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CREATIVE THINKING: SO HOW DO YOU DO IT?
Professor Mark Stuhlfaut has identified the significant elements of creativity,
which begins with novelty but include appropriateness as well as authenticity and
relevance. He adds that, “if it’s creative, it is also generative; in other words, it
leads to other new ways of thinking.” So creativity can be defined as generating
novelty or uniqueness that makes something ring true.
Marketing communication and advertising are creative idea businesses. An idea is
a thought or a concept in the mind. It’s formed by mentally combining pieces and
fragments of thoughts into something that contains a nugget of meaning.
Advertisers creatives sometimes use the term concepting to refer to the process of
coming up with a new idea. Big Ideas are also called creative concepts.
To understand what creativity is, it may be helpful to understand what it is not.
What’s the opposite of creative? In advertising, clichés are the most obvious
examples of generic, non-original, non-novel ideas. To help you understand how
creative people think about strategy and advertising ideas, ten tips are offered by
Professor Tom Groth.
Big Ideas
What we call a Big Idea or creative concept becomes a point of focus for
communicating the message strategy. But Big Ideas can be risky because they are
different and, by definition, untested. So risky is good for edgy Big Ideas, but
how far on the edge is a difficult question.
Principle:Big Ideas are risky because, by definition, they are new, unexpected,
and untested.
Where do Big Ideas come from? James Webb Young, a founder of the Young &
Rubicam agency, explained in his classic book that that an idea is a new or
unexpected combination of thoughts. He claims that “the ability to make new
combinations is heightened by an ability to see relationships.” An idea, then, is a
thought that comes from placing two previously unrelated concepts together.
The ROI of Creativity
A Big Idea is more than just a new thought because in advertising it also has to
accomplish something—it has a functional dimension. According to the DDB
agency, an effective ad is relevant, original, and has impact—which is referred to
as ROI of creativity. In traditional business ROI stands for returnoninvestment,
but it means something very different here. According to DDB’s philosophy, ideas
have to relevantand mean something to the target audience. Original means one
of a kind – an advertising idea is creative when it is novel, fresh, unexpected and
unusual. To be effective, the idea must also have impact, which means it makes
an impression on the audience.
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The essence of a creative idea is that no one else has thought of it. Thus, the first
rule is to avoid doing what everyone else is doing. In an industry that prides itself
on creativity, copycat advertising—that is, using an idea that someone else has
originated—is a concern.
Principle: An idea can be creative for you if you have not thought of it before, but
to be truly creative it has to be one that no one else has thought of before.
We know that many ads just wash over the audience. An idea with impact,
however, breaks through the clutter, gets attention, and sticks in memory. A
breakthrough ad has stopping power and that comes from an intriguing idea—a
Big Idea that is important and relevant to consumers.
The Creative Leap
Divergent thinking is a style of thinking that jumps around exploring
possibilities rather than using rational thinking to arrive at the “right” or logical
conclusion. The heart of creative thinking, divergent thinking, uses exploration
(playfulness) to search for alternatives. Another term for divergent thinking is
right-brain thinking, which is intuitive, holistic, artistic, and emotionally
expressive thinking in contrast to left-brain thinking, which is logical, linear
(inductive or deductive), and orderly.
How can you become a more creative thinker?First, think about the problem as
something that involves a mind-shift. Instead of seeing the obvious, a creative
idea looks at a problem in a different way, from a different angle. That’s called
thinking outside the box. Second, put the strategy language behind you. Finding
the brilliant creative concept entails what advertising giant Otto Kleppner called
the creative leap—a process of jumping from boring business language in a
strategy statement to an original idea. This Big Idea transforms the strategy into
something unexpected, original, and interesting.
Principle: To get a creative idea, you must leap beyond the mundane language of
the strategy statement and see the problem in a novel and unexpected way.
Since the creative leap means moving away from the safety of a predictable
strategy statement to an unusual idea that has not been tried, before, this leap is a
creative risk.
