Category Archives: ideas

Quotes – From Lee Clow’s Beard to Virginia Woolf

Leading off 2024 is this list of various quotes from those luminaries in and out of the advertising field. The quotes were selected by me from a variety of sources for the purposes of motivation, incitefullness and humor, among other things. Hope you get something out of them!

 

If you have a dream, don’t let anybody take it away. And you always believe that the impossible is always possible —Selena Quintanilla, singer-songwriter, businessperson, actor, fashion designer

Good advertising is written from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions, it rarely moves anyone. — Fairfax M. Cone, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Good agencies understand advertising’s role within the four Ps. Great ones earn the right to influence the other three. — Lee Clow’s Beard

There is no such thing as ‘soft sell’ and ‘hard sell.’ There is only ‘smart sell’ and ‘stupid sell.’ — Charles H. Brower, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Everything is reduced to facts and figures but the things that count. — George Gallup, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope, and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable. — John E. Kennedy, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Meetings are all too often the burial grounds of great ideas. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Creativity is no longer about grabbing attention or raising consumer awareness. Its goal is to remind consumers about what is fundamental and gratifying about a brand. — Peter A. Georgescu, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Security is mostly a superstition… Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. – Helen Keller

SO LONG AS YOU WRITE WHAT YOU WISH TO WRITE, THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS; AND WHETHER IT MATTERS FOR AGES OR ONLY FOR HOURS, NOBODY CAN SAY. — VIRGINIA WOOLF

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

At the Intersection of Curiosity and Creativity

Seems like I’ve run across a number of articles over the past month or so dealing with a variety of topics in the realm of creativity. This posting is no different, and, yet, it is, uh, different. While many may find it difficult to define what creativity is, many will no doubt have an easy time knowing about curiosity. While everyone is curious, not everyone sees themselves as creative. Well, maybe this post will alter your perspective.

An article I recently came across by Helge Tennø discusses what happens at the intersection of creativity and curiosity, and what doesn’t happen.

He states the reason we struggle to come up with original ideas is not for a lack of creativity but a lack of curiosity.

“Every year we go into the same room with the same information and the same questions .. what do you think happens? Every year we come out with the same ideas” — frustrated workshop facilitator.

Creativity is limited to what we already know, it is only the re-combination of available information and experience. Creativity is not magic, it doesn’t produce ideas out of thin air.

In addition, most competitors think the same way, because they use the same methods and the same questions to find the same insights.

Outperforming your competition is not as much about who is the most creative or who has the deepest data. It’s as much about who can see something nobody else can.

Currently the trend is to apply a lot of data to buy our way out of this problem. Hoping that the machine will magically see connections our human brains can’t.

But machines are only reflections of our own values, ideas and biases. If we are staring down one rabbit hole the machine will only help us dig deeper.

We should therefore redesign our creative workshops. From combining information into ideas, to exploring questions we need to ask and information we don’t have.

There is a simple way to unlock this behavior: just ask “what has to be true for x to be true”, where x is your strategy, an existing product, something you are already doing .. anything.

One of the most productive ways to learn something new is experimentation.

The purpose of an experiment is not to confirm that you are correct (sometimes it is), but it should most often be used to surprise you.

To help you learn something that you didn’t know two minutes prior.

And the way to do that is to reduce the cost of an experiment to almost zero (because if experiments are expensive the organization will more likely prioritize experiments confirming their existing knowledge).

“The real measure of success is the number of experiments that can be crowded into 24 hours.” — Thomas Alva Edison

With cheap and fast experiments the company can explore hypotheses and assumptions they never tested before, learn new things, capture new insights, venture into new areas.

With their new learnings they can combine both information they never had before with questions they never asked before.

“Researchers suggest it is uncertainty, or when you think you know something then discover you don’t, that leads to curiosity and learning outcomes.” — Celeste Kidd, assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.

In short:

We only know what we know, and we know very little. (But we know a lot more than we think we do.)

