The headline is a summation of what George Lois, considered one of the greatest art directors and 'the original mad man', had to say about ideas.
"I don’t think I create anything. I’m really serious — I discover the ideas.
If you understand how to think… If you have a background of graphic art, and you are a sports fan, and you’re literate, and you’re interested in politics, and you love opera, and ballet’s not bad either, and if you understand people… and you understand language, and you understand that product, and you understand the competitive products… and you put that all together in about ten minutes — the idea’s there."
Be open to experiences and you are likely to come up with interesting ideas. Learn it from masters like George Lois.
I came across this short but illuminating speech by Scott Cook, Intuit’s founder.
He gives very interesting suggestions on how bosses can help create a culture of innovation within an organization. Following are some of the gems from his speech.
“Boss’s role is not that of Caesar making decisions, but to put in a system where junior people can learn from faster and cheaper experiments, so that ideas can prove themselves.”
“Move decision making from politics and power-points to enabling ideas to prove themselves. Nothing enfranchises innovators more than this.”
He stresses that this approach can work in formulating government policies as much as helping companies launch new ideas/products. The examples in his speech amply demonstrate this.
You might think that in the digital environment, like for example in a digital agency, the culture of low-cost and fast experimentation is all pervasive. Nothing can be further from the truth than that.
Testing an idea with low-cost or no-cost experiments almost never happens. Somehow the mindset of ‘big campaigns’ with ‘big budgets’ always comes into play, even in the digital space. In fact, the client is a willing accomplice to this. But this big budget does not translate to bigger fees as far as agencies are concerned. Digital agencies, for the most part, live in penury when compared to their mainline agency cousins.
I guess, we are in the mesozoic stage of digital evolution in India. Let the dinosaurs roam.
'Inspired' is the word used by creative types in place of 'steal'. But then "it's is where you take them to" that matters. It is then that people automatically know whether it was 'inspired' or 'stolen'. Amen.
Boredom, is often times seen as one big downer. Being bored is considered to be a form of 'psychological sahara'. Not anymore.
This interesting piece on psychology of boredom lays to rest many preconceived notions on boredom. Here are some of the excerpts.
Boredom and its synonyms can also become a crucial tool of creativity. “Boredom is your window,” Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.”
The secret isn’t boredom per se: It’s how boredom makes us think. When people are immersed in monotony, they automatically lapse into a very special form of brain activity: mind-wandering. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, mind-wandering is often derided as a lazy habit, the kind of thinking we rely on when we don’t really want to think. (Freud regarded mind-wandering as an example of “infantile” thinking.) It’s a sign of procrastination, not productivity.
In recent years, however, neuroscience has dramatically revised our views of mind-wandering. For one thing, it turns out that the mind wanders a ridiculous amount.
The last bit of mind wandering research worth highlighting also comes from the Schooler lab. Not all daydreams are equally effective at inspiring new ideas. In his experiments, Schooler distinguishes between two types of daydreaming. The first type occurs when people notice they are daydreaming only when prodded by the researcher. Although they’ve been told to press a button as soon as they realize their mind has started to wander, these people fail to press the button. The second type of daydreaming occurs when people catch themselves during the experiment – they notice they’re mind-wandering on their own. According to Schooler’s data, individuals who are unaware of their mind-wandering don’t exhibit increased creativity.
Couple of days back I dropped by a friend’s place. He is a super-geek working for an IT MNC. He was watching India hammer Sri Lanka in the third cricket test match along with his colleagues. This being an unusual event, India hammering Sri Lanka that is, the decibel levels were way above normal. The only time the noise levels dipped a little was during the commercial break. That was when they recharged their batteries with some beer and by letting off steam against any easy target that came their way. The easy target happened to be ads that was aired with annoyingly high frequency on the screen.
My friend, whose sense of humour could be measured in nanobytes, thought he will add to the fun. He mentioned to his inebriated colleagues that until recent past I was an adman and that I was largely responsible for rendering large sections of India catatonic with the ads I had created. It is true, the catatonic part.
These blokes, whose mouths were in a race with their respective bladders for loss of control, decided to play judge and jury by putting me on the dock on behalf of the entire ad industry. They started grilling me about all things advertising. They wanted to know how commercials were made, monies, impact and so on. These were the kind of questions, many of which, even the most knowledgeable ad and marketing bloke would have found daunting. But then they were dealing with me and my bullshit factory with years of practice was on an overdrive. I laid it on thick by describing research, positioning, scripts, storyboard, producers, budgets etc. When I finished my speech, there was the kind of silence wherein you could even hear an ant fart.
