The more problems we have, the more creative we can be.

darwinised:

Goafest Diaries (Part I), Erik Vervroegen, International creative director, Publicis Worldwide

For me the ‘big’ point of this talk was:

There will never be a perfect creative/client brief.

You will never get enough time or desired budgets. A key insight, cleverly articulated, will always, almost be missing.

And the daily grind of advertising has taken its toll. You are creatively exhausted. 

You’ve got two options.

Take the road to mediocrity and average work. Tell yourself that the client deserves only this standard of work, and nothing more. Take refuge behind the fact that an imperfect creative culture, breeds mediocre to average work.

Or you could be brave. Dig in. Keep probing. Keep striving. Keep telling yourself that you will not present anything that is bad.

And that is when creative magic will happen. 

Creativity works best with constraints. As Erik explains:

“(Creative) magic does not come as accident. It comes as reward of hard work. We need to provoke magic. It will come to you only when you don’t give up. Don’t take ‘no’ as an answer. Never give up. Never lose the beginner’s spirit. If you still have the ability to believe that your dreams will come true.”

This comes from a man who has won 70 Lions, under whose creative leadership an agency was three times ‘agency of the year’ at Cannes. Let’s give him the benefit of doubt, no? 

So the next time you get briefed, a new project or job begins, don’t get disheartened or discouraged by all that should/could have been. Don’t rave. Or rant.

Embrace the constraints. 

Dig in. And wait for the creative magic to begin :)

To read more and see the cases Erik presented, hop over to the Campaign India page

Goafest Diaries is a series of posts that focus on key learnings I gleaned from seminars/talks at Goafest 2012, in the hope that you may learn a few interesting things from some of the biggest names in media/advertising. Each talk focuses on one ‘big’ point I picked up, one point that resonated with me.  

Big ideas vs. Long ideas

“I still think it’s worth encouraging teams doing digital work to come up with good ideas – emphasis on good rather than big, and plural rather than singular.  I have a speech slide with a picture of Madden 2010, World of Warcraft, the iPad, and Nike+ and I challenge people in the audience to come up with the “big idea” behind each of these products.  While people invariably come up with a high-level descriptor, they usually wind up discovering that there are dozens and dozens of big ideas in them; design details, executions, lots of ideas that all add up to its market appeal.  When I had the Nike account in 2002, Nike kept asking us, “What is the big idea of this site, this app, this page?” An art director finally got exasperated at this ongoing request and said “Don’t you get it?  I have to come up with dozens of great ideas to make a great digital experience.  If you make me focus on only one, you’ll have an experience with one great moment followed by dozens of mediocre ones.”

Kip Voytek.

Great post on how brands should focus on creating stories rather than executing ideas, even if it be that hallowed “big idea” ;)

(Source: heywhipple.com)