Often when I see or read an ad, I try to “reverse engineer” the creative process…

…that resulted in the finished campaign before my eyes. As a veteran of countless, purgatorial hours of “creative” sessions, I don’t find it difficult to imagine the conversations and counter proposals at these meetings.
Take the Charmin toilet tissue campaign. (Please!) Why bears? Why are frolicking, dancing bears selling TP? I imagine a creative session that went something like this:
“We need something soft. Something cute. Something cuddly. Yet with some connection to . . . you know . . . what people do with our product.”
A sullen silence all around. Suddenly, someone has an “ah-ha!” moment. “I know,” this someone says. “Bears!”
“Of course!” the creative director crows. After all, when we want to affirm that something is true, we ask, “Do bears [expletive deleted] in the woods?”
Lo, the odd logic of Madison Avenue at work. And a vulgar expression becomes the driving force for a too-cute TP campaign. Because bears [expletive deleted] in the woods.
Brand advertising: making surrealism part of the ordinary tissue of our lives.

Related posts:

1. Japanese Tourism Org. Sends Messages via Tissues
2. Advertisers Brand Tissue Packs
3. Ad Council, U.S. Army Reach Teens with Tissue Packs
4. Kaiser Wins World’s Biggest Tissue Pack for ‘Beastly’ Idea
5. H&R Block Replaces Chocolate Bars with Tissues

Tags: Creative_process