Development Goals for Work

It's not a question of the United Nations meeting the MDGs.

It's a question of whether individual countries can meet the MDGs. Some developing countries might.

Many won't. There's really no way the poorest countries in the world will meet the majority of the goals by 2015.

Some goals might be met, others won't. Of course the problem is the MDGs aren't stand-alone goals, they are connected. Failure to meet the goal of universal primary education will compromise efforts in gender equality, for instance.

That said, whether or not the MDGs are met… Might not be the point as such. They represent the first collective attempt at the global level to make things BETTER for the world's disadvantaged people. Even if the specific targets aren't reached, the fact is a lot of good has been done in the past few years because of the MDGs.

There are as many goals as there are types of people. Some use the web for internal business applications like time sheets, inventory management, reporting, the goal manage company resources. Some web applications are for infrastructure like traffic management, utility monitoring, the goal to maximize efficiency. There are those who use it for advertising like some of the adds you see on this page, the goal to sell a product. Others like social networking sites use this to facilitate communications and contact among people. The website (which often is not available to the public) is there to provide the user interface. Yes and some people just want a web page that does cool stuff.

CREATIVE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

The creative process of advertising is guided by specific goals and objectives and requires the development of a creative strategy or plan of action for achieving the goal. Creative strategy development actually begins with a thorough assessment of the marketing and promotional situation and a determination of what needs to be communicated to the marketer’s target audience. Creative strategy should, however, also be based on a number of other factors that are stated in the creative or copy platform.

A.Copy Platform—A copy platform provides a plan or checklist that is useful in guiding the development of an advertising message or campaign. This document is prepared by the agency team or group assigned to the account and may include creative personnel as well as the account coordinator and representatives from media and research. The advertising manager and/or the marketing and product manager from the client side will also be involved in the process and must approve the copy platform.

B.Advertising Campaigns—Most advertisements are part of a series of messages that make up an advertising campaign, which consists of multiple messages, often in a variety of media that center on a single theme or idea. The determination of the central theme, idea, position, or image is a critical part of the creative process as it sets the tone or direction for the development of the individual ads that make up the campaign. IMC Perspective 8-4 discusses how the Miller Brewing Company has been struggling to develop an effective campaign for its Miller Lite beer in recent years.

C.The Search for the Major Selling Idea—An important part of creative strategy development is determining the central theme that will become the major selling idea or big idea for the ad campaign. There are several different approaches that can be used for developing major selling ideas and as the basis of creative strategy. Some of the best known and most discussed approaches include:

1.The unique selling proposition—this concept, which was mentioned in the opening vignette, is described in Rosser Reeve’s Reality in Advertising. It’s three characteristics include:

•each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer

•the proposition must be one that the competition either cannot or does not offer

•the proposition must be strong enough to pull over new customers to your brand

2.Creating a brand image—some competing brands are so similar it is difficult to find or create a unique attribute or benefit so the creative strategy is based on the development of a strong, memorable identity for the brand through image advertising.

3.Finding the inherent drama -Leo Burnett believed advertising should be based on a foundation of consumer benefits with an emphasis on the dramatic element in expressing these benefits.

D.Positioning—the basic idea is that advertising is used to establish or “position” the product or service in a particular place in the consumer’s mind.

These approaches to determining the major selling ideas discussed above are very popular and are often used as the basis of the creative strategy for advertising campaigns. These creative approaches represent specific “creative styles” that have become associated with some of the most successful advertising creative minds and their agencies. However, it should be pointed out that many other creative approaches and styles are available and are often used in advertising. Some of the creative styles associated with more contemporary advertising visionaries such as Lee Clow of TBWA/Chiat/Day and Rich Silverstein of Goodby Silverstein & Partners are worth noting. The challenge to the creative team is to find a major selling idea and use it as a guide to the development of an effective creative strategy.