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 →

Ask Wicked Questions to Enhance Your Creativity

Enhancing one’s creativity is not difficult when you utilize various tools. One such tool is the art of questions. A recent article I read by Lee Duncan, IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Leader, explores this practice. He aims it toward designers but, in fact, all creatives should learn from it and profit by it.

I’ve heard it described by asking Better questions, too. Whichever you select, dig deeper into the problem to get to the soul of the matter to uncover more options to deliver the solution. In this post, I pass along Lee’s contribution so that you may also glean some suggestions that will help you derive better solutions to enhance your creativity.

 

As designers, we often get caught up in the details of our work and lose sight of the big picture. It’s easy to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty of design, but sometimes what we really need is a fresh perspective. This is where wicked questions come in.

Wicked questions are questions that challenge assumptions and shake up our thinking. They don’t have simple answers, and they force us to think deeply and creatively. By asking wicked questions, designers can gain a better understanding of the problem they are trying to solve, and ultimately create better solutions.

Why a Beginner’s Mind Matters

One of the keys to asking wicked questions is to approach a problem with a beginner’s mind. This means letting go of preconceptions and assumptions and approaching the problem as if you were completely new to it. By doing this, you open yourself up to new possibilities and ideas that you might not have considered before.

When you approach a problem with a beginner’s mind, you are more likely to ask questions that challenge assumptions and push boundaries. You are also more likely to see the problem from a fresh perspective, which can lead to innovative solutions.

The Value of Being Curious

Curiosity is an essential trait for designers. It’s what drives us to explore new ideas and try new things. By being curious, we can ask questions that lead to new insights and discoveries.

When you are curious, you are always asking questions. You want to know more about the problem you are trying to solve, the users you are designing for, and the world around you. This curiosity fuels your creativity and helps you come up with innovative solutions.

Continue reading →

September’s Quotes

Because we’re starting a new month, I thought I’d change things up a bit. Hence, submitting this month’s quotes at the beginning of the month. As per usual, this post, along with others forthcoming in this blog, center around some aspect of creativity.

 

Everything is reduced to facts and figures but the things that count. — George Gallup, 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

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

When we so cheapen the concept of human life that we can be permissive to the occasional bomb or bullet, I think we’ve taken a giant step back into the Dark Ages. And I don’t think there’s a light at the end of that tunnel. ~ Rod Serling

There is a cult of ignorance in the US, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ,y ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. — Isaac Asimov

Advertising becomes a dialogue that becomes an invitation to a relationship. — Lester Wunderman, member, Advertising Hall of Fame

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still,it’s better than no inspiration at all. – Rita Mae Brown

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. – Richard Feynman

The only means of strengthening one’s intelligence is to make up one’s mind about nothing —to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. – John Keats

I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. – Ursula K. Le Guin

 

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!

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!

Is it Time for Advertising to Try Harder, Again?

It’s not everyday that one reads an article that chastises the industry of advertising as this one does. Upon reading what the vp creative for the New York Times Advertising, Vita Cornelius, has to say about our industry, one wonders how the industry of if the industry will take heart. Advertising has and still is going through a myriad of changes with no true avenue laid out. The influx of AI teachings resembles a second coming of sorts. It may not even be all it’s cracked up to be. On the other hand, it may be more.

Advertising definitely has to try harder. It also has to be smarter. Take a read from the NY Times perspective and see if you agree.

We are 63 years past what advertising historian and author Lawrence Dobrow’s book referred to as “The Golden Age of Advertising.” An era where creativity abounded amidst the backdrop of dramatic economic and societal changes, human rights activism, and a burgeoning interest in alternative lifestyles. What was once the product-as-hero creative style of the 1950s was evolved by creative minds welding the emotive power, persuasion, irony and cynicism of changing times. Bill Bernbach famously penned the word “Lemon” in a single-word headline to describe the Volkswagen Beetle, starting a creative revolution.

