Ever felt like you’ve already had all of the creative ideas you’re ever going to have? Like there’s nothing new under the sun? Like everyone’s already said, done and conceptualised everything interesting and there’s nothing fresh you can add to the mix?
You’re not alone. All marketers feel like this on occasion.
But here’s the thing: Coming up with creative ideas (also known as “creative ideation”) is neither a function nor an activity. My position is that creativity is actually a way of being; involving letting things in, not just pushing them out.
Esoteric, I know.
Let me explain.
Generating creative ideas: Notice everything
I’ve been in marketing for almost 20 years (yes, I was a child bride) so I know that trying to ‘come up with’ creative ideas doesn’t work. What does work? Noticing them.
Noticing begins with micro-focus and this chapter unpacks three steps to try when you need a creative solution to a marketing challenge. Or, more specifically, when you must work with the objectively ordinary to make it demonstrably extraordinary.
But first, a story. I am, after all, a copywriter.
There I was, deep in the bowels of a luxury hotel in New Delhi, India. In my ears: chandeliers pretending to be earrings. On my body: sequins. In my belly: noise.
I was a guest at a razzle-dazzle gala dinner. But I was running on almost no sleep,having flown in three hours prior. It was 9.30pm, there’d been honorifics and protocols and applause for days, and I was ravenous. I chatted with a major dignitary (the former Director of India’s Intelligence Bureau), trying to dampen – with charm and wit – the audible grumbles from my stomach.
Imagine my delight when a platter of green beans appeared before me. I speared one with my fork. Popped it into my mouth. Chewed.
I almost died.
You may have guessed the punchline: This was no green bean.
This was India. My first ever visit to India. And I was attempting to consume, in public, the hottest chilli of all time. Rookie error.
The average human tongue has 2000 to 8000 taste buds. I may have started out with, say, 5000 – but that evening, I zapped every one of them and I doubt they’ll be the same again. As for my nose… The little hairs in the nose are called cilia. Believe it or not, most people have 120 in the left nostril and 122 in the right. (Yes, someone has actually studied this. Poor bastard.) I don’t think I have cilia. Not anymore.
You need not know what happened next, but you’ll remember the green bean. My tongue and my nose will remember the green bean. And the esteemed dignitary I was chatting to will certainly remember the green bean.
Generating creative ideas: Specific, detailed, unexpected
Does this story have a moral? Indeed. If we want things to stick in people’s minds, they must be specific, detailed and unexpected.
The gala dinner. The razzle-dazzle. The green bean.
Mark Twain allegedly said, “There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take alot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.” And when you can access your own kaleidoscope, you can come up with clever creative ideas, cool concepts, intelligent angles and compelling hooks. On demand, like.
Still, it often feels like creativity should be all fluffy clouds and tinkling bells and unicorn poeps. But you know and I know that it doesn’t happen like that. Rather, you (and anyone you’ve ever worked with) already have a preferred internal process; a set of steps you use as your default when generating creative ideas.
I named mine a few years ago, so I could teach it to people. I call it The Micro-Focus Methodology for Creative Ideation.
By the way, I recognise that this is a totally un-ironic name; that even naming one’s own system is naff in the extreme. But names are how we make things real. Specific. Even detailed. (See what I did there?)
The Micro-Focus Methodology for Creative Ideation has three main techniques: The Shrink, The Rabbit-Hole and The Leap.
Generating creative ideas: Three steps
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THE SHRINK
Remember the green bean story? Course you do. It was moments ago. But in a week or two, you’re likely to recall it still. Because it represents something we’ve all done. Maybe you have a Garlic Horror Story or a Spinach In Your Teeth Nightmare or a Public Wasabi Disaster. My green bean is relatable. It’s small. It’s…shrunk.
When using The Shrink, we zoom into the minutiae of a product, service, solution, problem, opportunity or concept, to find the smallest possible detail that has the potential to resonate with the largest number of people.
How you can do this
Go from many to one, by sharing a 1st person (I) or 3rd person (they) narrative. You can do this with or without rich detail. You can describe a Day In The Life. You can pull back the curtain on a Behind-The-Scenes. Specific. Detailed. Unexpected.
Here’s one way to notice and leverage tiny details: Try to adopt the mindset of a toddler. I’m serious. Imagine that you’re a whimsical little gremlin, sent from an alternate dimension to test the structural integrity of homes and human sanity.
In the same way that toddlers are relentlessly fascinated by everything around them, you might treat the USP, offer or message as if it’s the biggest babushka doll in a set and ask, “What’s inside? And what’s inside that? And what’s inside that?”
Here’s an example
In 2022 the ‘A British Original’ campaign by Uncommon and MG for British Airways brought to life the individual reasons people decide to travel. Centred on the question travellers are asked on arrival in a new destination, “What’s the purpose of your visit?”, it highlighted more relatable reasons than just Business or Leisure.