Then one of them burped and said with his tongue rolling out-of-control, “whyyy ish everytheeng shame?” (Translation: Why the f*ck does everything look the same?)
It was true. In a short span of time we saw ads for different brands in the same categories all looking the same. The only ad that was interesting and memorable was the Vodafone series. Continuing my role as a defendant, I gave them a corny answer for this obvious lack of differentiation amongst ads. I said something to the effect that “different people can have the same creative idea”. It was very evident that I was desperately scrapping the bottom of my bullshit barrel and that it was time to make a quiet exit.
Fortunately, the discussion took an interesting turn. They turned their attention to the tech industry and started debating as to how software and other tech stuff did not differ from one company to another. Interestingly, the word they used was ‘mimic’. Then the discussion moved to cars. One bloke said that he had recently purchased a Honda City and that he found very little difference between various car models when he did the homework for buying a car. In fact, the debate only brought to light the fact there were little difference between various products and brands.
Therefore the question, “If everything is the same, where on earth is creativity?”
“Their key insight is that creative ideas can only spread if they're actually adopted by others. Too much creativity, and there's not enough imitation--ideas die on the vine, because there are so many of them and few ever catch fire. For good ideas to spread, there's an optimal balance to be reached between creating and imitating.”
The figure by some gobbledygook magic is that only 30% create and the rest imitate. In my opinion that is a very optimistic figure. In the case of ad industry it is likely to be much lower. Even the scam ads seem to ‘mimic’ one another.
In a different and lighter vein, John Dodds says in a post on big ideas that “probably only fire and alcohol could be classified as a big idea and the rest debatable”. I concur. I might have included the wheel to the list. I am not fussy, though.
So folks, if you copy you are in good (and large) company. So set forth and copy. If you do copy, be smart enough not to get caught. And if you do get caught, be smart enough not to get caught with a bunch of drunks. If you copy, get caught and find yourself in the company of drunks, be kind enough to buy them a round of drinks. Cheers!
We have heard or read about the painstaking efforts of geniuses like Bernbach and Ogilvy to create campaigns that are talked about even now. Their homework included getting into the details of the product or service and most of the time they did it themselves (There were no Account Planners then!) Bernbach, Ogilvy and people like them were in all probability the original Planners.
This approach to creativity is not confined to advertising or the expressive arts. It cuts across various fields from high-technology to teaching to gardening. If anything, this is mandatory in most other fields. Why should it not be so for advertising (wherever and whenever possible)?
As far as advertising is concerned, modern day legends like Lee Clow or Alex Bogusky seem to belong to the Ogilvy-Bernbach approach to creativity. And it shows.
However, there are two other schools of creative that seem to increasingly dominate the market-place. There is one that seems to depend heavily on style more than substance. And award juries seem to be their target audience. There is yet another which is driven by Marketers (the I-know-it-all kind) whose single-minded obsession is to perpetuate mediocrity. They justify this sort of work with mind-numbing research and uninspiring strategy.
The effort that goes into the development of either kind of work is no less strenuous but is unfortunately misdirected. I also feel the capability of the creative team is not fully utilized and a lot is left to chance. I call this the ‘shot in the dark’ approach. The success of the work largely depends on the ‘strike-rate’ of the creative person and the agency.
How can creative teams (and agencies) get out of this kind of trap and yet produce work that succeeds in the market-place as well as be personally rewarding?
Here’s a brilliant piece by creative legend, Dave Trott, on how his efforts to understand the client’s product (Tower Pans) led to a successful campaign. The fact that it got featured in D&AD should be proof enough for the awards-obsessed crowd that due diligence can be rewarding.
What I liked about Dave Trott’s example was his questioning of the brief, followed by the homework (details) he did which led to a successful campaign. In today’s environment, the homework is left to the Planning and Account teams who for all practical purpose spoon-feed the creative team. But something seems to be missing somewhere and the work falls short of being magical. Dave Trott also explains why Marketers (or clients) may not be of much help and shows how a determined creative person can surmount all obstacles.
Scamp has a different and interesting view from that of Dave Trott especially with respect to ‘homework’. The conversation that followed only reinforces my view which led to the topic under discussion.
I believe that creativity is in the details. This is not about stating facts or getting verbose in the creative. This is about hitting upon the right combination of facts and insight that leads to an inspiring piece of work. This way there is a greater probability of a winning creative emerging. If anyone doubts that, just ask Honda and Dove.
