KILL THE CREATIVE DEPARTMENT!

Surveys tells us that European Heads of Marketing agree on the fact that marketing has seen more changes in the last two years alone then the 50 years before them altogether. Campaigns have been replaced with dialogues, glossy with sustainability and the consumers are becoming more of co-creators. The technological evolution provides unlimited opportunities for us to interact with each other, compare prices, discuss the level of service, mock empty promises and demand answers. Given this new interactive world, the need for you to understand your costumer has never been greater.

The marketer’s former task, to glorify a product to distinguish it from others, is over. A new job stands on the doorstep. We need to accelerate the understanding of what our brand is actually doing both for our customers and the community. Then we need to help anyone who wants to spread the word about us to do so. How do you initiate, cultivate and develop a dialogue with individuals without sparkling ads? In Berghs trend spotting report “According to Berghs” we see that the best way to get there is to add value to your product or service. Not once every 10 years. E v e r y d a y! What can be done to achieve a more excellent service, better features or benefits, offered convenience or in the form of a social stand? If you try hard enough to add the right stuff, people will start talking and drive your communication to reach the far corners of the world.

But to achieve this ongoing process of improvement, not only to the product itself, but also to the holistic values surrounding your brand, everybody needs to get involved. Creativity has become far too important to be left to a special cadre of “creative people”. Everyday improvement calls for everybody’s engagement.  And that is were the real challenge starts. We all agree that in the modern competitive market business creativity is essential to success. Yet, few of us truly accept that this means that we must be able to re-imagine and reinvent our ways of doing what we do in totally unexpected ways. Only then can we create a culture that is open to creative risk-taking and an environment where failure is accepted as part of the creative process.

Myths about creativity
We also need to rid ourselves of a few myths about creativity. For one, neuroscience is telling us that new ideas often emerge from existing information in the parts of the brain that we associate with more rational processing and analytical thought. The myth of the creative genius who suddenly gets great ideas in a puff of brilliant inspiration continues to do much harm because it prevents us from recognizing what is really necessary in the creative process; the on-going, painstaking, development of fresh perspectives and the nurturing of initially small ideas in order to gradually create something significantly innovative. So, if you want to stay on top of your game – start up the holistic creative process and make use of all the possibilities that the world of tomorrow has to offer.

A few tips as you go along:
1. Science also gives away that the popular brainstorm-sessions just is not all it’s made up to be. You will get more out of the same amount of time by giving your employees, from the reception desk to the executive level, an hour or two to spend on their own, in nature or maybe a bathtub.

2. Think “outside in”: use empathy to view your business from the customer’s point of view. Put yourself in their shoes and write down everything that springs to your mind.

3. It all starts with doubt. This will be your greatest challenge. How to work with doubt without loosing faith in the great stuff that you’re providing today. But when you do, great things will happen. You’ll get up to speed with the concept by listening to Alan Iny´s TED talk – “Reigniting creativity in business”."

EXPLORE – INNOVATE – ENJOY SUCCESS!

JOAKIM THULIN, HEAD OF STRATEGIC INSIGHT, BERGHS SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION
 

Photocred: Len Radin, Flickr.

Source: Media Evolution