Creativity in marketing is a topic on basically every marketer’s mind every day. In fact, there was a very thought-provoking piece the other day in Ad Age entitled “The Habits of Highly Creative Marketers” which provided the impetus for writing this post today. You can find it here.
The fundamental question on the minds of every marketer every day is “How can I be the most creative in my marketing?” Creativity in marketing is equal parts science and art. But the reason why creativity and marketing go together so tightly is tied to the fundamental goal of any ad campaign. Think about the reason for being of any ad campaign you see on TV, or online, or on your mobile device. The goal of every campaign likely falls into one of three broad buckets. First, to generate sales. Second, to generate awareness or brand awareness. Third, to generate some other type of action; perhaps, to get someone to forward to a friend or leave their email address or something else.
Every business or brand has competitors. Guess what? They have the same goals, the same three buckets. Let’s think about Heineken, one of the examples given in the article referenced above. They are a very well-known brand. Likely, their ad campaigns are done to keep their brand “fresh” and to ultimately generate sales, new and recurring. Being a premium beer, they have a lot (arguably dozens) of competitors depending on where you are in the world. Their competitors are all trying to extend their brands and generate sales too.
This is where creativity in marketing comes into play. It is the differentiating factor many times in brand awareness and sales.
So the question really is: How do you be creative, or the most creative?
Some good suggestions thrown out include not basing creativity around just being creative, but rather results, data or real consumer insights. Another one is utilizing social media, which in and of itself can be very creative since it affords the marketer the chance to reach a lot of people and to interact directly with consumers in a way no other medium can. Finally, it is not often that one person by himself or herself can be the sole creative engine; therefore, it is always a good idea to embrace teamwork and inviting more people under the tent in order to generate hugely creative ideas.
These are all good suggestions. But one could argue that they are fairly common sense, too, or at least not as ground-breaking as some of the fantastic creative campaigns themselves. So what really makes creativity in marketing? Is there a secret sauce, so to speak?
I’ve always felt that the secret sauce to creativity in marketing is around you every day. Which would mean that awareness is the most important habit for marketers looking to win the creative game. Let me provide a few examples, but first, think about what you do every single day. You interact with people; team members, colleagues, but also your community or the general population at large. When I say anything can spark a creativity idea, I mean anything can…as long as you are aware of what exactly is going on around you.
One of the most creative ideas I ever had came purely from one sentence I overheard at a trade show. Literally, if I hadn’t been paying attention, I would never have had the idea for a majorly creative campaign which then became a franchise.
One of the other most creative ideas I ever had came from staring at the same advertisement I stared at every single day on the subway, but actually being more aware of the advertisement than I had previously. Being aware of that one ad was the impetus for an entirely new print campaign which worked very well.
One more: I was driving on the freeway in Los Angeles and saw a billboard about a new movie coming out. I passed this billboard every day driving to work at the time, but never really noticed it. In other words, I never really thought closely about it. One day, I was stopped in traffic in front of that same billboard. I stared at it for a good 15 seconds. The advertisement itself was irrelevant to me. But the imagery and copy on the billboard was hugely relevant to what I was doing as a marketer. It lead me to create another campaign via TV that I was very proud of at the time, in terms of its creativity and ultimately its resonance with my target market. Sometimes, advertisements themselves can boost YOUR creativity even if the ad is unrelated to what YOU are marketing.
This is why I think it is so important to be aware every day. Aware of people, aware of surroundings, aware of the things in which you come into contact. But there is one more step you need after you have awareness.
The ability to tie what you see, hear and feel around you to what you are marketing and what you are trying to communicate uniquely. The hard part, though, is being receptive to what is happening around you in the first place.
My point is that I think most people do not give themselves enough credit for what they could create or how creative they could be. The chances are all around you every day. A good exercise I like to do, if I feel as though I need some creative inspiration, is to literally type or write down everything I see and do in the course of one day. Every advertisement I see, every conversation I overhear, every conversation I have, what I see at the grocery store and on and on.
You’d be surprised what this exercise can do for your creativity in marketing. Give it a try.