LEVERAGING CONFLICT & TENSION TO GET TO BETTER IDEAS.

(REVISED ESSAY) On Thursday, June 8 at 1:30pm, I’m presenting a webinar about this technique. I promise not to suck. (Register here.) 

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Creativity happens best, in my opinion, when we’re presented with a problem, not a solution.

I am not a strategist but in my experience, I think the best briefs set things up as problems, not solutions.

Think of the brief as a wall.

Getting over this wall requires creativity. … I can go over the wall – with a rope, a ladder. I can go under it with a shovel, through it with a bulldozer, go around the world and come up on the wall from the other side, or maybe just beam down on the other side with Spock. There are all kinds of possibilities.

Or, on the other hand, I can be presented with a brief about the lovely piece of land on the other side of the wall. Which is how I think most briefs read. “Please do an ad about the fine ten-square-yard patch of lawn.”

Well, I’m sure it’s a fine chunk of winter rye on the other side; thick and green, the envy of the entire block. But what’s on the other side of the wall is a solution, not a problem, and so it’s boring. It’s boring because it’s like a crossword puzzle that’s already been filled out. As a creative I always wondered, where do I go with briefs like this?

I’d rather work with a brief that is about the wall; about the problem.

One could argue the hypothetical lawn could be turned into something creatively dazzling. It can, yes — (just shut up, I’m on a roll) — but I’ll dig in my heels here to make a point. When you start with a problem, you have the beginning of story. And story is a bigger, better place to work towards than just some happy ad about some happy thing.

As you may recall from Mrs. Hansen’s 11th-grade English class, all drama is conflict. Sometimes it’s a protagonist versus an antagonist. Sometimes it’s love versus loneliness, or Crest versus cavities. But there’s always a “versus” and it’s that versus which drives the story.

What’s interesting to note here is how stories never start with a “happy ending.” A good thing, because happy endings aren’t interesting. It’s the beginnings, where the problems are, that make us lean in. I’ll wager if you pulled in hours late to a movie, you wouldn’t walk up and buy a ticket just to catch the last scene and the end credits. The movie stars riding off into the sunset (or over the nice lawn), that scene is almost always the least interesting part of any movie.

Unfortunately, many continue to think the purpose of a brief is to provide creatives with the information they’ll need to film the happy ending.

I’m not positive I’m right about this. But I suspect most creatives would agree it’s easier to create something interesting when you’re presented with a problem and not a solution.

That’s my 2¢. What’s yours?

 

Creativity happens in response to problems.

On Thursday, March 23rd, I am presenting a webinar about brand storytelling where I describe some of the very best ways I’ve found to create storytelling platforms. (Register here.)  A big part of storytelling, of course, is establishing conflict. I couldn’t fit everything into the webinar, and had to cut this part about the purpose of conflict in brand storytelling. So, I put it here.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Creativity happens best, in my opinion, when we’re presented with a problem, not a solution.

I am not a strategist and never have been. But in my experience, I think the best briefs set things up as a problem, not a solution.

A wall, for example, presents itself.

Okay, … I can go over the wall – with a rope, a ladder. I can go under it with a shovel, through it with a bulldozer, or beam down on the other side with Spock.

Or, on the other hand, I can be presented with the land on the other side of the wall. (Which is how I think most briefs read. “Please do an ad about this fine ten-square-yard patch of lawn.”) Well, I’m sure it’s a fine hundred-square-feet of winter rye on the other side of the wall; thick, green, and the envy of the entire block. But because it’s a solution and not a problem, as a creative I always wondered, where do I go from here?

One could argue this hypothetical lawn could be turned into something creatively dazzling, in all kinds of ways. It could, yes, but I’ll dig in my heels here to make a point. When you start with a problem, you have the beginning of a story. And story is a bigger, better place to work towards than just an ad or a campaign.

As you may recall from Mrs. Hansen’s 11th-grade English, all drama is conflict. Sometimes it’s a protagonist versus an antagonist. Sometimes it’s love versus loneliness. But there’s always a “versus” and it’s that versus which drives the story.

