Ego, that Two-Edged Sword, in Creative Advertising Thinking

Ego has its good side. If it weren’t for ego, we wouldn’t push ourselves to do great work, whether it’s a powerful ad, a skyscraper, or something more intangible, like inspirational teaching. Ego has other merits too. But it has a dark side too, particularly when it comes to creative thinking in advertising, particularly when it comes to group dynamics.

In a competitive advertising environment, people, good people, want to get ahead; they want their work to stand out, to shine. One way to do that is to not celebrate the creative ideas of others, particularly in the fledgling stages of ideas when it’s easy to squash them. Competitive people do this instinctually, almost subconsciously. These are often kind people, whose biological drive for survival is steering their actions just a little at a time. “That’s a great idea. It’s just too…” Serious. Whimsical. Intense. Subdued. Difficult-to-grasp. Simplistic. Just fill-in-the-blank. One casual little word to send that idea in a slight veer off to the graveyard of unrealized ads.

Ego can also push us in our attempt to create an aura of perfection. It’s a shaky economy, folks, and jobs are precarious. You must look flawless, right? You don’t make mistakes, right? And so, when our ego sees an issue coming up that might make us look like we made a mistake, we start deflecting and rationalizing, anything to create a stage where we did in fact make no mistake.

To the first point, the idea of squashing new ideas, much has been written on the dangers of that. Ideas often need room to breathe, to grow a little, before we know what they’re capable of.

As to the second point, much also has been written on the importance of being able to make mistakes and not feel immediately censured. One environment grows big ideas. One grows stale ones lacking innovation.

As a freelance writer and an outsider, it’s often easier to perceive how the dynamics of ego are preventing great ideas in a creative advertising group than those that are in the thick of it, as it were. It would be worthwhile, I would say, to take a step back as a team and look at your group dynamics and see if you’re operating in a way that brings out the best ideas you possibly can. And when you do it, be honest.

The Value of the Contract Creative: Writers and Other Consultants

There is another inherent value to bringing in strong conceptual contract writers and other creatives than the obvious "we need someone to do this job" factor. This is something I noticed on a recent job. I suppose you could sum it up easily with the phrase "fresh thinking," but that sounds a bit trite without context. It goes like this: Creative agency teams work for a client over time, getting entrenched with the brand identity, living and breathing the brand. No one better understands the brand character than this team. And they learn ways to work that make creating work for their client more profitable (this is an important development for the business). Grooves of process (and thinking) are created. They become efficient. Profitable.

Enter the contract writer. This individual comes from the outside without any preconceptions, but by necessity must quickly learn about the brand and begin producing quality work. The very nature of this process, looking intently at a brand and how to progress it forward, demands a sort of analytic breakdown and rebuilding -- thinking that often has not been done since the team started on the brand. Even if the contractor is not intentionally attempting to point out new ways of looking at brand thinking or process, this process will occur.

Then it becomes an issue of diplomacy. The creative consultant is by definition an outsider. The agency team should be encouraged to invite that outsider, as a project progresses, to share his or her insights on brand thinking and team process. There will be things that that outsider doesn't understand; he or she will have false insights. Conversely, there will be things that the entrenched agency team will think they know -- they've been knowing it for a year already, by god. An open mind is needed here.

So basically, the right creative consultants are good for business. They help agencies rediscover their brands. It's likely, in this case, the contractor will server more as catalyst than innovator. The contract writer will point at an undiscovered path, which the agency team will blaze.

Want to Engage? Be a Dabbler.

Whether you're writing an ad or a novel, a poem or a script, there's one thing you've got to do -- engage your audience. Okay, that much is obvious. How to do it? There are thousands of ways, but I want to mention one key method that often gets overlooked.

Be interesting.

