A great client deserves a great creative consultant
It’s not about making everything look and feel on brand. That’s a given.
It’s about creating a new and unassailable leadership position in a new market that changes everything in a client’s favor. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of hard-won experience and a great deal of skill. Plus some serious determination.
It’s not just clever words and cute copy. Not just vivid imagery and sweeping emotions. Or brilliant storytelling.
It’s about creating change that shifts behavior, culture and capital. In that order.
A lot of potential clients struggle with their communications. They don’t have a driving purpose that distinguishes them from their competitors. They say the same thing their competitors say and get lost in a sea of sameness.
These clients think the way to stand out is to spend more on advertising, outbid competitors for digital ads. Of course, this just adds to the noise and cost. Despite all the colorful charts and metrics, it won’t help them stand out and connect.
Great clients
I help great clients succeed across industries, sectors and categories.
Great clients like Apple, Nike, Lexus, Qantas, Ford, Warner Bros., Porsche, Orica, SBS, Foxtel, Triple J, ANZ, Honda, Telstra, 7-Eleven, Lendlease, Rolls-Royce, Cancer Council, and more. Purpose-driven communications and outcomes to forge community engagement, expand networks, heighten revenue, increase margins, and more.
Here are 7 case studies I’m most proud of.
Multiplier effect
As a creative consultant, I use insights, ideas, creativity and storytelling to help define, develop and deliver a client’s distinct purpose inside and out, high and low, far and wide.
More than just being noticed, my work resonates with people and audiences. It changes words to change minds. Because changing minds changes behavior. And changing behavior changes outcomes.
How? For one client it might be naming a product or service so more people register. For another client it might be re-editing a commercial so it’s more emotional, more effective. For a new client it be might writing and designing a website that builds a genuine leadership position.
Startling clarity
Ask clients what I do and they’ll tell you I clear up confusion.
I can distill a long and bewildering presentation into a perceptive story people pay attention to and act on. I can take a long, convoluted headline and make it perfectly clear, instantly compelling. I can weave a narrative into a home page that keeps visitors riveted.
I can clarify any message so it cuts through the clutter and connects.
Trusted outsider
Often I’m brought in by clients after their usual suspects flounder.
I’m asked to review creative work other agencies and firms have already presented, work they feel is subpar but don’t know why.
In most cases the work doesn’t work because it’s not really creative. Usually it’s been prepared by inexperienced creatives with little if any imagination. There’s no idea, no theme, no point of difference.
Even when it’s on brand it looks and feels like everything else out there. It’s tired, pretentious, perfectly expected. It fails to stand out because it’s not interesting.
Evocative writing
Dull thinking and dull writing are the curses of modern-day communications.
Evocative, truthful writing works because it immediately gains attention. People lean in to learn more. (People pull back and shut down when they hear things they’ve heard before. People are on the lookout for lies, weasel words and legal filler.)
Better writing creates deeper levels of meaning and emotion, stronger bonds and memories.
Be different
A great client doesn’t settle for safe and boring.
Everything I do for a client helps them stand out, not blend in. Helps them capture people’s imagination and be remembered.
Because a great client knows their job is to be different.