The Value of Craft

Let's talk about craft.

Not all advertising is created equal.

The quality of creative craft makes a huge difference to the effectiveness of advertising. The valuable skills of great writing, art direction, design, typography and film direction are the things that can turn the mundane into the fascinating, or turn the ordinary into the unmissable.

They can be the difference between the unsuccessful and the successful – between a campaign that fails to reach its targets, and one that adds real long-term value to a client’s business.

That’s why you can have two campaigns with the same strategy, where one fails and one succeeds.

The difference is how well that strategy is brought to life.

The same thing can be written blandly, or it can be written in a way that connects with you or moves you on a human level.

The same thought can be communicated in a way that’s easy to miss, or put forward in such a powerful way that it will stay with you long after you see it.

And that’s why, even in this era of meticulously planned and heavily scrutinised marketing, creativity and creative craft are still the skills most valuable to business when it comes to advertising.

Make sure that you have skilled and talented writers, art directors, typographers, photographers, directors, editors and sound designers working on your advertising – and allow them to use
those talents. 

Because even if what you are doing is right, it will live or die, fail or succeed, by the way that you do it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call craft.

For more pithy challenging of received wisdom, our new book ‘How To Make Better Advertising and Advertising Better – The Manifesto for a New Creative Revolution’ – is available exclusively at the Design Museum.