Dec. 3, 2008 at 12:35pm

Are your ads like porn?

Posted by Kathleen Deakins in Advertising, Branding, Planning and Strategy
No comments

Sometimes I think creativity is a little like pornography – you recognize it when you see it.

Remember the last great TV commercial you saw? The one that was so great you pointed it out to a friend? Perhaps it was one of the Mac vs. PC spots.

Signs of creativity
You recognize the creativity: simple, unexpected, engaging and focused on a meaningful difference. And you can remember what the ads are for.

Great ads can seem so easy. But we’re not fooled. We know it’s tough to think creatively when we are scurrying from meeting to meeting, reworking budgets and putting out fires.

It takes time and effort to be creative. Michael Michalko's books ThinkerToys and Cracking Creativity offer practical advice for how to get the most out of the effort. Michalko offers page after page of tips and techniques for boosting your creative thinking.

Exercising creative muscle
One exercise, SCAMPER, is based on work by Alex Osborn and Bob Eberle. You answer nine questions to modify an existing idea, drawing out new ideas and approaches:

S = Substitute?
C = Combine?
A = Adapt?
M = Magnify? Modify?
P = Put to other uses?
E = Eliminate?
R = Rearrange? Reverse?

Now I don’t know if this is how it happened, but I can imagine the Mac vs. PC creative geniuses saying, “S equals substitute. What can we substitute for a Mac user talking about how easy Macs are to use? What if we let the Mac talk?”

Stretching your budget
Notice what these ads aren’t – expensive to produce. And they make a far greater impression than many fancier commercials.

We are all looking for ways to stretch our ad, event and promotion budgets. Budgeting for creative thinking may be an answer.

Comments (0)

Add your comment below