There's No Eye Without Team

Communicating your company image effectively and professionally is not only important, it is crucial to the success of your brand and your company. We all know this. So, why do so many companies try to cut corners when approaching design and creative for their marketing campaigns?

I believe this can be broken down to one key element, they don't understand the value a creative team brings to the table.

Value comes in many ways, and most creative firms have trouble explaining this value to their clients. Clients assume that a designer can 'whip up' something quick and it will be effective. Good design takes time, it takes research and it takes an understanding of what the goals of any project are. Couple this with how the interaction between the 'target' and the 'message' is formulated and you could have a well thought out campaign.

Creative teams work together to look at all angles of a campaign - each member of the team bringing expertise and years of experience. This 'collective eye' on a campaign is what ensures it is resilient and effective. This is how you get results. You'll find that most creative teams are composed of a number of disciplines; creative director, copywriter, illustrator, designer and a project coordinator... each working closely with the client.

What confuses some clients is design creative, they believe that the design is what they are paying for, when it's only a portion of what they get when hiring a creative team.

Generating design creative the last part of the equation and is quite often the easy part of coming up with a proper campaign. Of course, that is if the discovery, ideation, brainstorming, research and analysis is done properly. When a creative team is involved in this process, a creative brief can be generated and given to any designer to complete the design process. This provides clarity and focus on the deliverable. This is how you create a campaign that generates results.

Creative teams need to be better at communicating their 'collective eye' - they can't assume that clients understand the difference between hiring a creative team and hiring a designer. Design is important and designers have a role in the creative process, but don't mistake the plate for the food - design is the by-product of a creative process, not the process itself.

The real value for your marketing dollar is in the creative process, the thought, the ideas, the expertise, the execution... that is what you are buying when you hire a creative team.