Advertising’s creative minds gave birth to the spokesperson, the mascot and the brand personality. These fictitious characters entered our homes, their shiny, smiling faces stared back at us every time we opened our pantry. They took up space in our consciousness, to forever conjure feelings of nostalgia. Even if a mascot had overt racial or sexist overtones, we turned a blind eye to the offense. And it would take decades for the bitter history behind those characters to be challenged. Because in 1960, unlike in 2023, we just wanted to eat those pancakes in the box.

Advertising creativity evolved again in the 1970s and ’80s with the support of consumer insights. It went beyond staking a claim on demographics to owning and manipulating our psychographics. Insights became the fertile ground to plant creative seeds. Pepsi claimed to be for the young and fun, and created the “Pepsi Generation.” This was a defining moment in how a brand and its advertising messages could shift a societal construct—redefining what it meant to be young vs. old, celebrated vs. obsolete, and in the know vs. out of touch. For brands, it made the proposition of owning a mindset, and building brand perception based on that mindset, more coveted than selling the product itself. Continue reading →

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!

 

Story is Still King in the Creative World. Here’s Why.

Whether it’s on TikTok, Twitter or television, storytelling is at the heart of advertising. Recently, storytelling mixing with creativity found its way into my inbox. I thought it appropriate to share here, on my creativity blog.

Margaret McGovern, Executive Creative Director of Boathouse, examines the key aspects of an engaging story. 

Heading into a new year always prompts questions: What’s new? What’s trending? What digital platform has risen to the top?

And there’s a lot; from vertical format to generative AI. And shorter… everything keeps getting shorter. Six seconds! How can you capture someone’s attention in six seconds in a compelling way, and without sound? 

Plus, it’s hard to predict anything anymore. From the rise of TikTok and the creation of the metaverse, to whatever is going on at Twitter, it’s all up for grabs. But, if there’s anything all of this change has shown, it’s that storytelling will be front and center because it’s the one thing that ties it all together

We still have a long way to go 

What we are seeing is a rise in inclusivity and equity. Voices that have been marginalized in film-making, and in all creative fields, are finally being heard. These inequities are finally shifting and trending in the right direction. Toy companies are removing gender labels, fashion brands are embracing a non-binary world, welcoming anyone to wear their clothes. My hope that this uptick in acceptance and inclusivity of truly all voices continues.

The metaverse is trying to TikTok its way into the hearts and minds of Gen Z and the generation that comes after that or, basically, pretty much anyone who will pay attention to it. There will always be a new digital stage to perform on but one thing will remain the same, the extraordinary power of telling a great story. Be cutting edge, create something we haven’t seen before, put it on a platform we are just starting to understand but, without a story, it all falls apart. 

We are in the business of capturing hearts and minds. It is our job to meaningfully connect people, brands, products and culture. Storytelling will always be front and center, it’s the one thing that ties it and us all together. Without a story, we come up short.

Narrative and storytelling

If a story is compelling, delivers on a universal truth or just makes us laugh or smile for six seconds, then it is a great story and will result in quality creative work, regardless of whether it has been shot on a phone, in someone’s dining room, or by a film crew of 30 people with a six-figure budget.

Never has it been more important to stick to the core of storytelling to help work stand out amid the proliferation of video. The world is full of video; we are living in self-created and curated bubbles and consuming more video content than ever before. But there is a reason for this; it drives engagement like nothing else. 

However, attention is a limited resource, and we need to get the right message in front of the right consumer at the right time. Media is fragmented and attention is at a deficit. Narrative pulls it all together and lets us focus on what story needs to be told, when and where. Plus, AI is helping us understand what’s out there, what is working, and why.

New ways to tell essential stories

The pandemic taught us that stories can be shot on smartphones, or even filmed over Zoom. Who would have thought that a Zoom-created commercial would ever be a thing? But, however they were captured, riveting stories emerged, tapping into universal experiences shared by all of us. This approach to film-making, doing whatever it took to tell a story, helped to revolutionize and re-imagine the standards for quality content the industry had created. And the consumers came along with open minds, willing to engage, watch, digest.

