perfect way to capture a campaign or comms strategy that will apply to all situations. There are simply too many different kinds of businesses, with structurally different organizational strategies, to try and force all comms strategies to look and operate the same way. There's no template coming. Sorry.

Instead, let's focus on creating a structure using a metaphor that holds common elements, but can be endlessly creative in it's application: the blueprint.

Why a blueprint? When an architect sits down to draft plans for a new space, they recognize the power of uniting proven engineering principles (gravity, materials sciences, weather patterns) with creative vision (elegant design, stylistic preference, taste).

There may be universal laws of effective advertising, but interpreting them for any given circumstance requires active thought, analysis, intuition, and no small amount of creative thinking.

In other words, architecture is the perfect representation of campaign strategy. For example, an architect's blueprints represent that:

1. A great structure blends form and function - there's no "perfect building" and no singular perfect campaign plan, there is room for artistry. And note, not form then function - it's both working together to create a cohesive, effective, whole.

2. Vision and elegance show up in practical decisions - you need a mix of ambition, confidence to commit and practical implementation infrastructure to achieve bigger results

3. You have to adapt to the environment you're building within (need to understand conditions - soil, weather, sunlight) - brands compete in dynamic markets, you need to reflect upon what headwinds or tailwinds you're operating with

4. There are rules that govern how things work, but innovation stretches how you harness them - there are many routes to scaled attention, and options continue to grow. There's as much creativity in figuring out new ways to generate hype as in scripting the perfect headline.

5. Not all decisions are equal; choosing loadbearing structures vs. the size and placement of windows for natural light are both important, but one matters substantially more - not all campaign decisions hold the same leverage; what you choose invest is far more important than how it is spent

6. The outcome guides what needs to be built - homes, warehouses, and monuments have very different needs (shape and type of traffic, creature comforts) - campaigns and annual plans also have different expectations, and therefore will spawn different kinds of decisions made in building them. Strategies for gaining and growing attention should differ depending on brand objectives & campaign parameters

Let's draft a blueprint for gaining attention.

My intention is to offer the language, structure, and a hierarchy of how to approach decisions that will progressively minimize tradeoffs, maximize upside, and allow for elegance and mastery to show up.

Because advertising's most common answer to any question still remains 'it depends' - this is more about how to sequence your investigation and decisions to keep open worthy possibilities as long as practical before committing wholeheartedly, and whole-budgetedly to the right answer for the circumstances.

Site Selection & Survey

Diagnose the market: where will our growth come from, and how easy will it be to capture it?

This is all about gaining understanding. Get answers to seemingly simple questions.

Who will you steal share from?

Is the category growing or shrinking?

How mainstream is the category - how large is the overall buyer pool?

Where do we have advantages - with distribution (where can you buy the brand, digitally or in-person), with existing brand memories (distinctive brand assets, existing CEP links), with non-traditional resources (collabs, vocal advocates)?

Clear the Land

This is all about setting levels: be clear about what can be accomplished with a given budget.

Modeling a predictive impact can be simple (using ESOV), or complex (MMM, synthetic societies); but whether you're planning for a monthlong promotion or a major annual strategic plan, common expectations about how likely a given outcome is will guide how aggressively you make the decisions that need to follow. You'll design very different systems when operating from a place of abundance & high risk tolerance vs. protecting against growing threats.

Engineering the Structure

Set your foundation, framing, and ductwork: these are interconnected decisions about which purchase points to prioritize, audience signal, and vehicles for capturing attention.

No plan ever lets you support everything you want - if you had the resources to do everything, you wouldn't need a strategy. So your first decisions are all about where you'll choose not to compete in order to protect enough resources to invest meaningfully where it can make a difference.

Purchase Point & Audience Signals

The tricky thing to balance here: It's always important to reach as many people as possible, but not every person is equally important. Some are more likely to purchase quickly, some are more important for spreading the message further as advocates. Finding the right balance between "More" and "Right" is the first decision that will need to be both math & gut. Get comfortable with having an opinion about what's right.

The evidence suggests that better options are all found in consolidating investment as closer to your priority purchase point - where can people buy your stuff. That might be Amazon, or in B2B by submitting a lead form; or it could be visiting a restaurant or a resort. You need to reach people where it can make a difference, and if you're trying to grow sales, that typically means concentrating investment where you can be bought. Seems simple, but most digital platforms do not account for this factor.

The second decision here is choosing whether you will overinvest in reaching buyers who are closest to making a purchase - targeting "in-market" signals. If you've read this far, you already know the 60:40 rule - that's ideal state. You get to make a choice for each component of a campaign if it will deviate from that starting point.

Vehicles for Attention

How will this campaign, or this part of the campaign, capture a disproportionate share of your audience's attention? That does not have to be through paid media. Strong campaigns consistently find a way to "increase the surface area of the brand" - build cohesiveness across as wide a spectrum of attention drivers as practical: PR, Creators, packaging, Influencers, In-Store Demos, Sponsorships/Entertainment Integrations, Email/CRM, Stunts - all have virtues and value in building different kinds of plans. They can be combined with paid media in simple or complex decisions, but that ecosystem building comes later. The only decision that needs to be made at this point is which types of vehicles should be considered and explored, which the brand has strong capabilities to rely on and can be brought to bear here.

Walls, Windows & Electric

Blank walls and empty rooms are pretty dull: every brand struggles to make decisions about what to support and not; not just positioning & messaging, but which products or promotions get hero support, and when.

This is where things start to really take shape. What is the overall rhythm of your campaign? Persistent activity? Heavy ups? How many? What time of year? How will each be different? How will each hang together as one consistent body of work?

This is another decision with significant room for experience and gut to make a difference. Navigating the balance of covering as much ground (wide reach, persistently in-market) as possible, without diluting your impact is both an analytical exercise, and strategists discernment (as the impact of different attention vehicles can vary widely in execution - you need judgment).

Design & Materials

Mid-Century Victorian? Baroque Brutalist? The design needs to complement the engineering, and vice versa.

Before locking down structural decisions, map your campaign priorities (products, services lines, promotions, or other messaging) into different preliminary ecosystems & flights.

At this point, collaboration between creative teams, media experts, and channel leads is essential. You will start making resource allocation decisions about channels (paid media and otherwise), production investment, and initial partner selections.

Having a connected team to rally around where the magic in the campaign comes from respects the vision, and protects the effectiveness. The tensions to resolve are in finding high-attention opportunities that complement the right, resonant context. work with creative teams to find the right blend of friction. Will the concept work best in certain emotional contexts? What is the most important part of the expression of the idea to give a big stage?

Be balanced, but make big bets - it's hard to break through, commit to things that have disproportionate upside. Evaluate options both for their floor (minimum guaranteed contribution) and ceiling (where and how will we outperform our budget). This is where there is the most room for elegance and distinctive style choices come into play. What will be most remembered about this campaign? What's the first line of the case study video?

Finishing Touches & Inspections

Before handing over the keys to the decorators, you need to pass inspections. Document the decisions made in the blueprint, and check them for coherence.

Work with producers, media SMEs, data engineers, and trafficking teams to check for issues. Where will the vision fall apart in the cold light of day? Which doors open the wrong way? Where can we build in testing opportunities to make the campaign stronger over time? Are the buying guidelines clear on where we can/should make tradeoffs when negotiating and evaluating platform setup decisions?

Blueprints aren't just for the architect - you need to make sure the contractors, electricians, plumbers, decorators, and owners understand how it all works together. Advertising is a team sport, make sure the blueprint is accessible to all.