Creativity doesn’t just happen, it’s a process

I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity as a process lately. And like magic, our pal Mickey Lonchar, ecd at Quisenberry here in Spokane, sends this along:

If you’re going to make bad advertising, why not make it REALLY bad?

That’s a pretty cute headline I saw in the lobby at my local Bank of America the other day. “Buy Pizza, Get Dough.” Get it? Don’t worry, not many other people do, either.

Tabletop poster with flier, at a Bank of America branch

It made me think of some less cute headlines that have been in the news lately:

• BofA to Get $20B More From TARP, Plus Backstop on $118B
• TARP Will Likely Be A Money Loser For Taxpayers: Fortune
• Bank of America Gives Bailout Money to ACORN
• CEO Lewis Under Fire As Bank of America Probe Grows Personal

Is it too much to ask BofA to be less jovial about their schemes to stockpile more of our money — especially when they’re back-dooring fee increases on things like safe-deposit boxes and giving Merrill Lynch executives huge bonuses?

A few BofA headlines I’d like to see…

The “vision thing”: part II

Last year I wrote about how to create a more useful vision statement (here). But vision means different things to different people. So recently, I loved hearing two great presentations that dealt with the importance of vision — they were talking about two completely different ideas. 

From here to there: Communication strategy

Working with a variety of smaller clients these days, I’m reminded that most business communication strategy problems boil down to three simple questions.

Knowing your competition

Strong branding can preempt or even eliminate competitors. So you have to study your competition — whether you’re building a brand from scratch or reformulating; whether you’re a CEO, marketing executive or an agency creative team.