In the past two years I’ve read a lot of blog posts and been to a few conferences. I enjoy and gain from most, but one thing that’s had me regularly perplexed is the SEO world’s views on creativity, and what is necessary to ‘achieve’ great ideas.
The most regularly overstated method goes along the lines of something like this (and I’m going to use the toilet, since it’s my blog):
The Distilled Linkbait guide is a good resource (the SEO community certainly thinks so) but it is trivial on this point. It just says that you give a team “advanced notice of a brainstorm” – a couple of days. It doesn’t mention anything about research, or that actually, brainstorming isn’t a great process for creativity.
The Difficulty of Good Ideas
I recently attended a ten week course in advertising creativity at the University of the Arts London. Truth be told, it was extremely hard. My partner and I went in with ideas which, on the whole, were firmly rejected by the Creative Director. It took place every Wednesday – the day I normally feel at the lowest energy in the week. For the most part, it felt like getting the stuffing knocked out of us. At the end, we had a portfolio of six advertisements in print and TV, but it took over 40 hours to get there.
“Haha! You are obviously not creative,” I hear you snigger. The Italian sociologist Parento put people in two distinct groups – the rentiers (the stockholders, who hang onto their lot) and the speculators (who speculate). Better put, a speculator is ‘constantly preoccupied with the possibilities of new combinations.’ I am definitely one of those. On this dancer test, the figure moves to the right. See it for yourself.
If you are one of those souls who see it moving left, then you may be creative, but the chances are you’re more of a rentier that a speculator. It’s got to be said, you should probably leave more of the creative ideas stuff to the more creative people – else that brainstorm could turn into a thunder storm. Saying from experience, it can be very frustrating to get people in the room who:
- Don’t know what they are talking about because they have done no research.
- Don’t have a creative bone in their body.
- Seek to poo poo other people rather than come up with anything themselves.
Even if you are a speculator, coming up with really good ideas is never easy. Very few advertising creatives claim to have come up with a truly great idea. Indeed, most will be satisfied with one or two in their entire career, and no matter what your view of the advertising world, it is their job to be creative – they will probably be better at it than you. Trivializing the creative process often leads to “me too” content – the kind of stuff that disappears into white noise. You might get some links, but you’ll rarely make waves. The extra effort can take you much further.
Brainstorming – What’s the Beef?
My main beef with brainstorming is that it implies that great ideas are best come across via teamwork. While it would be nice to think so, most good ideas start and get developed by one or two individuals. Advertising creatives work in pairs of copywriter and art director – effectively words and pictures. You should be wary of working in groups bigger than this initially. Often, this may cause the fatal issues of ruling by committee – failing to address critical issues head on and not making decisions. You don’t want to fall into that trap, you also want to keep your best ideas guarded from everyone else in an embryonic stage. A quote from advertising giant David Ogilvy is worth recalling:
“Look through all the parks in all the cities. You won’t find statues of committees.”
It’s a basic note that committees rarely come up with great work. Indeed, getting everyone involved can lead to slow and draining failure.
A Technique for Producing Ideas
If you do have an idea, it should really be up to you to nurture it into something that may lead to life. When you involve more people, the greater there is a chance of imperfection being pointed out. Instead, it should be left to individuals to develop ideas – if there are ideas that they struggle to get developed, and then these can be passed on.
The book I can best recommend on this subject is A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young – first published in the 1940s. The process is elegantly simple, yet far from trivial. In its simplest form it can be explained thus:
“…ideas are nothing more than a new combination of old elements.”
- Gather raw materials on your subject – research as much as possible.
- Mentally digest the facts – sometimes these yield their meaning quicker when you do not scan them too directly.
- Make no effort of a direct nature. Completely remove your mind from the subject, yet stimulate it in another way – such as listening to music or going to the cinema.
“In the first stage you have gathered your food. In the second you have masticated it well. Now the digestive process is on. Let it alone – but stimulate the flow of gastric juices.”
Basically, constantly thinking about your problem is not good. I can’t recount any time (creative course included) when I have managed to come up with a good idea during the process of thinking about it. A couple of my personal favourites have come on a cycle ride into work in the morning. A clear head paradoxically works wonders.
Only when you have caught this idea do you come to a meeting. Brainstorming is what happens after this process. The core component for coming up with ideas according to Webb Young is that you do a lot of research in understanding the client and their requirements. Once this research is complete, you attack the client’s problems.
Strategic Ideas
Strategic ideas about your own business are somewhat different, because (provided you know what you are doing) you should already know quite a lot about it! Thus you probably don’t have to spend as much time researching as you would for your client.
The key to strategic ideas is to continue learning about your subject, but always consider your businesses’ problems in the context of what you’re learning, then inevitably ideas will flow.
It’s worth mentioning that I’ve usually found books and conferences the most useful source of executionable ideas. Rarely do blogs and web videos give me the same kind of encouragement. They give me tips, advice and tactics but rarely do they give me new ideas. Indeed, that’s why all the resources I’ve listed at the bottom of this post are books. If you are reading a blog, you are normally at work in an office, you will not have the required time to ponder and shape your thinking.
Originality
At this stage we must realise that good ideas are not necessarily 100% original. Good ideas can be borrowed from other verticals or concepts and reshaped to fit yours. On the web, it is common for executions using new technology to be seen as ‘innovative’ but not make much of a splash. Often it takes a few goes and the chance of hitting the right audience so the idea tips. Take Mahifx.com – as an idea it is a recombination of elements (negative sentiment towards filthy rich financiers) using new technology.
You just can’t make the idea too similar to something else. Intel’s Museum of Me and Take This Lollipop are similar technical ideas in that they access Facebook Open Graph information to be replayed to the users, but the execution of their creative is entirely separate, and they are almost indistinguishable from one another.
Conclusion:
Beware when you see the words ‘brainstorm’ on blogs and hear it at conferences. While the technique may be useful if you’ve already done your homework, remember that coming up with good ideas normally takes considerable research and planning before you get to this point.
Further Reading
- Steve Harrison: How to Do Better Creative Work
- Luke Sullivan: Hey Whipple! Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising
- David Ogilvy: Ogilvy on Advertising
- James Webb Young: A Technique for Producing Ideas
- David Aakers: Building Strong Brands
