Creativity is an integral part of the agency work.

No agency can survive on mediocrity. Therefore having a clear tool for distilling the creative process is a basic requirement for the survival of the agency. Since the start of the 20th centaury, Nigeria had witnessed an upsurge in the number of agencies that have come to live. Some open shop for just one day and they are gone the very next day. This proliferation of the industry has given rise to substandard advertising creativity.

As a client, one is bombarded daily with an array of creative proposals that are a far cry from what real creativity should look like. The trip for me is the passion and zeal with which the originator of such “kindergarten creativity” tries to sell their ideas. Sometime I ask myself, are these guys so blind that they can not see the stupidity of their creative process. Most often than not, every of such encounters always leave me with a visual constipation.

MAP (Motivation/ Activation/Participation) tool by Kenny, is a welcomed relief for the industry. It brings to the fore that systematic approach towards writing advertising that sells. It is useful to both the agency and client. It shows the inherent ingredient that is required for the development of great ads. The tool starts with an understanding of your brand or product vision. A clears understanding of this, will set the pace for the agency to think. This therefore brings to the fore the usefulness of the tool to the client.

A good and concise brief from the client is the foundation for a solid advertising. When the brief is not clear, every other thing will certainly not be right. When we see any bad ad, the first question that comes to mind is which client approved this ad. Yes, a client that writes a bad brief would approve the bad advert. Simple. The next stage in the tool is the motivation. This is the scientific approach that digs further into the inner thinking of the consumers to bring out their basic motivation for desiring your products. The benefit of this is that once the motivation is right, and the ad connects with such motivation then you have an advert that sell. The connection must be right. The next stage is to activate that connection point and then use creativity to bring this to live in a way that is compelling.

Simple, put MAP is a basic companion to both the client and the agency. It is the basic foundation for the development of creativity that sells and connects with the target.