Dialing up Your Creativity
Creative advertising people may be weird and unconventional, but they can’t be
eccentric. They still must be purpose driven, meaning they are focused on creating
effective advertising that’s on strategy. Coming up with a great idea that is also on
strategy is an emotional high. Advertising creatives describe it as “one of the
biggest emotional roller coasters in the business world.”
Principle:Getting a great advertising idea that is also on strategy is an emotional
high.
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Research has found that most people can sharpen their skills and develop their
creative potential by understanding and strengthening certain personal
characteristics. Research also indicates that creative people tend to be
independent, assertive, self-sufficient, persistent, self-disciplined, curious, and
possess a high tolerance for ambiguity. They are also risk takers with powerful
egos that are internally driven. Here are a few of the key characteristics of
creative people who do well in advertising:
Problem solving. Creative problem solvers are alert, watchful, and observant,
and reach conclusions through intuition rather than through logic.
Playful. Creative people have fun with ideas; they have a mental playfulness
that allows them to make novel associations.
The ability to visualize. Most of the information we accumulate comes
through sight, so the ability to manipulate visual images is crucial for good
copywriters, as well as designers.
Open to new experiences. Over the course of a lifetime, openness to
experience may give you many more adventures from which to draw. Those
experiences would, in turn, give a novelist more characters to write about, a
painter more scenes to paint, and the creative team more angles from which to
tackle an advertising problem.
Conceptual thinking. It’s easy to see how people who are open to experience
might develop innovative advertisements and commercials because they are
more imaginative.
The Creative Process: How to Get an Idea
Only in cartoons do light bulbs appear above our heads from out of nowhere when
a good idea strikes. In reality, most people who are good at thinking up new ideas
will tell you that it is hard work. The unusual, unexpected, novel idea rarely
comes easily—and that’s as true in science and medicine as it is in advertising.
However, most experts on creativity realize that there are steps to the process of
thinking up a new idea. The classic approach to the creative process is portrayed
by the following series of steps:
Step 1: Immersion. Read, research, and learn everything you can about the
problem.
Step 2: Ideation. Look at the problem from every angle; develop ideas;
generate as many alternatives as possible.
Step 3: Brainfag.Don’t give up if, and when you hit a blank wall.
Step 4: Incubation. Try to put your conscious mind to rest to let your
subconscious take over.
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Step 5: Illumination. Embrace the unexpected moment when the idea comes,
often when your mind is relaxed and you’re doing something else.
Step 6: Evaluation. Does it work? Is it on strategy?
Another approach comes from Professor Linda Correll, who developed Creative
Aerobics. This four step idea-generating process opens new doors and windows
for ideas to enter your mind.
Brainstorming
As part of the creative process, some agencies use a thinking technique known as
brainstorming in which a group of 6 to 10 people work together to come up with
ideas. One person’s idea stimulates someone else’s, and the combined power of the
group associations stimulates far more ideas than any one person could think of
alone. The group becomes an idea factory.
The secret to brainstorming is to remain positive and defer judgment. Negative
thinking during a brainstorming session can destroy the informal atmosphere
necessary to achieve a novel idea.
The following list builds on our previous discussion of creative thinking. It can
also be used as an outline for a brainstorming session. To create an original and
unexpected idea, use the following techniques:
What if? To twist the commonplace, ask a crazy “what if” question— for
example, what if wild animals could talk?
An unexpected association. In free association you think of a word and then
describe everything that comes into your mind when you imagine that word.
Dramatizethe obvious. Sometimes the most creative idea is also the most
obvious.
Catchy phrasing. Isuzu used “The 205-Horsepower Primal Scream” for its
Rodeo headline.
An unexpected twist. A road crew usually refers to people who work on a
road project, but for the Road Crew campaign, the phrase was twisted to refer
to limo drivers who give rides to people who have had too much to drink.
Play on words. For example, under the headline “Happy Camper,” an ad for
cheese showed a picture of a packed sports utility vehicle with a huge wedge
of cheese lashed to the rooftop.
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Analogy and metaphor. Used to see new patterns or relationships,
metaphors and analogies by definition set up juxtapositions.
