5 Secrets to Set the Stage for Breakthrough Creative Ideas for Purpose Driven Business

Creativity is the secret sauce to amplify a message, engage an audience, and spur them to action in marketing, advertising, and branding. 

Studies show that overt persuasion often fails to change behavior. Instinctually, humans feel like if we tell someone what to do, they should do it. But, if we can attract and engage attention through creativity, there’s a high probability that the information will not only be remembered, but it will also be shared, which extends the reach of the work even further. 

The KidGlov creative team recently met to have a salon of sorts. Together, we talked about what it takes to come up with breakthrough ideas. Today, we’re sharing five of their expert tips with you and your purpose-driven business.

Define the Challenge

What do you want to solve with your marketing? Think about the who, what, why, where, and how. More specifically, who is that audience? Define it as closely as possible. What do you want the audience to do? What is the action they should take? Why should they do it

Before you start a project, make sure you answer those questions in what’s called a “creative brief.” Without it, the blank page or the blinking cursor can be terrifying. Our team even shared that concepting without a clearly defined challenge can feel restricting and even stressful! A clear definition of the challenge leads the creative team to come up with amazing ideas, which leads us to our next point.

Freedom

Give your team the freedom to solve the challenge. Once you’ve defined that challenge, back off and allow your team space. In this sense, creativity can be somewhat like play. The best ideas come from strange places and creatives are best left to go there with enough room to do so!

Rumination

Your creative team also needs time to ruminate on an idea. Can you think of a time when someone asked you to be brilliant on the spot, whether it was in a presentation or sports competition, in a meeting or a performance? It’s nerve-wracking!

The brain needs time to relax to reach its best ideas. That’s why brilliant people need time. Amazing ideas come to us when we least expect it, whether it’s during a workout, taking a shower, or walking the dog. Fast turnaround timelines often cheat the process and ultimately the outcome of the work, so let creatives get lost in their thoughts.

Safety

Provide an environment of safety. In Simon Sinek’s book, “Leaders Eat Last,” he talks about cultivating a circle of trust. When people feel safe within your culture, they can invest their energy in coming up with breakthrough creative ideas versus using part of that mental energy being worried about guarding themselves. Few people are brave enough to present a breakthrough idea and a culture of safety will help give them that courage. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to love every idea. It certainly doesn’t mean that you fill your meetings with fake flattery. It just means responding with empathy and making criticism constructive and compassionate.

Commit to Quality

At KidGlov, we believe that customers should never have to tell their audience they have a quality service or product. Instead, your audience should feel quality in everything you do, including your marketing. At the end of the day, marketing is only as strong as the weakest link. If you challenge your creative team to come up with a great concept, but then insist they do something like use terrible photos that your staff took on their old iPhone, you’re not going to get the best results. It sounds obvious when you say it out loud, but it’s amazing how often great concepts are hamstrung by poor executional decisions. Note that quality does not always mean expensive, but it’s a commitment to presenting your message with excellence.

As we wrap up, we have a bonus secret for the road: Provide your team with feedback on the results of their work. If the results are great, they will learn from the experience and their confidence will be bolstered for the next assignment. If the results were less than expected, then they’ll learn from that too. Advertising, marketing and branding are not an exact science in this changing world. They are an ongoing iterative process.

We hope these five secrets will help set the stage for breakthrough creative ideas that you will use to ultimately change the world. Visit our website to find additional blogs, case studies, and insights from other purpose-driven leaders and marketers on episodes of our Agency For Change Podcast.