A Creative & a Strategist Walk Into a Studio: Creating Desire in Brands with Meg Beckum & Paul Collins
What if creatives and strategists worked seamlessly together? What if they were able to put aside their egos and created brands that were desirable?
In this episode of the Healthy Brand Podcast, I had a great discussion with Meg Beckum, Executive Creative Director and Paul Collins, Executive Director of Strategy & Innovation from Elmwood, a brand design consultancy. We dove into the potential conflicts of creatives and strategists, where to find big ideas, and how to create desire in the world of healthcare.
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In this episode:
Strategy needs to be provocative by having a point-of-view
Choose debate over framework, conflict over compliance
Make healthcare brands desirable through emotional rewards
Get strategic inspiration in the arts and culture instead of peers
How to be a super star creative
The epiphanies of Paul and Meg during a pivotal moment of their lives
KEY LESSONS
Strategy needs to be provocative by having a point-of-view
“How do we be very commercially sound in our recommendations? How do we create the urge to actually want to work on this brand? It should make people say - Oh my god, I never thought of this category like that.”
Paul Collins
One thing that both Paul and Meg emphasized was how the brand strategy needs to provoke new and expansive thinking about the brand.
The rigor of analysis needs to be there, but the end result is a definitive point-of-view, a distillation of research and creative thinking.
“Love your hundred page deck, but we’re going to put everyone to sleep. A strategist needs to bring things to a hard point”
Meg Beckum
Choose debate over framework, conflict over compliance
“That's something that we'd really try to encourage in our studio. Maybe we frustrate each other a bit with that. But I think our best work comes from all of us sitting around the table debating - are we pushing this far enough? Is this interesting?”
Meg Beckum
When asked about whether they use templates and frameworks, what was more important to Paul and Meg was the culture of debate and critical thinking. Rather than filling out a template, it was more important that creatives and strategists get into a room and push on the idea.
“We are building a learning culture that's based on crits or critiques, infusing the values into those meetings because you don't want it to become like a checklist. And so the idea is to be meeting frequently and having conversations and reinforcing those beliefs. So it becomes more organic to the work versus formulaic...”
Paul Collins
In this way, there is actually more learning and it becomes more specific to the context and problem at hand.
Make healthcare brands desirable through emotional rewards
Healthcare has a dearth of desire and that is impacting people’s lives. Meg and Paul sees a world where healthcare brands are attractive and desirable, helping to remove psychological barriers so people can live healthier.
"People talk about experience all the time, but it's less about the path to purchase or moving commercial drivers. And it's really about saying, what are the psychological obstacles or barriers that are preventing people from taking this action. And then how do you actually design the experience to remove those obstacles and barriers?"
Paul Collins
Paul shares three things to think about when creating desire:
Vision: Paint a really interesting and compelling vision of the future instead of just talking about what the brand does for you in the here and now.
Chemistry: Express beliefs, values or point of view to establish a rapport between the brand and the audience.
Agency: Through effective communication design and experience design, give people the control over their destiny and “art direct” their own future - part product, part perception and framing.
The trap that most healthcare organizations especially those creating medicines and devices is communicating solely about their science. According to Meg, what they need to make happen is creating a world where that abstract science becomes tangible and real. That’s how desire is created.
“A lot of organizations come to us and are like, we really want to talk about the science. The science is so advanced. And it is, it absolutely is.”
“Imagine a cancer drug or something like that. Yes, I want to know it's the very best science imaginable, but I also want to feel better. Making the abstract of science feel real and see how people can make that progress and paint that picture for them. I think that's sort of the power of a designer - you can make that abstract science real”
Meg Beckum
Conclusion
When strategy and creative can move and groove together, amazing things can happen. Whether you are in an agency or a client working with one, make sure your teams are aligned, willing to debate, so the best work prevails.