Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Concepting vs Leprosy

At the core of every advertising campaign lies a concepting session where shared thoughts manifest into brilliant ideas. As it reads now, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary defines ADVERTISING as, "The action of calling something to the attention of the public, especially by paid announcements." Though this definition was probably written sometime during the Fillmore administration, some components still hold true today. These "announcements," that once came in the form of posters hawking remedy elixirs, now represent a thirty-second spot, a print ad, a billboard, or a viral campaign. This current definition however only describes the final product of our creative process where the work is polished, shined, and unveiled to the public.

What remains to be defined is the method used to develop these campaigns. For a book that identifies a vast number of professions from fossil finders (paleontologist) to glorified tooth-brushers (dental hygienist), Merriam-Webster fails to properly record the full scope of advertising. In the end one could dismiss Verb4Concept, arguing that "concepting" is just brainstorming, but if that's the case then the argument can also be made that leprosy is merely a collection of boils.