Back in my agency days, we used to use the three-legged stool metaphor quite a bit to help demonstrate to clients what it takes to deliver an effective advertising or branding effort. The three legs represent: budget, creative and time. Ideally, you’ll achieve the best results when all three legs are good and strong: you have the money you need to create and execute an effort that will achieve your goals; you have the time you need to plan, develop, test, refine and execute your plan; and last, but not least, you have strong, compelling creative that captures people’s attention and advances institutional objectives.
There is, however, some wiggle room on this stool, if you have the support of two out of the three.
CREATIVE + TIME, in this case you don’t have all the money you need to do everything you want, which is typically the case in higher education. But given really good creative and sufficient time, you should be able to cut through the clutter and make an impact in the long run.
MONEY + TIME, in this scenario your creative is pretty lack luster, so don’t plan on it making an immediate impression. It’s going to take plenty of time and money to ensure folks are exposed to your message, but that frequency will ultimately lead to awareness.
CREATIVE + MONEY, strong creative along with the appropriate resources to support and push-out the creative will make a big impact in short order.
As the Rolling Stones say, you can’t always get what you want, but you may be able to get what you need to launch an impactful brand effort. Let us know if Wiltrout Marketing can help.
