Supporting Our Creative Client Teams

How do we best support clients who want to take a big creative leap?

One of the big frustrations for creatives working in business environments is watching innovative ideas get squashed by risk-averse executives with veto power. When our clients want to push their brand and make outside-the-box creative content, what can we do as consultants to help them navigate the tricky waters of internal approvals?

At French Press, we support our clients who want to do fresh-and-tasty creative work for their brand. Here’s a few of the things we commit to do when we work with clients who have a taste for creative innovation:

• Target the right projects. Not every project is right for a risky new creative idea, but some projects are perfect. Maybe it’s an internal project, or a piece for an innovation-focused team. We make sure we let our clients know when we see a good opportunity to do something interesting.
• Book the big conference room. We encourage our clients to bring the problem owners and influencers to workshops and meetings, even if they’re not going to be directly involved with the production. This invites a stronger feeling of ownership over the idea than simply having the concept handed up from a steering committee.
• Get fresh. Getting up-to-date audience insights should be part of the process. We make sure we’re working with the latest audience data and we research what’s going on in the market right now to ensure our thinking on the audience is au courant.
• Elucidate the payoff. If we are going to present a kooky idea to a client, we make sure to also present the business case for going with that idea. We know just being clever doesn’t sell, so we work with our clients to help them show a clear ROI to their stakeholders when they want to go out on a limb.
• Face the risks. Anytime we suggest an idea that’s new for a brand, we analyze the risks associated with going in that direction, and think through possible mitigations in advance. (And, yes, if our clients come up with an idea we think is too risky, we tell them.)
• Tailor the communication. We create bespoke collateral to help our clients sell the idea inside their organization. If an executive never reads proposals, it may make sense to create a prototype video. If a stakeholder is overwhelmed by email, we can make printed materials to get the point across.
• Be future focused. If we do work that pushes the brand in a new direction, we document our updates and provide new brand guidelines to help our clients propagate those changes across their organization in future brand work.

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