Creative Pitching: 8 Secrets You Should Design In

Could you guess the most creative pitching or advertising ever? You might ask about the criteria for the most popular, yes? In this case, we will use the most awarded ads, according to the Gunn Report.

Creative Advertising
Creative pitching.
The Bear Commercial

Target market

Grab and hold the attention

Value proposition

Tell fun story

Make messages simple

End state values

Influence and persuasion 

Design of visuals

In the advertising business, everyone is familiar with a commercial for the French TV company Canal+, titled “The Bear.” Created by ad agency BETC Paris, this commercial is now, officially, the best TV ad of all time, according to The Gunn Report, which tracks advertising awards.

Adweek notes that the ad has received more industry awards than any other single piece of work in the Gunn Report’s history.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Released in 2011, it has been viewed 1 million times on YouTube but, obviously, has never aired in any of the larger TV markets in the English-speaking West because it’s for a French brand.

Related post: Insurance Advertising War … 8 Examples to Learn From

For Canal+, its communications are driven by a desire to remind audiences of its commitment to quality cinema. As part of this strategy the channel’s ad agency, BETC Paris, produced an offbeat, witty TV commercial – ‘The Bear’ – in which a bearskin rug explains what it takes to become a great Hollywood director.

Have you seen this advertisement?  If you have not seen this 30-second ad, you can check it out here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3393O1uD_w8

In marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. This advertisement certainly achieves this goal, don’t you think?

Let’s examine this commercial and what contributes to the secrets of its success. And its ability to influence or persuade.

Creative advertising is relevant to the target market

Keep in mind that one message does not fit all. It starts with knowing your target market. Here the target market is families who like to watch cinema. This commercial is certainly relevant to this market, isn’t it?

Creative advertising ideas … grab and hold the attention

Hold attention to interesting information.  Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. Your ad messages must be interesting to your target communities.

This message certainly grabs and holds attention based on the simple emotion of effective humor.

define value proposition
You must define the value proposition.

Define the value proposition

A unique selling proposition that truly discriminates you from your competition. Give your customers reasons to select you. Maybe not the most significant visible feature, it does illustrate Canal+’s claim as a company that puts a high priority on great cinema, which is their clear, yet very simple message:

‘The more you watch Canal+ the more you love cinema’

See our article on building the best Unique Selling Positions.

tell fun story
Did you tell a fun story?

Tell a fun story

This is definitely a humorous story that draws in potential customers. It stars a bearskin rug who, having seen a lot of movies on TV from his spot on the living room floor, becomes a movie director himself in the egotistic style of Stanley Kubrick.

Through a combination of live-action and CG ‘The Bear’, shows the rug at work as a film director behind the scenes of his latest film, complete with mood swings and tantrums. The narrative wittily and succinctly brings to life Canal+’s claim that: ‘The more you watch Canal+ the more you love cinema’.

 

Make messages simple

Simple enough that the reader will quickly understand. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words. Creating customer emotion through solid humor does not get any simpler than this, does it?

Customers’ end-state values

Customers and particularly the target customers are looking for new winning cinema features. No reason to buy without these and the marketing strategy certainly is addressing this end state in our opinion.

The commercial does not address any specific examples of Canal+ cinema examples or features or why Canal+ is the best. A weakness we believe.

Influence and persuasion

There are no better means of influence or persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion. This commercial focuses on emotional appeal in grand fashion, with its witty humor.

A real pleasure to watch in our minds.

It is the secret of this commercial’s success.

Outstanding visuals

This video would have been a winner without the commitment of the outstanding visuals. The bear rug visuals pushed it well over the top, didn’t they?

Successful Advertisement Design … 12 Best Examples to Study

The bottom line  

Remember, it is not what the most popular advertisement does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after viewing the advertisement.  

After looking over these enablers, we believe Canal+ has created a very effective commercial, well worthy of its awards and popularity.

 What do you think? Does this commercial persuade you? It certainly persuades me.  What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign? 

Need some help in capturing more customers from your advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your advertising design?

Do you have a lesson about making your innovation better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below? 

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.   

More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Ogilvy on Advertising … Best Lessons Learned from his Secrets

Volkswagen Ad … The Secrets to Its Effectiveness?

Effective Advertising … 14 Best Examples of Ad Design

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