Did you know that usnews reports that 60% of CEOs cited creativity as an essential leadership quality? Meanwhile, Adobe notes that 80% of workers feel more pressure to be productive than creative. 80%! Is this what’s killing creativity? I watched the Art & Copy documentary and discovered how the Madman-era Ad geniuses did it.
Got Nerve?
In the documentary, the director weaves together interviews from the people who developed the “Think Different”, “Got Milk?”, “Where’s the Beef?” and “Just Do It” marketing campaigns. By watching, I realized that:
- There is no such thing as a creative person. We are all creative. What makes you good at something is practice. What makes it easy and natural is liking it. Simple as that. A good writer loves to write and does it often enough.
- You can’t let fear hold you back. When your job success depends on your next big idea, it’s easy to be scared. After all, most creatives don’t know where their next big idea is coming from. These Ad people were not frightened. Some didn’t give a flying f*ck if their bosses and colleagues liked it.
- It’s ok to fail. Even brilliant Ad creatives fail, some a lot. In his book “Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters, “ Joseph Sugarman said he learned more from his failures than from the mail-order greats who preceded him. Bottom line: Embrace failure, learn, and do better. It will get you somewhere.
What do successful creatives look like?
We’ve seen there is no special gift for creativity. Besides the nerve: What do people who can monetize it have in common?
- All sorts of different backgrounds. These people have many hobbies, lifestyles and upbringings that broaden their horizons. A creative, rich team is a diverse one.
- They are artists. Those guys were the first to put together the art and copy creative teams. The ad campaigns resulted in artistic, fun and enticing content for the public. They wanted Ads to be something that brought lots of emotions to the public.
- They like telling stories. The ability to tell stories is an old one and still proves to be fruitful. Learn to trigger emotions through stories, paint scenarios, and don’t just push a product on people when you can delight them makes a big difference. The public isn’t stupid.
Of course, no amount of marketing techniques will ever fix a faulted product. The same goes for not knowing your audience. But creativity will be a highly demanding skill. Crucial for problem-solving leadership. But you have to learn to do it right. I hope this can inspire you into a creative field. Let me know.
If you can’t believe me, look at the Tommy Hilfiger Ad that made him known. Everybody (including Mr Hilfiger) hated it. But it worked. People were outraged and thought, “Who does he think he is?” But it worked! I live for this stuff.
