Tag: Creativity

Lessons from Art to Marketing

Creativity—an elusive concept for all.

Hard to identify and more challenging to explain.

Cambridge Dictionary describes it as:

imagination
vision
inventiveness
ingenuity

and

originality

Artists and marketers know.

Creativity is necessary. It may not have always been that way, but today, it matters immensely.

Whether you’re an artist painting on a canvas (Are your colours ‘original’? Do they spark emotions we are starting to understand?) or a marketer crafting campaigns (Is your work pivotal? Does it imbue change?)—creativity is the spark that turns ordinary moments into extraordinary breakthroughs.

It’s the difference between refining and redefining.

It is a flash of brilliance.

A slow-burning fire built on curiosity and persistence.

The truth is that creativity thrives at the intersection of structure and imagination.

It’s where the messy “what ifs” meet the grounded “how-tos.” And at this junction lies the power to unlock potential within teams, organizations, and leaders. Oh, and of course, within yourself.

So, creativity isn’t just about expression; it’s about connection—linking ideas, people, and strategies in ways that inspire growth and, more importantly, progress.

It’s about being part of a larger community where each participant has recognized their unique capabilities. We have taken an intellectual oath that includes emotion and experience to persist and sway. To churn ambition into reality, to light the fire beneath, spark bold ideas and fuel new mindsets.

Lean into these queries the next time you feel stuck or uninspired. Funnily enough, doubt can take you there.

The magic happens.

The Innovator’s Dilemma

🚀 Embrace Innovation + Disruption = A Lesson for Every Marketer

I downloaded a new app called Headway. It’s a great way to learn about new books, and I recommend it to anyone. Here are some of my learnings over the weekend.

Topic: The Innovator’s Dilemma (By Clayton Christensen)

The main idea is that creating a new market poses less risk than entering an established market. It is also more rewarding. Nonetheless, small new markets can barely satisfy the required growth requirements of larger businesses.

In other words, businesses may overlook game-changing opportunities because their model is primarily to maintain the status quo. 🛳️ To lead the pack, marketers must be forward-thinking, disruption-leaning changemakers.

Here are a couple of definitions to start –

Innovation: In marketing, this is the fusion of creativity and strategy. Innovation is our ability to craft compelling narratives and experiences that captivate audiences, redefine brands, and transcend conventional boundaries.

Disruption: Closely connected to the above, disruption in marketing is the radical departure from norms, leveraging innovative approaches to challenge conventions and reshape audience/buyer behaviour on a larger scale.

So, what’s the takeaway for us marketers? Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

🔍 Stay vigilant: Keep your eyes peeled for emerging trends and technologies, even if your first inclination is to tell yourself it’s too small or too niche of an idea. Do you want to cross over strategy between industries? Why not see how it fits? Run some experiments to test the waters – but before you launch anything, earn buy-in from your team. Your role will be to convince them with supporting data.

💡 Think like a startup: Embrace agility and experimentation. Don’t get too comfortable with your current strategies. See the value for your audience. How does that influence business outcomes? And if there is a misalignment, you might focus too much on activities and output. Your strategy must respond to change, not be static or a quest for perfection.

🗣️ Listen to your audience/buyers, but watch the market too: While meeting current needs is significant, don’t ignore opportunities outside your existing customer base. Seek out different and diverse points of view. Your creative director friend? He might have some powerful assertions worth exploring. Always carry paper and a pen as it provides immediate focus and stimulation – good stuff for your head.

⚡ Be proactive: Don’t wait for disruption to hit you—seek ways to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. And you can do it by yourself! Self-learning can help learners become more autonomous, organized, self-disciplined, and able to communicate. Just remember – cross-collaboration over silos and hierarchies.

What are your thoughts on innovation and disruption in marketing?

#girlstories

Hey gang!

I forgot to post my ad for #girlstories, which launched a month or two ago.

The purpose of this campaign is to empower women from different demographics and psychographics to tell their personal stories using creativity to dispel fear, judgement, and other negative attributes that we may associate with categorization.

Wikipedia describes categorization as:

…something that humans and other organisms do: “doing the right thing with the right kind of thing.” The doing can be nonverbal or verbal. For humans, both concrete objects and abstract ideas are recognized, differentiated, and understood through categorization.

I’m learning about Facebook Ads right now and it just seems fitting to mention this topic today! I love being analytical, because I don’t have to worry about ‘categorization’, it’s just an ‘interest’ hey!

It’s as simple as this:

doing the right thing –> creating campaigns

with the right kind of thing –> Facebook advertising

Facebook’s mission for 2019 is Embrace Automation. Perhaps a further step towards developing AI…

“Using Dynamic Ads, advertisers can upload an entire product catalog and set their campaign time, and let Facebook do the rest. Working in conjunction with the Facebook Pixel, Facebook will automatically show the right products to users who have visited your website previously.” –  Ignite Visibility

It doesn’t sound so simple, but it can be!

If we take this notion and apply it to a creative + technical writing style (see my first paragraph), we can attempt to mimic the theory and eliminate a need for keywords, bringing us one step closer to attributing right-brained thinking to adaptive modes of learning.

Check out this interesting article, A Glance at the Past & Future of Keyword Research on Semper Plugins.

In place of keywords, we can utilize Facebook Ad concepts like targeting, audiences and insights.

But, who is the pixel? Or, shall I say: who is Pixel? 😉

Okay, that’s my concept exploration for the day! Back to the matter at hand…

When crafting my ideas, I stay true to (what I believe is) the genuine nature of short story telling: condensed length + resisting the sense of obligation to apply edits to the original draft.

Okay, but I still run a wee minor check before I post – always!

This speaks to the campaign’s purpose – revealing our true self (it ends up being paradoxical at times – think: can we express truth condensed?) while maintaining the raw and gritty nature of our human existence.

At the end of the hour, we remain women (and men), powerful regardless of what we know, how we advertise ourselves and why we do it!

#girlstories Girl Stories is a series of creative, short stories focused on empowering creativity in women

These stories will be posted at least once per month. I hope you enjoy them and if you have any ideas for new character names, I’m all ears!