Thodoris Tsekouras talks about Creativity in Advertising
Thodoris Tsekouras is one of the most creative minds in Greek advertising who has served in front and behind the camera. He possesses a creative mind, inexhaustible humor, intelligence, and speech speed. He has worked as a creative director for some of the biggest names in the communication and advertising industry. Such companies are Leo Burnett Athens, Rascal, McCann Erickson, and currently Ogilvy Greece. His ads have been adored by millions of people and have made a serious impact on the brands created for them. He is also the author of many successful books (for children and adults).
The reason he was chosen to be interviewed is because he is one of the ultimate experts in this country to talk about the craft of advertising content, leaving aside technicalities and procedures. Talking about advertising content is a very tricky situation and what is even trickier is creating it. Seeing it from the creator’s perspective and what he thinks from his experience that is effective, can give us a better understanding of advertising efficiency mostly from the part of the content crafting.
Note: This interview was taken in 2019 in the context of a Bachelor thesis on Media Placement & Advertisement under the auspices of Panteion University. The participants had agreed for their names to be public in the qualitative part of the research.
Question No. 1: What are the criteria that an advertising campaign to be created today?
There are two criteria that people who craft advertisements take into consideration. First of all, comes creativity. Working with instinct, creatively, intuitively, aesthetically. I believe that there are not a few times that we see advertisements that are elitist and are approved only by the people who craft them themselves and advertisers in general. However, the ultimate goal is for advertisers to touch the potential buyers, consumers, or users of the product or service. Apart from creativity, for an advertisement campaign to be made today, agencies rely on research that has been done and the data this research brings to the table. There is a very intensive effort that is made for everything to be measurable.
This method very often fails because things, situations, and human feelings are not always measurable. We are talking about social sciences and in social sciences we can never have undiminished facts. Social sciences are not hard sciences. Someone working in the advertising field cannot have, and should not have the illusion, that the future can be predicted. The future is still unpredictable and chaotic. Clients desire everything to be measured. Companies do not take risks easily when it comes to their advertising campaigns. If an advertising campaign is not provoking enough it is like it was never made and aired. The scariest thing when it comes to an advertising campaign is to go unnoticed not to start a conversation.
Therefore, these criteria are both taken under consideration when creating an advertising campaign. Both creativity and data from various pieces of research are both important. But always a creative will tend to think that creativity is more important and there is something that can be crafted to “touch” everybody in a way, like the painting of Mona Lisa, by Leonardo Da Vinci, did. Trial and error is still a thing when it comes to advertising and it is an illusion that there are no risks taken every time an advertising campaign is created.
Question No. 2: What is it that a user requires from a medium, to be completely satisfied with it?
This question is something that interests both agencies and companies but I cannot imagine anyone being completely satisfied with anything ever.
Question No. 3: What opinion do you believe that people have for traditional media?
I do not watch television anymore. I have realized, from my own experience, that people want to have everything under control. Media users do not want to be interrupted by interventive advertisements. Television advertisements not only are irritating, but they hold the viewer captive in a way and this is the ideal way for someone to hate you. I am very surprised that there are still people watching television. I have had no reason to watch television ever since the Internet came to be as we, pretty much, know it today. I used to read magazines ten years ago but ever since I bought a tablet this habit stopped. I believe that Greece is a peculiar country with peculiar people in particular. Every new trend is adopted strongly. Some years ago everybody would read a magazine and there was a magazine for everyone. When Facebook came to exist everybody made an account very quickly.
Even though nothing can be completely measurable, I believe that the Internet has helped to change that in a very essential way. Airing an advertisement used to be like leaving a balloon to fly away into the sky never to be seen again, never knowing who saw it and what happened to it. The Internet has made advertising more measurable and I do not doubt that.
Question No. 4: What opinion do you think that people have for new media?
Discussing more about YouTube’s platform, I believe that YouTube offers a more balanced percentage of content and advertisements. On YouTube, there is a brief advertisement in the beginning, which you can also skip, and then you can enjoy your content. Nowadays advertisements are even placed at the very end of a YouTube video as well and sometimes in the middle (if the content is longer). Television, on the other hand, a medium which I have experienced a lot for a big part of my life in the early 90s, had 20 solid minutes of advertisements in between the actual content. The same thing happened with the radio. I do find this scary and I believe that these media were abused in this way. New media have offered both agencies and clients the opportunity to create actual content themselves, this is called branded entertainment content.
Such examples are the Lacta movies, the Robo Girl movie by Cosmote, and the Lego movie.
And if people today find the advertisements on the Internet the most irritating ones, this is because this is the medium they use the most and this is where they see all the advertisements. There is no controversy. Everybody has to consider it. Those advertisements are not solely made for people’s entertainment. There are so many factors that need to be taken into consideration. Creatives tend to forget that advertising is not only about creativity but the truth is that advertising is not all about creativity. o Entertaining people does not take the audience’s mind off the product. That is a wrong perception and things should not get mixed up. I believe that there is a huge clutter of advertisements out there. The real hardship is to make something that stands out of all this clutter.
Question No. 5: What opinion do you have on integrated communication campaigns?
The Ermis Awards have a dedicated category named “Integrated Communication Campaign”. The works nominated for this category are judged depending on how good of a job was done on television, a really good job on the radio, a really good job in print, and a very good job online. The work, and the advertisements, placed on these media will be different on each medium matching the medium's aesthetic and style. From the execution of an integrated communication campaign, you can tell if the concept chosen was worth it. Integrated communication campaigns commonly known as 360-degree campaigns translate into having an advertisement placed in every channel possible and still being successful. Making some banners and being proud of that is not an integrated campaign.
Question No. 6: Apart from the efficient media placement of an advertisement, what role does advertisement content play in advertising efficiency?
I believe in the ultimate power of content. I am one of those people who believe that content is king and nothing can substitute its power.
Question No. 7: Do you believe in the power of advertising content over efficient media placement?
Certain media have a different dynamic than others. I believe that the Internet has a lot of more powerful values and people have been engaging more with content on the Internet, in contrast to television or the classic radio. But advertising content will always be more important.
Question No. 8: When can an advertiser be sure that his/her idea is going to be efficient?
No one can be ever sure if something they created is going to be liked by people. After research, you can now understand how people perceived what you made and then you can see what you can make better. In any case, you rarely lose in this game because people usually perceive it in ways that are always beneficial for a brand. Even if the results are different from those expected those are still some important and valuable results for the brand. The real problem is for people to find something so boring that they do not even notice it or remember it at all.
A creative’s fear is people’s indifference.
