There are an infinite number of solutions to a creative brief. Some bad. Some good. Some brilliant. Of course, there’s truth in that ‘good is the enemy of great’ advertising guru stuff, but sometimes it can feel like great just won’t ever happen.
Not on this brief. Not on this budget. Not on this client. While these are just excuses, they can be dispiritingly close to the truth.
The solution lies in changing our mind set. Because where we can do more is in how we go about maintaining the integrity of our ideas and, in doing so, our own integrity.
Everyone has MS Word. Everyone has Adobe CC or a photo-editing app on their smartphone or tablet. Nowadays, everyone’s a creative. Right?
Except they aren’t.
Where creative should be different is in their thinking. Or, better, in the quality of their thought. The way they look at a problem and come up with a solution that makes other people see a product, a service or a brand differently.
So, Expedia isn’t a holiday booking site. It takes you to interesting places, making you more interesting as a person. Dove doesn’t manufacture beauty products, it’s the initiator of a social campaign to make women accept themselves.
These two random examples are powerful, transformative ideas. This is where our strength as creatives lies. This is what our job is. This is what people who own smartphones and tablets can’t do.
If our thinking is good, we aren’t reduced to living in stock-picture-and-a-headline purgatory. If our thinking is good, we can change the fortunes of our clients. And isn’t that what we’re here for?