Writing's cheat code.

Whenever I got a brief, I'd always ask this very important question: "Why do we only get two f***ing weeks for creative when it took 8 f***ing weeks to get the brief done?!"

But the second, and far more more productive question I'd then ask was "Where is this ad going to run?"

Because knowing the specific location of your ad is one of the best cheat codes to doing great work since stealing ideas from One Show Annuals. Hey, it's ok. We've all done it. How to Write Gooder is a judgement free zone.

Many of the greatest ads ever done take advantage of the physical space they occupy. I calI this physical context. (Not to be confused with cultural context which I wrote about last week.)

Ideas that use physical context are both tough to ignore and really, really easy to remember.

Here's a great example from mattress-in-a-box retailer Casper. The agency, Lg2 (Toronto), noticed a bunch of digital billboards clustered around all these downtown condos. Which is no big deal during the day, but at night is like having three prison searchlights outside your bedroom window.

So they bought the billboards, and then turned them off at night.

The location of these boards gave the creative team a unique chance to speak specifically to the poor saps who felt like they were experiencing a prison break at Shawshank every night they went to bed.

Knowing the specific location of your ad gives you the chance to speak to a group of people who are all experiencing the same thing at the same time.

Like how boring it is to ride the subway.

This ad (promoting advertising on the subway - very meta) understood that riding a packed subway car at rush hour sucks. You just stand there, packed like sardines, armpit to armpit, with nothing to do.

So the writer gave them this to read.

Put this line on a poster outside the subway on the street and it doesn't work. But on the subway, where you'll do anything to avoid eye contact with whoever's deodorant is breaking down, it's perfect.

This campaign for a DIY store called OBI in Germany uses location beautifully.

To show how their products could renovate any space - the agency looked for rundown houses close to OBI stores and then put up these 'renovated' billboards using OBI products.

On a billboard on the Autobahn, these boards would make no sense. But around the window of a rundown Berlin flat? They're wunderbar.

And for you writers out there, please note the very workmanlike copy line: Renovated with OBI.

It's not clever. And it doesn't have to be, because the visual idea is clever. If you have an idea in the visual, you don't need an idea in the line. And if you have an idea in the line, you don't need an idea in the visual. When you put a clever line on a clever visual, it's a 'thing on a thing'. And it can leave people with nothing more than a headache.

This last example is from a Canadian brand called No Name? that took physical context to another level.

No Name is a discount store brand known for its iconic black and yellow packaging, and no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is product descriptors. This, for example, is what a six-pack of No Name beer looks like.

So with that in mind, No Name ran over a hundred different ads that took their so-dry-it's-dusty tone of voice to whatever location they appeared on.

So next time you get a brief, ask where the ads are running. Better yet, think of where an ad could run, and ask the media company to buy those spaces.

They might say no, but you can always ask.

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