How come all the great advertising you like isn’t yours? Is it the fault of your company? Your agency? Your suppliers? Or does the answer lie in the processes that go into making great ads. Are your marketers “creative meddlers?” Are your creatives “strategy ignorant?” The language disconnect between creatives and marketers is the #1 roadblock to getting great work the first time and every time.
There’s always been tension between marketers and creatives. That tension is one of the secrets to creating great advertising. The key is to harness those forces for good – instead of engaging in a battle neither side can win. Whether it’s between creatives and marketers in an ad agency; the marketing department and sales department at a corporation; the marketing department and their agency – this language disconnect corrodes those relationships and undermines the work.
The conversation starts with a simple, powerful question: How would your life change if more than 70% of the work you did got approved the first time you did it? From there, we go to exploring the dynamics that contribute to the tensions between creatives and marketers. What are the processes that you can put in place that can resolve those conflicts – and how would that impact the work you’re doing. Marketers will learn why they can’t live with creatives (and certainly can’t take them to lunch). Creatives will learn why they’ve never wanted to take a marketer out for a beer.
In this Mars/Venus discussion, Steve Lance will be exploring one of the most common issues facing marketing and sales teams in companies and agencies. Steve Lance, known for creating some of the most memorable campaigns in advertising including Shark Week for the Discovery Channel and The More You Know for NBC, has co-authored The Little Blue Book of Advertising, The Little Blue Book of Marketing and Breakthrough!
Please RSVP by Wednesday, March 28, 2012. Members are free; $25.00 for guests.
For Steve Lance’s full biography, continue to full article.
Three-time Emmy Award winner Steve Lance is co-author of “The Little Blue Book of Advertising” (Portfolio/Penguin July 2006) with his partner, Jeff Woll and co-author of “The Little Blue Book of Marketing” (Portfolio/Penguin December 2009) and “Breakthrough!” (AMACOM Books January 2011) with his partner, Paul Kurnit.
As Creative Director of NBC, he established the first copy testing and focus group testing for the network. He brought the peacock back to NBC with Richie Kahn and Mike Mohammed. His tag lines developed with Richie Kahn (“NBC Us” and “NBC Proud As A Peacock”) remain the most memorable lines created for any network as measured by Burke scores and his work for the premiere of NBC SportsWorld won One Show and Andy Awards.
After working three years in Los Angeles as a television series writer, Steve returned to New York as Creative Director of the entertainment division of Della Femina, Travisano & Partners. His commercials for SportsChannel won One Show and Andy Awards and his work for WBZ-TV won an Emmy Award for Best Station News Campaign. He was asked by NBC’s Community Affairs Division to create a new public service campaign. He conceived the format for “The More You Know,” and wrote the first 17 spots for the campaign.
Steve established Unconventional Wisdom in 1989 with his partners Norman Siegel and Jeff Woll, serving the marketing, advertising & communications needs of such clients as The Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery Communications, Inc., History Channel, Food TV, The Travel Channel, The Hallmark Channel, National Geographic Channel, PBS, Hyperion Solutions, Yankelovich Partners, Burson-Marsteller, Citizen Watch and Crest Toothpaste. He’s won numerous gold and platinum awards for his corporate communication projects for such clients as Accenture, Verizon, Bell South, the Government of Hong Kong and Kodak to name a few.
As their business has grown and client needs have shifted, they have been joined by Paul Kurnit, former President of Griffin Bacal, who brings extraordinary new media marketing expertise to the organization. The company’s name change to PS Insights (www.psinsights.com) is recognition of the need to serve clients in the area of workshops, trainings and management expertise. PS Insights provides trainings, workshops and lectures that produce real-world results. The goal is to bring the best ideas within a company to the surface: delivering actionable, here’s-how-you-do-it methodology. With sixteen custom-tailored workshops, PS Insights is able to identify key client issues and address the specific needs of our clients.
To date, PS Insights has delivered workshop trainings to some of the top Fortune 500 companies including The Coca-Cola Company, Coors, Dial Corporation, Discovery Communications, EMBARQ, Humana Corporation, HSBC Bank, The Southern Company, Sprint, Wells Fargo Bank and Xerox Corporation to name a few.
Steve works for Habitat For Humanity and is a member of the advisory board of ShareTheCaregiving, Inc. He has two sons, Max & Dan, and builds houses for a hobby.