Motivations included: “Because I have too much on my plate, none of it seafood”, “To feed the social feed”, “I still love him”, “Burnout” and “Remission”.
There were 512 unique print, digital and outdoor executions in total; some funny, some moving, all cleverly located and matched to the time of day, weather and what was happening in the news. This is zooming in – and in, and in, and in.
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THE RABBIT-HOLE
When going down The Rabbit-Hole, what we’re doing is actually just research, but with a sexier name. We research in order to connect the unconnected; to stumble across possible overlaps; to isolate the surprising piece of data with wow potential.
How you can do this
To put it plainly, you research. For hours. With your main point held firmly in mind.
Here are some tips for going down The Rabbit-Hole: Never lose sight of your main point. Don’t fall in love with your first lightbulb moment. Don’t get tangled up in your own cleverness. And get into the habit of capturing and recording even the shittiest creative ideas, because shitty ideas provide incredibly fertile soil for great ideas.
Here’s an example
As a nationwide DIY retailer with summer on their mind, one of my clients was after a fresh new pool care campaign. Research into their customer personas yielded a stubborn truth of the SA family: the torment of keeping the bloody pool clean, clear and blue, when bloody people insist on bloody swimming in it!
Those families, in addition to fiddling with the pool, also prioritise quality time with their loved ones, experiences at the beach and making memories in the bush. Being outdoors, in nature, with the delightful sounds of muddy elephants, over-eager woodpeckers, hysterical hyenas…and the West African manatee.
Found in areas of fresh water, this slow-moving aquatic mammal spends its days slurping up debris and detritus from riverbeds. Guess what else does exactly that? The pool vacuum. Same goal. Same location in the water. Same sound!
In this case, the manatee led to a great pool care campaign, but also to an entire brand campaign. Remember: Specific. Detailed. Unexpected.
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THE LEAP
When using The Leap, we embrace the absurd. We welcome the weird. We jump right over the logical, obvious assumptions that emerge at the outset of the creative process, and we try to zig when anyone sensible would opt to zag.
How you can do this
Take things literally. Use reverse thinking or paradoxical intentions to approach problems from new angles. Look at opposites. Over-share. Obviate. Own up.
This is a direct quote from my husband, who believes that our pool would be absolutely perfect if only our family and friends would just stop using the bloody thing.
A good time to use The Leap is when you have to work with major seasonal milestones, like Valentine’s Day, the festive season or (blerg) Women’s Month. The problem with these ‘themes’ is that everyone else uses them too, so your messaging must be expressed in a highly original way to stand out.
Now, you could just seek out weird milestones, like days of observation for redheads, chopsticks and dog adoption. But so can everyone else. That’s why I like to switch it up.
Instead of a Valentine’s Day campaign designed around romantic love, what about a February productivity campaign called “I Heart Work”?
What about a radio station marketing roll-out that doesn’t use sound?
What about using the late Derek Watts in a lite beer campaign (not my idea, but still brilliant)? By choosing serious, sombre Derek as their beerbassador, Castle Lite’s 2022 Lite’n Up campaign was funny, self-effacing, infectious and most of all, surprising. Maybe they’ll take it a step further and get Gretha Thunberg next time.
Here’s an example
You might start with what they say you can’t do – like 18-year-old Zander Moricz did when, as president of his graduating class at Florida’s Pine View School, he was prohibited from using the word “gay” in his commencement speech.
In addition to being openly gay, Zander was a plaintiff in a 2022 lawsuit challenging Ron de Santis’s Parental Rights in Education Act (the revolting ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill), and the school threatened to cut his mic if he mentioned his activism.
Here’s what Zander said instead:
“As you know, I have curly hair. I used to hate my curls. I spent mornings and nights
embarrassed of them, trying desperately to straighten this part of who I am, but the
daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to endure. While having curly
hair in Florida is difficult due to the humidity, I decided to be proud of who I was and
started coming to school as my authentic self. There are going to be so many kids
with curly hair who need a community like ours, and they won’t have one. Instead,
they’ll try to fix themselves so that they can exist in Florida’s humid climate.”
Specific. Detailed. Unexpected. And Zander never said gay. He asked, “What if? What if I use my curly hair as a euphemism?”
Generating creative ideas: In summary
If we accept that creativity is not only about generating creative ideas but also about living in a state of openness and curiosity – about noticing – we must try to expose ourselves to novel stimuli: new ideas, difficult tasks, experiences and knowledge outside of our areas of expertise, and unfamiliar physical and social environments. But – and this is a big one – when you’re in India, you should still cut the green
beans in half and examine them closely, before eating them whole.