We need to shift our focus from creativity to insights and questions. And experimentation is a low hanging fruit and one of the fastest tracks we can use to get us there.

Recommended places to start your experimentation journey:

(4). Experimentation works, Stefan H. Thomke

(5). How managers can build a culture of experimentation, Frank V. Cespedes and Neil Hoyne

(6). Why Business Schools Need to Teach Experimentation, by Elizabeth R. Tenney, Elaine Costa, and Ruchi M. Watson

(7). Get Comfortable Breaking Your Product, Rik Higham

 

While I agree with most of what the author states, creativity should always embrace insights and questions. Creativity is not borne out of thin air but rather from the insights and experiences we have within us. Curiosity can definitely spur on creativity and vice versa.

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

From Rod Serling to Frank Lloyd Wright

Here they are again, quotes for November this time. As usual they represent a variety of viewpoints from various folks, some better known than others. Enjoy!

 

The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time. — Rod Serling

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. — Bruce Barton, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Advertising promotes that divine discontent which makes people strive to improve their economic status. — Ralph Starr Butler, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Brands that keep us invisible to appease anti-LGBTQ activists … are missing a future generation of consumers and employees who demand that brands include LGBTQ people and other diverse communities in authentic and organic ways. — Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s president and CEO, as quoted by MediaPost Communications

It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one. — Alex Osborne, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Violence does not spring from a vacuum. It’s born out of other men’s violence. It gets nurtured and it grows in a soil of prejudice and of hate and of bigotry. ~Rod Serling

Fun without sell gets nowhere, but sell without fun tends to become obnoxious. — Leo Burnett, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

An important idea not communicated persuasively is like having no idea at all. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

When we are too timid to risk failure, we reduce the opportunities to succeed. And we eliminate the chance to learn. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

An idea is salvation by imagination. – Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

“Weirder, more human, less serious”

As the creative community still grapples with how best to get their collective hands around AI, a group of creatives interviewed by Chelsea Pippin of Creative Boom, one of the UK’s leading platforms dedicated to the creative industries, give their vision for creativity’s future. I think it pertinent and interesting enough to share with you.

 

AI is here to stay, but the future of creativity still depends on human ingenuity

Advances in AI are unsurprisingly top of mind for most creatives trying to imagine the future of their work. They seem to agree that the next five years will be about finding ways to make AI work in service of human creativity.

Lawrence Jones, creative director for Framestore, anticipates we’ll see “greater integration of AI and machine learning in the creative process, helping artists and designers to automate routine tasks, freeing them up to accelerate the generation of new ideas.

Found Studio’s Clayton Welham agreed, suggesting that discovering the nuance of AI-creative partnership will be a major theme in the working lives of artists and designers in the coming years. Welham told Creative Boom: “With all the talk of automation, AI assistance, and tools that cut corners and make us more efficient on a day-to-day basis – I think it’s important that we continually reflect on the fundamentals of our practice and our industry. We have to embrace the new, but I feel strongly that we have to do so with our own ideas in hand and with respect for the craft aspect of our work. It will ensure any advancements remain rich, surprising and engaging and avoid becoming formulaic, predictable and machine-made.”

David Sedgwick, meanwhile, remains wary but ultimately cautiously optimistic about what AI can do in the right hands – or when partnered with the right brain. He said: “I just hope that there’s still room for ideas and concepts and that the role of AI doesn’t leave us all totally redundant. As things currently stand, I still feel we have a big role to play in the way we use AI in our jobs, and we mustn’t confuse AI as a tool to help us work better or quicker with the best tool we will always have, which is our brain.”

Ben Tallon
Ben Tallon

Creatives also need to stay on top of, and curious about, other tech advancements

Framestore’s Lawrence Jones is also betting on other technological innovations playing a crucial role in the evolving roles of creative professionals. He told Creative Boom that he expects the next few years will bring about “advancements in 3D printing technology enabling artists and designers to inexpensively create more complex and intricate designs, sculptures, and products.”

