The Creative Brief

"Window Psychic" by the author

Art examines a problem.
Commerce provides a solution.

To examine a problem, you work with the elements. You consider the color, tone, shape, form and meaning. You become so intimate with the problem that you ask, “How does this lead to better understanding?”

To provide a solution, you work with agenda. You consider who, what, when, where, how and why. You get past the problem as fast as possible.

To make art, you must be inspired.
To make commerce, you must have use a creative brief.

I put my creative brief here, so that I will know where it is. It comforts me and keeps me safe in the darkness.

Snowmanagain

This is a two-minute industrious poison snowman video I wrote and directed. It's called "Claire Jamison." The video shows how a little information provided by the client's product can help salespeople make better sales calls.

And it includes the line "Large chi balls in every room."

(I call this type of project an "industrious poison snowman." It's industrious, because it's paid work; poison, because it has a little drop of product poison in it; and a snowman, because when it melts, it leaves a carrot in the yard.)

Sales & Marketing

MarketingWhat’s the difference between sales and marketing?
I shall say:

Sales wants you to buy what it has made.
Marketing wants to make what you will buy.

Sales wants to confuse and then save you.
Marketing wants to persuade and then have you join.

Sales wants you one time (unless you’ll go for it over and over).
Marketing wants you over and over (unless you’ll only go for it once).

Sales is coin-operated.
Marketing is status-driven.

Sales would rather score 30 points and lose.
Marketing would rather score 3 points and win.

Sales is a competition between people who want to feel the same.
Marketing is an attraction between people who want to feel unique.

Sales is a shotgun in a crowd.
Marketing is poison in a glass.

Sales rarely says no.
Marketing often says no.

Sales is what most people do at work.
Marketing is what they call it at parties.

And what you have to ask yourself is,
"What am I doing at this party,
Floating on my back, 
Face up in the punchbowl?"

Sales

Making Snowmen

Here’s a corporate video I just wrote and helped produce. It’s a gamble to share something like this, because as a creative you only want to show your best work, and that’s not usually the same work that pays your grocery bill.

“Well, I’d never do that kind of thing.”
A melodramatic creative wants to fall on the sword of integrity, but I’m not sure that’s real or interesting. The bloody-red sword is what everyone else wants to see. Creative suffering reinforces some myth in their minds. They’ll be off to lunch while you clean up after your performance.

There’s no high drama. There’s no selling out, either, if the stakes are low. It’s all work. Moving pictures. Voices. Cobbling. Choice.

Learning less about the foot than how it fits the shoe.

The Melting Point
Filmmaker Werner Herzog said one should consider himself a craftsman, not an artist. In an interview in Herzog on Herzog, he sums it up beautifully:

“After Michelangelo had finished the Pieta in Rome, the Medici family forced him to build a snowman in the garden of the family villa. He had no qualms about it; without a word he just went out and built the snowman. I like this attitude and feel there is something of absolute defiance in it.”

Image courtesy of BetterLivingThroughBeowulf.com

The Pieta (“Pity”) is the only sculpture Michelangelo ever signed. “Michelangelo Buonarroti of Florence Created This.” Over 500 years old, it’s probably the world’s most famous sculpture of religious subjects, showing human acceptance of immense sorrow with serenity and without grief.

Michelangelo's snowman, on the other hand, melted the next afternoon and left a carrot in the yard.

Story is Problem

More wealth concentrates when markets sustain big gains or loses than when they close even. That is, lottery winnings and disasters produce more opportunity than a day of even exchanges.

Likewise, businesses profit on two different demand curves: either selling high-priced, low-volume goods and services to lottery winners or selling low-priced, high-volume goods and services to victims of disaster.

So, did your subject win the lottery? Is she facing disaster? Or both?
Which problem are you solving?

If there's no problem, then there is no story to tell. The problem might be, "She's hungry." Or it might be, "He can't figure out what to do with all his money." But the problem will not be, "They are happy." Happiness is a synonym for being outside the market. There's nowhere for a terminally happy story to go.

Three Per Day

A store manager in Miami started the $5 fast food meal trend by lowering the price of sandwiches to boost sales.

Let's pencil some numbers on the back of the envelope:
U.S. Restaurant sales, (2010 est.): $580 billion
PLUS
U.S. Grocery retail sales, (2008): $547 billion
EQUALS
Total food budget in U.S.: $1.1 trillion per year
OR
$3 billion per day
DIVIDED BY
Price per serving: $5.00
EQUALS
Number of $5 servings: 600 million per day
OR
200 million, 3 times a day

U.S. population between the age of 15 and 64: also 200 million.

Derived fact: The money spent on food in the U.S. would buy three $5 footlong sandwiches for every American aged 15 to 64 every day of the year.

Twist: If we actually spent our money that way, it would more than double the U.S. rate of hunger from 1-in-8 to 1-in-3, because we wouldn't be feeding anyone under 15 or over 64.

Conclusion: Never eat three $5 footlongs in one day. If you find yourself reaching for a third meatball sub, stop and give it to a baby ... or a senior citizen.