What’s interesting to note here is how stories never start with a “happy ending.” A good thing, because happy endings aren’t interesting. It’s the beginnings, where the problems are, that make us lean in. I’ll wager if we were hours late to a movie, few of us would buy a ticket to catch the last scenes and the credits. Everything turned out okay of course, but it’s the least interesting part of the story.

Unfortunately, many people think the purpose of a brief is to provide creatives with all the information they’ll need to film the happy ending.

I’m not positive I’m right about this. But I suspect most creatives would agree it’s easier to create something interesting when you’re presented with a problem and not a solution.

That’s my 2¢. What’s yours?

 

Upcoming Webinar: How To Manage Creative People.

screenshot-2016-10-10-21-29-48The best creative director I ever worked for was the late Mike Hughes of the Martin Agency. One day we were talkin’ about the business and Mike said, “Just because you’re a great creative person doesn’t mean you’ll make a great creative director.”

He was very clear about it, even to the point of saying, “Y’know, I don’t think I was such a great creative, but I’m doin’ pretty well as a creative director, right?” (To which, of course, I agreed.) He said the two require very different skill sets.

And yet here in the ad industry, as in many other fields, promotion to the rank of creative director happens almost exclusively as a result of being a great creative. It happened to me that way and now, looking back, I realize my creative career didn’t prepare me for creative management.

At the time, my game plan was simply not be like many of the creative directors I’d worked for. I wasn’t going to be an asshole. I wasn’t going to browbeat or embarrass the staff. I wasn’t going to compete with them. I thought if I could just be “one of the guys” I’d be all right. But like parenting experts say, your kids don’t want you to be their buddy, they want a parent. I could’ve been better.

I’ve done an awful lot of study since those days, a lot of reading, a lot of studying, and a lot of work with different agencies that hire me to give advice on their creative process. On October 28, I’ll be giving an online seminar on what I’ve learned. It’s not just for creative directors in agencies. It’s for any company that has to produce creative of any kind. (You can register here.)

I’ve done so much study in this area, there simply isn’t time in a hour to present everything I’d like to cover. So here’s a little part I had to cut. I think it’s good advice.

Learn to move on 80%.

Moving on 80% is an idea I think came from the military arts. One of the lessons of generalship is learning you’ll never have perfect intel. You’ll likely never know with 100% certainty the right course of action to take. And if you do wait for 100% certainty, you’ll lose anyway because you’ve waited too long.

This is learning to live with ambiguity.

In life, most of us learn how to reduce ambiguity. We learn that it pays to proceed slowly, to weigh all the risks and benefits of proceeding in a certain direction. But in this industry, proceeding slowly is rarely an option. 100% certainty isn’t on the table.

What some creative managers try to do then, to improve their shot at 100%, is split their troops and try to cover as much exploratory ground as possible. Exploration is in fact a key part of the creative process, … in an ideal setting. Meaning, when there’s time. But we almost never have enough time for robust creative exploration.

Yet, many CDs take this approach even as time runs out, splitting up their creative resources like they’re a posse in an old Western. “Okay, you guys head to the border, you guys make for the gully, you stay by the bank, and then report back to me. At the saloon.”

Trying to explore all the options under time pressure reminds me of a fantastic passage from Stephen Leacock, a writer from the early 1900s. “He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.”

Better, I think, is to do what exploration the deadline allows for and then use your judgement to decide which direction to go. Move on 80%. Yes, it might turn out to be the wrong direction, but you’ll learn from this and you’ll have a better idea where to go. Remember, creativity is iterative.

Endlessly debating options and over-thinking a creative decision chews up development time, and will never get you to 100% certainty anyway. In life, there’s little certainty; in creativity, none.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Luke Sullivan

Author, speaker, and ad veteran available to recharge, reinvigorate, and refocus marketing, advertising, and branding firms.

I give a hugely energetic series of presentations on innovation, creativity, branding, and marketing. I spent 32 years in the trenches of advertising (at agencies like Martin, GSD&M, and Fallon) and I’ve put everything I learned into my book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. But for me nothing beats taking the message out and speaking to living breathing audiences at clients, agencies, and conferences. You can book me on the button below.

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