Is creativity a bad word in business? Is it just an artsy ideal of marketing, but not really an effective bottom-line booster? In their book, Juicing the Orange, Pat Fallon and Fred Senn address the misconceptions regarding implementing creativity in today’s marketing environment. Using the metaphor of juicing an orange, they demonstrate how creativity can give a campaign leverage over the competition and produce impressive results.
What does the term “juicing the orange” mean anyway?
The phrase is a metaphor to express the way marketers get the most "bang for their buck" from advertising. It expresses the idea of using existing resources, adding some creative thinking, and producing powerful campaigns. Fallon and Senn are trying to make the point that great marketing comes from extracting the juice from the orange you already have, not laying out the greenbacks to simply buy more oranges. Handing a consumer fresh squeezed orange juice is more appealing than giving them whole fruit to unpack and process themselves. By delivering great “orange juice,” a marketing campaign will reap greater results.
Creative Leverage
The authors’ pet buzzword is creative leverage. They define the phrase as, “the daily practice of making creativity actionable and accountable for changing consumer behavior.” The goal of marketing is to change consumer behavior by influencing them to take a certain action. Marketers often attempt to do this through advertising. When Fallon’s agency was born, TV ads were statistically becoming less effective. Consumers were used to advertising and less sensitive to it. In response, many agencies began simply buying more ad time, handing consumers more whole oranges. Fallon and his agency saw the fallacy in this approach and stepped out of the mold to promote actively applying original imagination to advertising in order to produce measurable results. They went about juicing the orange. And it worked.
Juice is better
By juicing the orange, the marketer reaps substantial benefits. Working with a company's good, existing resources is often less expensive than buying new ads or more TV spots. Applying creativity within a pre-existing budget will help the marketer go farther on less. Also, by strategically targeting a clear, concise message to the right audience, campaigns will have a greater and longer lasting impact on the customer. Returning to the analogy, this is an example of how pure and simple orange juice is much more appealing to the customer than whole oranges.
How do marketers juice the orange?
They start with great oranges. Marketers should begin by identifying or generating unique, workable ideas that will produce great results. Then they need to apply creativity in order to extract the best aspects of each idea, adding these elements to the overall marketing plan. Finally marketers filter out any distracting elements (the pulp). In the end, poured into the glass is a pure message that the receiver can easily digest. The goal is to have a message that the consumers will love, remember, and take action on.
Whether you are selling the world’s greatest chocolate bar or raising awareness to breast cancer, juicing the marketing oranges will produce lasting, identifiable results that will effectively promote your message.
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