The Creativity of Exaggeration
The One Minute Creative. Chapter 1.
This is the first in a series of quick catalyst thoughts. Everyone's creative field of vision gets narrowed by habit. These are just flashes -- quick ideas for your mind's eye.
The economy has put a collective pall on the use of exaggeration, especially in advertising. The exaggeration boom mirrored the excesses of '80s and '90s and, now, like puns, they linger at the bottom of the creative food chain.
But exaggeration can be a great tool to not only highlight a benefit it can lead to ideas that can shape how you envision or change a product or service. Here are some of my favorite samples of exaggeration in advertising. This one is from Olivly Mather in South Africa for the VW bus (which may be the only place it's still selling).
I wish I had done this for Toyota when working on Previa.
Here's one from Mumbia India for Onergy by SCC and B Lintas -- which are vitamins for "enhanced vigor and vitality." Wonderful. No smiling faces, just a visual testimonial for its effectiveness.
Here's one done for Thompson for a wide screen TV.
And one from my old agency Saachi for the V8 version of LandCruiser.
And finally, one of my top tens from Carmichael Lynch for Polaris. The creative question: How do you "show" the benefits of incredible towing power?
Eggageration is one of the tools we use at Inotivity to explore ways we can reframe how people look at a product or service. Or it may be a way to radically change a product feature or attribute.
Typically, we would ask "how might we exaggerate (fill in feature or benefit) to make it better/unique? TBWA in Barcelona did a terrific ad for EnerVit (supplement for animals with nutritional difficulties) where the zebra was chasing the lion.
For example, if you make air conditioners, might it be so powerful that even a Penguin would need a sweater?
A few years ago, Carmen Ferraro of Headbuz and I did an ad for a wireless company with the headline "Over 100,000 locations to serve you." This evolved from a single benefit -- if you had a problem with your phone and they couldn't resolve it by phone, they would come to you -- at home or work.
So what might you exaggerate to create a new solution? Or to create a better question? This technique is guaranteed to increase your revenue by 50% or more a year. Of course, I could be exaggerating.
Creativity Central
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