Harley-Davidson compared the legendary sound of its motorcycles to the
taste of a thick, juicy steak.
Familiar and strange. Put the familiar in an unexpected situation: UPS
showed a tiny model of its familiar brown truck moving through a computer
cord.
A twisted cliché. They may have been great ideas the first time they were
used, but phrases such as “the road to success” become trite when overused.
But they can regain their power if twisted into a new context. The “Happy
Camper” line was twisted by relating it to an SUV.
Twist the obvious. Avoid the predictable, such as a picture of a Cadillac on
Wall Street or in front of a mansion. Instead, use an SUV on Wall Street (“fast
tracker”) or a basketball hoop in front of a mansion (“slam dunk”).
Exaggeration. Take a common situation and exaggerate it until it becomes
funny.
To prevent unoriginal ideas, avoid or work around the following:
The look-alike. Avoid copycat advertising that uses somebody else’s great idea.
Hundreds of ads for escape products (resorts, travel, liquor, foods) have used the
headline “Paradise Found.” It’s a play on “Paradise Lost” but still overused.
The tasteless. In an attempt to be cute, a Subaru ad used the headline, “Put it
where the sun don’t shine.” An attempted twist on a cliché, but it doesn’t work.
Getting the Big Idea for marketing communication campaigns has always been the
province of creative teams in agencies. Recently, however, with the development of
new crowdsourcing practices, marketers are finding ways to enlist the collective ideas
of thousands to come up with great ideas.
MANAGING CREATIVE STRATEGY
Next, let’s look at three management issues that affect the formulation of creative
strategies: extension, adaptation, and evaluation.
Extension: An Idea with Legs
One characteristic of a Big Idea is that it gives legs to a campaign. By that we
mean that the idea is strong enough to serve as an umbrella concept for a variety
of executions in different media talking to different audiences. It can be endlessly
extended. Extendibility is a strength of the Chick-fil-A, Geico, and Frontier
Airlines’ talking-animal campaigns.
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Adaption: Taking an Idea Global
The opportunity for standardizing the campaign across multiple markets exists
only if the objectives and strategic position are essentially the same. Otherwise a
creative strategy may call for a little tweaking of the message for a local market or
even major revision if there is a great deal of cultural and market difference.
In a case in which core targeting and positioning strategies remain the same in
different markets, it might be possible for the central creative idea to be universal
across markets. Although the implementation of this idea may vary from market
to market, the creative concept is sound across all types of consumers. Even if the
campaign theme, slogan, or visual elements are the same across markets, it is
usually desirable to adapt the creative execution to the local market. Cultural
differences often require nuanced and subtle changes in ads if they are to be
acceptable beyond the country of their origin.
Evaluation: The Go/No-Go Decision
How do you decide if the creative idea is strong enough to justify the expense of
creating a campaign based on it? Whether local or global, an important part of
managing creative work is evaluation, which happens at several stages in the
creative process.
Structural Analysis
The Leo Burnett agency utilizes a three-step approach for analyzing the logic of
the creative strategy that goes beyond just evaluating strategy. It is used to keep
the message strategy and creative concept working together, along with the head
and the heart appeals. This method, called structural analysis, relies upon three
steps:
1. Evaluate the power of the narrative or story line (heart).
2. Evaluate the strength of the product claim (head).
3. Consider how well the two are integrated—that is, how the story line brings
the claim to life.
Copy Testing
Copy testing is the formal method to evaluate the effectiveness of an ad, either in
a draft form or after it has been executed. To evaluate the results, the objectives
need to be measurable, which means they can be evaluated to determine the
effectiveness of the creative strategy. Copy testing uses a variety of tools to
measure and predict the impact of the advertisement. Chapter 19 in this book will
explain these tools in more detail.
A problem that Big Ideas can face is that the message is sometimes so creative
that the ad is remembered but not the brand. That is called vampire creativity,
and it is one reason some advertisers shy away from really novel or entertaining
strategies.
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END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT
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