Probably key to this work created in serious times was the notion of authenticity, and it has increasingly become an important component of marketing. Content that is too slick or too branded will be dismissed. The savvy consumer knows when they are being played and information needs to be imparted in a clear, concise manner. Messages can be entertaining and humorous, but most of all they should simply be human. We humans fall for humanity every time and we use story to understand our world and all that happens in it. Authentic storytelling, inclusive of all voices, is what we need in the politically charged, troubled and climate-challenged world we live in. 

The opportunity for creativity and storytelling has never been greater. Our digital, always-on culture means we are consuming content at breakneck speed, which means there are countless opportunities to make powerful work that connects between brands and their audiences. Contrast this with the way work was created 25 years ago, when brands had such limited channels and opportunities, and 2023 is looking pretty good.

While brands may have countless opportunities, as Margaret points out, they also have more competition and more eyes and ears among which they must travel. Bud Light is finding that to be true as they endeavor to change the transgender story to a story much more positive. Today’s storytelling mixed with the right amount of creativity can make for a rather nice  and appetizing recipe. Bon appetite!
 
 

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!

 

Creativity is Productivity

Recently I came upon an article about creativity and productivity by Wall Street Journal best selling book author Scott Young. In it he explores various traits of creative people and how they transition into productivity. Below is an interesting excerpt of his findings.

Nearly two centuries ago, the Belgian sociologist Adolphe Quetelet observed the impressively tight link between personal productivity and creative success.

More recently, Dean Simonton has analyzed the creative output of individuals across many domains and suggests an “equal-odds” rule best describes it: once a creative individual starts publishing in a field, each piece of work they produce has roughly equal odds of world-breaking impact.

 

The Surprising Equipotential of Creative Success

 Consider, for a moment, what this theory rejects:

  1. Accumulating expertise. We might expect steadily improving skills through deliberate practice and a widening knowledge base would lead to increased creative success. Except, this is not what we see outside of the initial preparatory training to enter a career.
  2. Youthful genius. Alternatively, we might expect creativity to decline as thinkers become burdened by old ways of doing things. Were this true, we would predict a reduced rate of creative success over time. But this wasn’t observed in Simonton’s research.

Instead, it looks like the most important determinant of creative success is simply how much work you produce.

 

Creative Success as Randomness

A simple model might capture the essential details of this trend:

  • Be at a knowledge frontier. You can’t contribute anything new if you’re not at the boundary of knowledge for a discipline. In academia, this usually prevents undergraduates from publishing many papers; in technology, this prevents unskilled inventors from obtaining new patents. Other work suggests painters and composers have similar ramp-up periods where their work is initially unremarkable. Getting to this threshold is non-trivial and takes considerable time and training.
  • Idea generation and public reception are randomly determined processes. Once you reach the threshold, further advances have a significant random component. This might be due to the trial-and-error process of finding new advances. Or it might come from the unpredictability of public taste as to what work receives acclaim.

The randomness of creative success favors those who are the most prolific. Price’s Law captures this relationship in scientific output. So in a field with 100 contributors, ten will produce half of the published output. If every paper in the field has a roughly equal probability of being cited, these ten highly prolific authors will capture approximately half of all citations in their field.

 

To Produce Better Work, Increase Your Output

Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash

Intuitively, it feels like there ought to be a strong quality-quantity trade-off in one’s work. You can make a few excellent things, or you can produce a lot of mediocre work. Certainly there are lots of things that increase productivity at the expense of quality. Typing random words on a page and hitting publish would increase essay count at the cost of writing quality dropping to zero. However, it’s interesting to note that Mr. Young’s most-viewed articles have tended to come from his more prolific writing periods.

We prefer to attach creative success to a combination of innate talent, acquired ability and passionate commitment. Placing such significance on chance appears to cheapen the achievements of great artists, inventors and scientists.

Yet perhaps it’s because we’re so uncomfortable likening creativity to a lottery that this perspective is undervalued. Over a surprisingly wide range of pursuits, creativity is productivity, and we will have more hits if we take more swings.

That may seem quite obvious but one still should not downplay raw talent and determination, as Scott points out.

Scott H. Young, author of WSJ best selling book: Ultralearning www.scotthyoung.com

 

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!