Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

I have the best guru in the world. He’s a smidge over four feet tall, tells jokes with incoherent punch lines, and makes a sport of farting in the bathtub. Yep, my 5-year old son, Jake. Now, don’t think this is Mom Bias talking. Anyone with access to a youngster can have a sage at their beck and call with nothing more than the promise of two extra bedtime stories or an ice-cream cone. If you hang around kids and listen closely, the wisdom flows constantly for they do something that adults have unlearned to do – they see things as they are. Let me illustrate with a story:

It was a Friday night and my husband wanted to meet some of his buddies at a bar across town, so I offered to drive him (why thank you, I am a nice wife). I piled Jake into the car and we dropped off Daddy. As we drove away and came upon a stop light, Jake and I noticed three cute 20-something gals in fashionable, yet teeny-tiny dresses, clutching sparkly purses and teetering on strappy shoes. They were shivering furiously while trying to hail a taxi with zero luck. Clearly they were heading downtown, presumably to a nightclub, but their fun was thwarted by the dreadful fog and cold that often sneaks up on San Francisco.

The mom in me worried and I said aloud, “Where are their coats?”

Jake, not missing a beat, yelled from his car seat, “Where are their pants?”

I think I laughed the whole way home. Not only because it was so darn funny, but because Jake had illuminated my inability to see the obvious. Asking where their pants were, was a far better question than pondering the whereabouts of their coats.

He could see this so clearly because kids are unfettered by mental models. They haven’t yet come to rely on a particular way of thinking about the world and the relationships between things. As adults, we use these short-cuts to help us navigate the world more efficiently. They’re a wonderful thing really, but they can also handicap us in a way for we stop seeing things entirely as they are.

My mental model of fashion and societal norms made it perfectly okay for the women to be wearing scraps of fabric in 50 degree weather, because I understood their desire to look cute for a night on the town – they just needed a coat. Jake didn’t share that model, so he was thinking, get some pants ladies!

As I apply this insight from my bathtub farting guru to my work, I challenge myself to let go of mental models about how branding and marketing is or should be. Some fundamentals have merit, but it’s a powerful practice to slow down every once in awhile to examine the norm and see if there might be a deeper question to be asked. Or I can hang out with Jake. I just have to wear pants.

Why smart companies approach branding experience-first.

I learned a powerful lesson on branding in the unlikeliest of places; in a class on early childhood development at my son’s preschool.

The course leader did a very interesting exercise. She gave each parent an apple and asked us to bite into it. After we did, she encouraged us to shout out words to describe the experience of eating the apple while she scribed them onto a large notepad. Descriptors like juicy, crunchy, snappy, tart, sweet, smooth, intense, tangy, fragrant, delicious, and succulent filled the page. Finally, we had to stop because the page ran out of room.

Then she asked us to forget about eating the apple and showed us a picture of a red apple. She inquired, “Now based on the drawing alone, what can you tell me about an apple?” Words were not flowing now, but trickling very slowly. Red, flat, green stem, and round-ish were pretty much the extent based on the illustration.

Finally she asked us to forget about eating the apple and the picture. She showed us a piece of paper with the letters, “APPLE,” on it. She asked, “What can you tell me about an apple from this alone if you had no experience with an apple?” Beyond apple being a five letter word, we came up with nothing.

Her demonstration was to describe the Three Stages of Learning

• Experiential Learning – eating the apple
• Symbolic Learning – interpreting the picture of the apple
• Abstract Learning – utilizing the code ‘APPLE’ to represent it

She explained that all three learning stages are ideally linear – that if we have the experience of something first, it deeply enhances our ability to relate to and connect with both its symbolic and abstract forms. When we experience something – we
build a Fund of Knowledge around that thing solidifying our relationship to it. When we jump to symbolic or abstract forms of a thing without this Fund of Knowledge, it’s meaning and emotional connection are diminished or perhaps non-existent.

How does this relate to branding? Well, a lot. So often I encounter clients who are consumed with their logo (symbolic) or the copy on their website (abstract) without a thought to the most powerful form of branding they do every day – the experience they deliver to their customer. Some companies are oblivious to the Funds of Knowledge they are building in consumer’s minds about their organization. Furthermore, if these Funds are negative, a logo refresh or copy rewrite won’t enhance the brand or turn-around customers.

That’s why my company, Slye Marketing, approaches branding experience-first. The fastest way to build customer affinity is to build positive Funds of Knowledge. In doing so, the symbolic and abstract representations of a brand come easy as (apple) pie.

Why Good Ideas Are Like Porn

Recently, I had a very fun assignment. I was asked by a client to help define creativity when he was invited to give a presentation on the subject.  What a cool opportunity to look scientifically at something that I do every day – generate ideas.

What is Creativity? What Are Good Ideas?

Defining creativity turned out to be harder than we anticipated. Former Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, said of pornography, “I know it when I see it.” The same adage often applies to a good idea; it’s something we know or feel, but the why can be elusive. Furthermore, the label of “good” can depend on the context and/or the metric chosen to measure the idea’s success.

So, instead of trying to determine a universal definition for creativity, my client and I chose to examine the DNA of ideas instead.  We consulted a great book called, How to Get Ideas, by Jack Foster, and agreed upon two powerful characteristics of ideas that also serve as an effective launch point when brainstorming.

Great Ideas Redefine the Familiar

A creative idea is something universally known or accepted, but conveyed in a
novel, unique, or unexpected way.

Take something familiar, add a powerful twist, and voila – creative brilliance. At Smitten Ice Cream in Hayes Valley of San Francisco, customers are eponymously infatuated with its new spin on a traditional dessert. Smitten makes custom ice-cream from fresh ingredients in 60 seconds with a one-of-a-kind liquid nitrogen machine. The process ensures deliciously pure ice cream and people are literally lapping it up. Smitten takes something familiar and redefines it; even the tagline is, “New Old-Fashioned Ice Cream.”

Yet, sometimes creativity is not a makeover, but matchmaking between two familiar things. Diane von Furstenberg’s legendary wrap dress is a robe and dress united. If a laptop had a baby with an iPhone, you’d end up with an iPad. And the most popular new FiDi lunch spot in San Francisco is Sushirrito where diners savor sushi ingredients nestled conveniently in a tortilla. Sometimes a pair of things have the chemistry to become one new concept that’s far greater than its two parts. Or in the case of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, sometimes not – so the trick is to find the magic combination.

Great Ideas Make Things Simple

A creative idea synthesizes the complex into the startlingly simple. It ties up all the loose ends into one neat knot.

A big misnomer is that a great idea requires layers of complexity, when in fact, the best ideas simplify, not complicate. They have what I like to call the Duh Factor, as in, “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?” I have to look no further than my own floors for an example. Swiffer has to be the best housekeeping innovation of the last century. Replacing a mop, rags, and a pail of sloshing water, is one little disposable wipe that makes my hardwood floors sparkle. First runner-up to Swiffer in the Duh Factor Pageant is putting wheels on a suitcase. Duh, indeed.

Simplicity doesn’t just apply to tangible design, it extends to communications too. Simplify your message and people will more readily understand what your brand might mean to them. Take the Miller Lite tagline, “Tastes great, less filling.” What could be simpler than that?

To sum it up, if you’re daunted by brainstorming and ideation sessions, don’t be. As you and your respective organizations come up with creative ideas, streamline your process by redefining what’s already familiar to you and keeping it simple. In the end, you might ask, “But how will I recognize true creativity?” Like porn, you’ll know it when you see it.