Beyond that, Jones is also keenly following the “invention and use of new types of input devices like neural interfaces and brain-computer interfaces in creating art forms such as motion design and VFX, allowing artists to create works that reflect their thoughts and emotions.”

Continue reading →

Copywriting Ain’t What It Used to Be – That’s a Shame!

Some might say yes. Some might say it is what it is. Either way, it’s extremely competitive with all brands fighting for attention. I must say, though, that when I hear a tag line or read a catch phrase I often times think to myself, “what were they thinking?” or “how did that get out of committee?” It’s so stupid or simply doesn’t make sense.

While I don’t think copywriting is a dying art, I do think it’s a shrinking art in its creativeness. I recently ran across an article by Nick Emmel, founder and strategy partner of Mr President, which poses the same sort of question about whether or not copywriting is dying. What’s your take?
_____________________________________

One hundred and seventy thousand. That’s supposedly the number of words in use in the English language.

Advertising’s vocabulary has been reduced seemingly to the most meager selection of acceptable words. While we all simultaneously preach the importance of distinction. It’s too easy simply to blame the industry for getting lazy, or bemoan the lost art of copywriting. The reality is the job is so much harder now.

At the dawn of advertising, there were so many unused words to own, so many more unclaimed claims to make, so much more prose to play with. “We try harder”, “Have a break”, “Finger lickin’ good”, “Beanz meanz Heinz”, “Snap! Crackle! Pop!”, “Never knowingly undersold”. Lines, rich in insight and idea. Gorgeous, evocative three word combinations that have stayed in popular consciousness for decades. But one by one each word has been taken, every construct used, every idea explored.

As if it wasn’t enough that we have to forage for language leftovers, there is a heightened expectation of what those words must do. No longer must it simply be the perfect encapsulation of the brand promise, it needs a sprinkling of purpose, a dash of authenticity, a pinch of zeitgeist. The three little words are burdened with headlining the annual report as well as becoming a trending #hashtag. More than an ad strapline, it’s now the all-pervading branded equity in every channel and for every audience. All with a global “translatability” that renders any wordplay dead.

It’s these strategic imperatives that are forcing creativity into a corner.  In trying to focus on the many things we have to do, we are forgetting about the one thing we need to do – connect with people. It’s telling that the most iconic lines were born of campaign ideas and only later promoted to hallowed brand line status. “I’m lovin’ it”, “Think different”, “Just do it”. Briefs where the creatives were given greater leeway to do what they do best. 

Perhaps we need to unburden ourselves from the expectations of the brand line. Prioritise the strength in the idea over the stretchiness of application. Open up our accepted vocabulary to the idiosyncratic, the flamboyant, the funny, the painfully truthful, the counterintuitive, the untranslatable. Then even the most familiar of language might find a new lease of life.

_______________________________________

The art of copywriting is still that, an art. If used creatively and smartly, it can extend and enhance an idea. That doesn’t mean, however, the copywriter needs a thousand words or so to accomplish and attain his art. A great example is the famous Volkswagen ad of the Beetle in the sixties, “Think Small.” Yes, I know, that was a long time ago but the idea and execution are timeless. Creative excellence. We just need more of it.

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

Here Comes Fall, and October’s Quotes

Well, another month has gone by and as we await the arrival of Fall, weather-wise, here in the Southern States, let me present the Halloween month’s array of quotes. October showcases its share of genius and, hopefully, awe-inspiring thoughts from a variety of well known, and not-so-well known folks. It’s still a good read, though!