Generally, this means you have to introduce something the audience doesn't know about. That means you yourself have to be interesting. You have to be well-read, educated, have diverse interests. Being a writer is one of the few professions where it pays to dabble. Be a dabbler. Take up oil painting. Travel to out-of-the-way, unlikely spots. Take an interest in steampunk. Or twelfth-century Italy. Or scour the Internet for obscure pop references like Crispin Glover's bizarre appearance on Letterman. (See, I bet if you didn't know about that, you're officially interested. Try to deny it.) Or read up on rare psychological disorders, like Fregoli delusion, where a person believes that different people he or she meets is actually the same person in disguise or with the ability to change his or her appearance.

The world is filled with interesting bits, you just have to come out of the cave every once in awhile.

Doodle, The Tool

Today, I rant. Doodling over the years has received a bad rap. But doodling is a powerful tool. Not just in the sense of illustrating a problem on a whiteboard. For more on this, read The Back of the Napkin. A fantastic read.


Doodling can help you focus. It's like winding the clock of your brain. There's a kinetic energy generated when you doodle that's directly connected to comprehension and even analysis. It's difficult to explain, but I know it works. Trust me. Or trust her:


http://www.ted.com/talks/sunni_brown.html?utm_source=-09-27


So the next time you're sitting across from me in a meeting, and I'm doodling, don't give me a dirty look because you think I'm not paying attention. Get jealous because I'm retaining and processing far more of the meeting than you are.

If a TV Commercial Falls in the Forest...

5 Ways to Delight Consumers

To generalize grossly, I think what people respond to in advertising is a sense of delight. So, here are my five methods for creating delight through advertising. This is all you really need to know about advertising.

1. Make 'em laugh.
2. Make the user feel smart by giving them the opportunity to discover something on their own. This could be a subtle joke you're making, a universal truth or even a hidden easter egg in the image. The best way to accomplish this sort of thing is to hold back -- you know, the opposite of what you're usually asked to do.
3. Show a positive, unexpected community experience. This is a great way to give chills, if done honestly and with meaning.
4. Create something new and visually stunning. (Known by most graphic designers as "wicked," "cool" or "awesome.")
5. Wow them with surprising facts.

Okay, this isn't really everything you need to know about advertising, or even about how to delight consumers. But it's a good start.

Communities or What I'm Waiting For Already

I think we can all agree that the Internet is a mind-blowing phenomenon that has changed the way we connect to others in the world and how we access and process information. But when I ask myself, "Where to next?" I'm left dwelling on that highly overused phrase "online communities."

Facebook is a powerful community tool that culturally speaking is used to connect with people we've met in real life. I caveat that not everyone uses it this way, but it's by far the trend. Twitter, far from the full-service community tool of Facebook, is used primarily to connect with others that share our interests, often total strangers to us offline.

I think the first step in the next phase is to take these like-minded groups that exist in places like Twitter and community forums and put them on a platform more like Facebook. Better filtering tools are needed as well. The human mind can only effectively process so much information with any level of value. Not only do we need to filter out content not relevant to our current interest state, but also the inherent value of that content. If I see one more Facebook status that says "Monday...," well, I may do more than hide that person's statuses.

But seriously, I'm ready to see more focused tools for interest-centered communities.

The Trend of Color

Today I was working on a rough sketch of an online timeline for a client, and I came across a graphic representation of all the colors in Crayola's lineup over the years (created by Alison Haigh, found on blog One Floor Up).

This is a beautiful thing, right? So elegant in it's lack of detail (like color names and dates), it forces the imagination to go exploring. I would be curious to see a version where like colors are beside each other more consistently, which would allow us to pontificate more greatly on why certain colors my have been introduced or discontinued. All in all, it's a fascinating journey into the trend of color.

Throwing Pasta

So, I've been working on a new design for my portfolio site. Okay, I've been working with an incredibly talented designer on a new design for my portfolio site. What a great creative experience! Why? Because I'm the client. It's been somewhat exhilirating.

