If you’ve spent time with anyone from Ervin & Smith, you’ve probably heard us talk about “seeking the truth.” This philosophy is at the core of all we do because it’s the key to creating campaigns that positively impact a client’s bottom line.
The most effective and iconic advertising campaigns are rooted in truths — about the audience, the brand or the world today. Our creative director (CD), Aaron Christensen, points to this iconic Volvo ad as an example.
“Memorable creative doesn’t just grab attention. It solves real business challenges. Remember Jean-Claude Van Damme doing those insane splits between two trucks? Not only did it get everyone talking, but it also made one of Volvo’s underrated differentiators, dynamic steering, unforgettable in an otherwise saturated market.”
So how does our team find our own golden insights?
Step 1: Assemble a strategic team.
Everyone we hire, no matter the role, has a connect-the-dots mindset. But just because we’re all strategic and share a passion for solving complex problems, doesn’t mean we think the same.
Each individual at E&S has unique areas of expertise. When assembling a project team, we pull in people from different departments with different perspectives to ensure our ideas are on-brand and impactful.
Step 2: Become experts & ask better questions.
We begin new client relationships and projects with in-depth research and immersion. Our team reviews a collection of client-supplied documents and data (think sales sheets, research reports, internal memos and more). We also analyze competitors, investigate industry happenings and conduct interviews and surveys when necessary.
Once we understand the big picture, our entire project team starts asking tough questions. This is a critical step to surface insights and even uncomfortable challenges. Here are a few examples:
The point is not to have an answer to every question. The purpose of this exercise is to uncover challenges that will lead us to new truths.
Step 3: Explore the tensions.
Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. Maybe your business perception doesn’t align with customer beliefs. Maybe your product doesn’t solve customer problems like you think it does. Or maybe your start-up budget makes it difficult to compete with established competitors. Our team sees these challenges as opportunities to connect more authentically with your audience.
Once we’ve surfaced multiple tension points, a strategist works to identify the single biggest obstacle we’re up against following a simple formula:
How can we achieve [change we want to see in the market], when [unpleasant fact or finding that makes this assignment challenging]?
Step 4: Find the truth in audience insights.
After we’ve narrowed to one key challenge, the next step is to dig into the audience insights that could help us solve it. Think of it like a puzzle — our goal is to find a universal truth that solves our challenge for all audiences. When we can sum up this insight in one powerful sentence, we’ve found what we call The One Thing. This is the core idea we’ll build the entire campaign around.
From here, the strategist, client success team and creative director work together on the creative brief. They also review The One Thing to make sure it’s clear, inspiring enough to spark big ideas and rings true for all of our audiences.
Step 5: Make it magic.
Once the project officially kicks off, our creative team dives into the strategy and dissects the brief — searching for even more conflict and tension points. They explore metaphors, imagery, trends and pop culture to find direct and abstract ways to conceptualize the truth. From there, they brainstorm, collaborate and refine until they have a winning concept, ready to present and drive results.
Client example: How we turned a difficult tension into joyful creative.
Nurses Week is a critically important time in the medical staffing industry. It’s a week full of gifts, giveaways and media as agencies and recruiters work to build loyalty with travelers. To stand out from competitors, our client RTG Medical asked us to generate a one-of-a-kind campaign and gift idea that made their travelers feel valued and created social buzz.
Ask better questions.
We started the project by bringing the team together to ask questions. And we had A LOT of them. About the state of the healthcare staffing industry, RTG’s past campaign performance, traveler’s mental well-being and so much more.
Analyze tensions.
As we dug into the research, we uncovered a lot of tension points. But there was one obstacle that became our biggest focus.
The Tension: How can we get travelers excited to share their experience with RTG when their time and attention is limited?
Define the truth.
During a time when all staffing agencies are fighting for attention, how could we stand out when we couldn’t outspend bigger competitors on a flashy gift? This constraint led us to focus on what was most ownable for RTG — their commitment to providing the highest-quality experience in healthcare staffing by investing in relationships. Our team used this breakthrough to craft our one thing.
The One Thing: Nobody knows you like RTG.
Create magic.
Because nobody knows travelers like RTG, we knew that healthcare workers really wanted a break this year. This insight sparked countless ideas. Could we give people a paid day off? Build a landing page where travelers could choose the exact gift they wanted? What about a pay-it-forward opportunity?
By asking more questions and returning to the research, our team knew we needed to simplify, because giving travelers a choice added another to-do to already overbooked schedules. We realized an unexpected surprise that reminded travelers to take a moment and treat themselves would have the biggest impact. And who doesn’t love ice cream?
We worked with a local business to create custom ice cream pints featuring pictures of real RTG travelers. The idea was fun. It was personalized. It reminded travelers they deserve a break. And it delivered on all of our measurable campaign objectives.
Want to see more of our creative campaign planning in action? Explore our client case studies for additional examples of how we find the truth and transform it to get results. If you’re ready to start the creative planning process with our team, let’s connect.