Being creative is close to being innovative. It may be easy to ‘just create something’ however just creating is not enough; what we create should also be effective. Therefore, we have to be ‘solution-oriented’ and constantly review our work and progress. The result should always stimulate someone (customer, spectator, prospect etc.) in a specific, predefined area.

How we do this at The Golden Delicious is best explained by presenting you the 3 stages of the creative process that we follow with every prospect or client.

I STAGE 1

The first question we will ask you is this: “What behavioral change of the recipient are you looking for?”

We put ourselves in your customer’s shoes, or, even better: we picture what your customer needs. Where does he see the advertisement/presentation? What does he need and specifically: why does he need it? What will entice him? What is holding him back in using/buying your product?

EXAMPLE — We helped create a short visual and cinematic presentation for a multinational. This visually translated the level of staff dissatisfaction after a big move, and introduced a number of possible solutions to increase staff satisfaction.

We knew that the person in charge, who we showed this presentation, was a film buff, so we had used this information in the creation of the presentation. The result was a very imaginative presentation, and while watching he immediately began envisioning the solutions. This, of course, was much better than handing over a stack of Excel sheets with data and figures. Mission accomplished!

"TGD has effectively dissected our message and incorporated it into a cinematographic keynote! This way the result was very effective!" - Sander van Lier | Workplace Manager PVH

I STAGE 2

The second thing we will ask you and ourself is this: "What is the mission, vision, identity and reputation of the client and how can we use this in relation to the product?"

The research into finding the answers to these questions provides us with a deep insight into the organisation's core values, goals and identity. It helps us understand what makes the organisation unique and who its potential target audiences may be.

A mission statement is a general description of an organisation's right to exist, its identity, dream, strategy, values and norms. It gives direction and focus to the organisation and helps customers choose for the organisation. From the mission statement, a vision is derived.

A company’s vision is the picture of the future situation of the organisation based on its mission statement: who do we want to be and what have we achieved in 3 to 5 years’ time? A strong vision gives direction to the organisation and motivates those involved.

Identity and reputation refer to the unique characteristics and values of the products or services, where the former is introspective and the latter is extrospective. Both are built with behaviour (what do-you-do), idiom (tone-of-voice) and design (the look-and-feel). They can be very different from each other!

EXAMPLE — One of our clients is an international organisation that provides free push chairs to hospitals, and who uses ad sponsorship to get its funds. By modernising their brand (the look and feel as well as the tone of voice) with new copy, logo, website, design, photos and more, we succeeded in creating a shift in the organisation’s advertiser target group from small entrepreneurs to large (multi) national service providers. We succeeded in rebranding the organisation’s reputation to attract a new advertiser target group.

"Looking for an experienced, decisive and creative team, I found The Golden Delicious. This great cooperation has led to a completely new presentation, which we can use to approach our market. Big compliments for the ideas and implementation!" - Jos Bookelman | Algemeen Directeur Vitrina

I STAGE 3

The third question we will ask ourself is this: "What tools should we use, with which we set the recipient in motion?"

Should we use bus stops or online marketing? Do we meet the customer in movie theatres or does the prospect need more information and should we inform him first? Is there any existing awareness at all that we can start from? 

Of course, if there is enough funding, we can easily go ‘cross-media’. We deploy the 360 of marketing and thus always hit the target audience somewhere. But even when budgets are more limited, we can be very effective.

EXAMPLE — For a municipality we used online marketing with which we, very effectively, reached children’s parents (!) with the following bummer message: "Do not allow your kids to drink alcohol at the end of COVID time and New Year's Eve". Not a very popular message to spread :-)

By being widely present on Socials with the very stimulating sentence “Ben jij een ouder van NIX?* - do the test here" we reached a broad target group and a large discussion ensued.

Based on research and data from parents of adolescents, we managed to strike the right chord and got, and held, the recipients’ attention. With hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of hits per day, the conversation started and the result was Group Conformation: parents became stricter when it came to alcohol use by their children. They felt supported when other parents in their street did the same. What a great campaign that was!

* NIX18 is the National Dutch campaign aimed at reducing alcohol consumption among under-18s. The sentence “Ben jij een ouder van NIX?” translates as “Are you a worthless parent?” The Dutch phrase contains a very obvious pun that unfortunately does not translate very well into English…

"We received many compliments from our directors about the campaign and the way in which it was performed. The approach and results are also presented to the municipal councils. Thanks for the nice cooperation." - Esther Koning | Communications adviser - municipality of Koggenland

By explaining the way we work and giving some examples we hope to make clear that the creation process requires a solid understanding of an organisation's mission, vision, identity and reputation. By analysing these aspects and using the outcomes, an organisation can direct its creative processes, thereby ensuring that the result is in line with its core values and goals.

And that's where we can help! So please contact us if you want to learn more.

Thank you, The Golden Delicious