After meeting with the designer for a bit, I decided that I wanted to pursue a design look to which I've always been attracted: Soviet-era propaganda posters. In fact, this was an idea I'd tried to design in the past, but just didn't have the design chops to pull it off.

The designer I'm working with on this project is one of those individuals who really responds well to collaboration; he feeds on it. I love that kind of collaboration. What self-respecting creative wouldn't? As long as a mutual respect exists, it's just a very productive process.

Why am I telling you all this obvious tale? To point out that the opposite process can produce very bland work. The "throwing it over the fence" mentality. It's easy to get into our ruts, as producers of content, and to avoid creative collaboration. And I'm saying - don't do it! Get out of your chair, sit with your creative partners and just throw the pasta on the wall.

Chemical Creativity

There was a time when you could smoke a cigarette in a coffee shop. And I would, by the handful. My notebook open, pen poised, black coffee and a smoke. It was how I got the creative juice flowing. In fact, an intake of nicotene increases the synaptic connections in the brain. It's my theory that this random increase helps with creativity, which essentially, is taking unlike things and putting them together. So imagine random synaptic links being created, making unusual connections in your brain. Nicotene and caffeine both increase your alertness which both might be a contributor to creativity as well.

Well, because I prefer to live longer, not shorter, I gave up those two habits almost a decade ago. Has my creativity suffered? I don't think so. I eat better now, exercise more and sleep with more regularity. All these things contribute not just to my general health, but to my mind health. I believe I'm more capable of becoming creative at any time, at will, and am not dependent on the mood and mental swings created by drug dependency (yes caffeine is a drug, friends).

There is no doubt that creativity is a fragile state, which must be flattered, cajoled and pampered. But after having done this for a long time, one learns the tricks of the trade, as it were.

Art Vs. Success

As ad makers there is always art in what we do. But it is easy to get the idea of pure art mixed up with success in the ad world.

To clarify, let me elaborate on how I define pure art. Pure art comes from a deeply personal place within an artist, much of it from the subconscious. The main point here is that a masterpiece is a work of art that can only have been created by that one artist, influenced by that person's particular amalgamation of experiences and talents. And while there is an element of audience in the artistic process that can influence the piece, the artist creates for him or herself first. It is a movement from artist to audience.

An advertisement is created wholly with the consumer in mind. It is the foremost point of the work.. And while an ad can benefit dramatically from the power and process of pure art; it's goals are different. It's needs are different. And, sometimes to its detriment, it has multiple collaborators with inherently different perspectives.

Very often the designer or writer, who is by necessity passionate about their craft, feels that the ad should be pure art and creates something beautiful. But a work of pure art can very rarely satisfy all the needs of an ad. Mainly, is it speaking to the right audience? And is it communicating the right message for the brand -- the brand that has been painstakingly built up over years, sometimes decades. Sometimes, the answers are yes, and everyone wins. But often, the art must bend.

In the end, both art and advertising have a responsibility to communicate, with power and engagement. It is difficult to create pure art to be used without alteration as the perfect ad. But it is almost impossible to create a great ad with no art at all.

A Return to Subtlety

A word on subtlety. Subtlety seems to be all but gone from mainstream culture. I think this is due in large part to the advertising and film industry's attitude toward "common" individuals - that they are dumb and unlikely to appreciate subtlety. And perhaps, consequently, we are breeding out the ability to recognize and use subtlety. Which is a shame. Enormously.

To speak to advertising specifically, I'm a huge proponent of getting consumers involved intellectually in the message. Make them a participant. Subtlety does this. Because it requires the audience to complete the thought, often in a creative way. And participation at that level engenders brand affinity.

I was inspired to write this post by a lovely set of illustrations by design student Lauren Monaco inspired by Kerouac haikus. The marriage of her simple, but ethereal illustrations to Jack's paradoxical words is nothing short of magical, and wrought with subtlety.

And so, I call you to arms. Inject subtlety where you can. And all shall reap the rewards.