 

Chaos is the only thing that honestly wants you to grow. The only friend who really helps you be creative. — Dan Wieden, member Advertising Hall of Fame

This is what I learned at Antioch-when something was wrong, I could get up on my own two feet and make comment on it… I think the idea of questioning is not only a right, it is a responsibility. ~ Rod Serling

Advertising is what you do when you can’t go see somebody. That’s all it is. — Fairfax Cone, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance. — Bruce Barton, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. – Søren Kierkegaard

It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one. — Alex Osborne, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

The heart of creativity is discipline. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. – Elbert Hubbard

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. – Robert F. Kennedy

Do not allow your mind to be imprisoned by majority thinking. Remember that the limits of science are not the limits of imagination. – Patricia Bath

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

The Big Idea: Do We Still Need It?

Sometimes I play the creator. Other times I play the curator. This week I, again, play the curator and offer up an unexpected article I found that proposes a different point of view from the one expressed just last week.

The Big Idea. Is it still needed? Some advertising practitioners say yes while others are doubtful. While last week’s post revealed the rationale that the Big Idea is not necessarily Better. This week’s post maintains the POV that the Big Idea is still important and that it should always be sought after.

Now, for the article . . .

Through a thousand tiny cuts, the building blocks of historical media have been broken into millions of pieces.

But those pieces must be managed somehow. If we zoom out and see them as a single territory (instead of micro-managing every mini experience), the pieces are more similar than different. Which hints at a full circle. The pendulum has begun its return swing and we’re about to see a fresh bloom of imagination and excitement to command brands’ millions of interactions.

But have we still got the know-how? And who has the big ideas to transcend the granularity of today’s media mix?

How little clicks superseded the big idea

Being in the right place at the right time was always marketing’s core strategy. For most of its history, that meant renting room in everyone’s heads so your brand would be at the top of the pack when someone was ready to buy. Crystal-clear and well-wrought propositions conveyed through imaginative, emotional executions allowed brands to occupy well-defined emotional territories for that magical moment of purchase.

This was the ‘big idea’.

With each media innovation, from radio to smartwatches, the battleground expanded, and budgets tried to keep up. In the early days of the internet, it was still just posters on the screen, with Alex Tew’s Million Dollar Homepage representing peak experiential pandemonium.

But then, the entirety of human knowledge got squeezed into people’s hand-held devices. For brands, being in the right place at the right moment became operational rather than psychological.

Presence became the ‘big idea’, and everybody had it at the same time. Everything became a numbers game; clicks, hits, and likes were the new money. Measurement became all-important and promised the end (again) of the missing half of John Wanamaker’s advertising spend.

Suddenly, if it could not be counted it didn’t count. Data floated to the top of an increasingly unfathomable ocean of media possibilities. Data, data, data. At a time when we have more media options than ever before, the strategic playing field has narrowed almost to the point of singularity.

Continue reading →

Big Ideas Don’t Always Equal Better

I recently came across an article about generating ideas and the belief that generating the Big Idea will produce the Best Idea. This isn’t necessarily so, as the article points out. Also, the Big Idea isn’t, and rarely is, the Best Idea.

Arriving at the Big Idea is usually the end result of utilizing one of several exercises. When one settles on the Big One, several smaller ideas have usually already been introduced. Don’t discard these. They might yet be useful even if leading into a different angle. This is where due diligence comes into play. But, I digress; this is the subject of a different blog post.

Now, about that article by Ahab Nimry . . .“Big Idea” is often a misnomer. Big Ideas can actually be small ideas, and most of the best ones are. They do not necessarily point to unique selling propositions (USPs), but rather single out a small aspect of what a brand does and elevate it. Such an approach works in many categories, from the probably insignificant additives in brand name gasoline to the distinctive but largely unused camera features in cell phones. But when treated with creativity and ingenuity, they can become touchstones for a brand that symbolizes far more. 

One of the best campaigns is All State’s “Mayhem.” In the spots, Mayhem is a middle-aged man who acts out likely causes of chaos. Sometimes he’s a teenager distracting you with social media, other times he’s the latest hashtag campaign or even a dopey, former frat boy who ruins a wedding. Typically, he intervenes in the lives of ordinary people, resulting in crashed cars, smashed windows, and destroyed dreams. At the end of each commercial, he explains that if you have discount insurance rather than All State, you might have to pay for it all yourself.

