Day 5 - Three killer moves for more diverse creativity - Leo Rayman (Grey)
At the beginning of the week we posed a simple question: How can strategists brief for greater creative diversity?
We investigated four award-winning examples of modern, original, diverse creativity, talked with the strategists who helped make it happen and opened the floor to your smart opinions on Twitter - #IPAStrategy.
We’ll be compiling all the input we received into a short guide for clients and agencies later this year.
The more unusual the mission the tighter the team needs to be. All the cases we looked at shared a common theme – a strong bond of trust between the client and their agency partners.
If you want a more diverse kind of output, you’re going to need a more diverse set of perspectives in the team you pull together to crack it. Our cases all brought a wider array of capabilities into play than you would expect to find on a project with more traditional output. Responsibilities must begin to blur as you start to collaborate in new ways.
So go find some unusual partners within and without your firm.
Redefine the problem. Reimagine the solution
All the cases we investigated had reframed the question. They had taken a problem and looked at it a new way: how to sell crisps or how to start great parties, how to lobby gun companies or how to stop funding them?
Better a rough answer to the right question than a precise answer to the wrong question. So ask yourself are you even asking the right question?
One way to get a fresh perspective on the problem is to find insights in new places. Doritos clients observed student parties, LEMZ in Amsterdam spent four months researching the issues. Both then had the ammunition they needed to create a solid model of the opportunity.
Backing a hunch with some decent evidence really helped to reduce the perceived risk of these new approaches. You can’t always predict the future, but simply trying to describe what might happen increases the chances of pulling-off something new.
Culture eats strategy for brunch
Critically, the diversity we saw was more dependent on culture than process. Sometimes the people behind the project simply worked in firms that were more open to novel solutions. But more often they created a team culture that would allow for the right kind of innovative work to be created.
It is perhaps no surprise that in at least two of our cases, the project started when a couple of people with a shared vision and ambition started to socialise the idea and it snowballed from there.
If your culture rejects these types of ideas, show the risks of inaction, agree on a common ambition and get senior sponsorship for it.
Same old in, same old out
Ultimately coming-up with new, genre-defying creative solutions can only happen if at the inception of the project, the strategist creates the right kind of environment for those ideas to thrive.
This is what briefs and briefings are for. They set out agreed parameters for the project. They inspire diversified outputs through fresh, unusual and insightful inputs.
To put it another way: standard clichéd input, standard clichéd output.
So it is down to you; your imagination, your ability to keep an open mind and above all, having the energy drive it through.
What are your top tips when briefing for more diverse creativity?
Keep the conversation going on Twitter using #IPAStrategy hashtag!