Crave Boredom

Disclaimer: This post is not for the old-timers; you already know its insights. And this post is not for the newcomers, as one must learn discipline before one can let go of it.

I just read Wendy Richmond's article on Commarts.com, “Permission to Loiter,” and connected with it immediately.

She describes how the most meaningful projects arise from being in a place of loitering and idleness. She talks about how she now resists that urge to be productive, but rather lets it arise organically. These words particularly resonated with me:

I want to go against the obvious urge of being productive and instead wait to see, out of the infinite number of possible directions, where my thoughts choose to linger.

I've had a theory around boredom for some time now that converges with Richmond's thoughts nicely. For an active mind in today's information age, it's actually rather difficult to find boredom. Nearly impossible, if one does not actively cultivate it. RSS feeds, DVRs and the steady flow of all forms of entertainment (video games, movies, music, etc.) all mean that we never have to be bored again. And that to me is rather tragic.

We've all seen the deluge of diatribes against the excess flow of information, which tend to focus on the inability of individuals to process the information effectively, responsibly. But my fear is that we become too much the consumer and too little the producer. Even the majority of what's being produced is repackaging old information. (Consider the nostalgia trend in moviemaking. Did we really need a remake of The Dukes of Hazzard.)

But I believe boredom is what triggers the creative mind (where there is one). When the conscious mind is idle, the subconscious mind gets to work. And after a reasonable time, makes itself known to the conscious time. “Say, conscious mind, you've been shelling peanuts for the past hour. I'll bet you could build an automatic peanut sheller. And here's how.”

Now, I'm not advocating that we all wander around aimlessly for half our lives, waiting for inspiration to strike us rich. But set aside some time each week to do nothing. You might be surprised at just how productive doing nothing can be.

Not So on Target?

The Target Up & Up store brand has been on shelves for about a year now, and I'm still not sure I get the marketing goal here.

Yes, the design is clean, bright and not unpleasant to look at. Yes, it provides consistent branding. But it doesn't communicate, does it?

Take this Up & Up package for their baby formula.

The most prominent components, those that draw the eye, are the stuffed toy image and the Up & Up brand logo. What do these items tell you about what you're getting? Absolutely nothing. To find that out, you'll have to read the non-descript header near the top. Which would not be so unreasonable if you weren't looking at a sea of similarly labeled products.

Branding: 1
Communication: 0

Design that doesn't communicate serves no purpose. Even pure art communicates and connects to us. This is worse than a blatant case of "make the logo bigger." We have to add, "disguise the purpose of this package, please."

Thinking Like a Kid: Marshmallows and Spaghetti

I just washed a fascinating talk on TED.com about the "Marshmallow Challenge." Teams of four were given 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string and one marshmallow. The goal is to build, in 18 minutes, the tallest free-standing structure, upon which the marshmallow rests atop.

What's fascinating about the results is how successful kindergarteners were (highly) versus M.B.A. graduates (poorly). The reason is two-fold. First, the M.B.A. graduates have been trained to plan for the perfect solution and then execute, which in this case, as in the real world, leaves them little time to react if that one solution fails. The children simply dove in to the process without jockeying for leadership and were able to execute many iterations and revisions. Second, the marshmallow, when supported by spaghetti sticks is heavier than people realize. So when a single plan uses the assumption of a light marshmallow, and that marshmallow is not placed onto the structure until the end, there is little time to react when the structure collapses. On the whole, 40% of the teams finished the challenge with no successful structure.

I think we all like structure and process. It's a safe feeling place, where deadlines are fixed and people's time is protected. But perhaps the more traditional ad process is a waste of time. Perhaps, what would be more effective is to plan for playtime up front. Playtime by the people building the project, not the executives, not the managers, but the builders, the creative minds. Tell them, here are your spaghetti sticks, your marshmallows, now go try some stuff. Lots of stuff. Go nuts.

Oh, by the way, the most successful group? Engineers and architects. You know, the builders.

Here's the talk.