While the commercials are humorous, the concept is not unique to the company. Protecting against the results of random mayhem is what insurance companies do. All State has merely taken a creative approach to an ordinary function of every company in its category. Of course, this process is much easier said than done.  

Start with (and reject) the first big idea

When you look at a brief, it’s a good idea to take careful note of the first idea that springs to mind. The really obvious one. The amusement park with the happy family. The extreme ski resort with someone doing a backflip off of a jump. The cruise ship with a gorgeous model emerging from a crystal-clear pool. Identify this idea as quickly as possible because it’s exactly what you don’t want to do. 

Continue reading →

Quotes by Ogilvy, Voltaire, Jobs, et. al.

As it’s the last Tuesday in July and since I accidentally skipped June, I thought it time for Quotes. From Bernbach and Barton to Serling and Steinem . . . enjoy!

 

Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity — not as a threat. – Steve Jobs

We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. — Bruce Barton, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

The heart of creativity is discipline. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising. — David Ogilvy, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. – Voltaire

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance. – Robert Quillen

Consumers are statistics. Customers are people. — Stanley Marcus, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. – Gloria Steinem

The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope. – Henry Ward Beecher

I think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I’ve written there is a thread of this: a man’s seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself. — Rod Serling, LA Times, 1967

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!

Why Play is More Important than Talent for Creativity

This week my creativity blog features an excerpt from a podcast initiated in Japanese, “The Creative Mindset”, with the first guest on the podcast, Ian Spalter (Ian Spalter), the man behind the design of Instagram.

Ian cited this quote during the interview: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

A few years ago, Ian led the redesign of the Instagram app as well as its brand identity as the Head of Design at the company. That process was well documented and Ian was featured in a Netflix special called “Abstract: The Art of Design.” Since then, he moved to Japan with his family to head up the Instagram business there. He’s now leading design at Meta for its metaverse initiative, still residing in Japan, where the podcast episode was recorded.

In the podcast interview with Ian, there were three key takeaways that stood out and can be helpful for, not just designers, but those particularly in a position to manage others:

1. The permission and the freedom to be wrong is essential to creativity.

Ian uses simple activities and games in meetings with his team in order to create what he calls the State of Play. These games might be something as simple as drawing for people who are not typically used to drawing. He says that play is useful in getting people out of their comfort zone and letting people be wrong without, or at least with less, fear. Eliminating the sense of fear is essential to cultivating creativity, especially in a corporate environment, according to Ian.

2. Humility is underrated.

One of Ian’s hobbies living in Japan is to go visit shokunin, craftspeople typically engaged in making traditional daily tools and objects such as sandals, bowls, baskets, buckets, etc., oftentimes painstakingly by hand. Having visited quite a few of them in various towns, he observed that they all have something in common: a commitment to humble excellence. This kind of humility is underrated, he says, and he witnesses that it makes such a big difference in the final product.

3. Representation matters.

When he started his career in NYC, one of his first managers was Omar Wasow, a co-founder of BlackPlanet.com in the 1990s. At R/GA, Ian worked under a colleague who was from the Dominican Republic and a person of color. The fact that his bosses were minorities back then and how they reflected on Ian himself wasn’t lost on him. As a Black designer, he felt and still feels that how he does would reflect on other people that look like him that would come after him. Ian projected a sense of duty in his voice as a leading yet humble designer who happens to be Black.

If you are curious about the conversation with Ian, please listen to this episode “Why Play, Not Talent, Is More Important for Creativity” wherever you get your podcast:

This blog post represents portions of an interview moderated by Rei Inamoto, a designer by trade, a minimalist at heart. Founding Partner of I&CO. Named in “Creativity 50,” “The Top 25 Most Creative People in Advertising.”

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.

And, check out creative selections from my website.

Jolan tru!