Change Works

29 June 2010

Being creative is not really original

Ever looked at an ad on television and thought "Wow! How did they think of that?"

Perhaps you have been in awe of a new book, strategy or song, and wondered how on earth they (the author) summoned the creative flair to engineer the idea.

Well, being creative isn't actually all about being different. It is highly attuned to being the same. Researchers looked at the similarities of 200 ‘highly creative' ad campaigns and found the vast majority (87%) could be classified into 6 key areas. They then looked at 200 less than successful ads and found that only 2% could be measure against consistent criteria. The success and failure of these ads was actually their level conformity to our expectations.

There are examples of this everywhere around us. Inconsistency just doesn't sell. I remember a few years ago Australian songstress Natalie Imbruglia bought out a song without a chorus...it was promoted and marketed as a brave new creative process. Hmmm, the fact I cannot remember it probably indicates how well it went on the charts. Even great musical pieces by modern creative geniuses such as Lennon, Cohen, Martin et al all had basic structures around melody and choruses. They followed the rules of our expectations.

To design something your peers will see as ‘highly creative' you need to firstly conform to their expectations, whatever they may be. Sure enough there will occasionally be a genius who will completely launch a creative paradigm in their field, but the vast majority of creative ‘gold' lies firmly embedded in hanging your creativity from a consistent platform and strategy.

Warm wishes,
Darren and Alison

With Compliments
Nils Vesk encapsulates the idea behind this weeks newsletter in this clip from Thought Leaders Studio. Nils discusses how we need to find the thinking behind others good ideas so that we can create our own innovative ideas.

Click here to watch Nils Vesk's clip on Copying Ideas