Creativity in Marketing

Creativity matters!

As marketing and branding professionals, it's our job to make something out of nothing. Create the branding, create the positioning, find the niche. We need to develop the words, the visuals, the images that make a brand a brand.

Folks that are great at detail, proofreading, tracking projects -- you know. those analytical types -- find it difficult to deal with the creative part of marketing. Making something out of nothing.

We create the brochure, the website, the positioning statement. Once in a while we get something handed to us to update or rebrand, but mostly we are starting from scratch.

That can be intimidating for someone who has always been successful in school. Because school rewards those who have strong analytical skills. History facts. Math facts. Science facts. Getting a good grade in Calculus/Algebra/Trig or getting a good grade in Biology/Physics/Chemistry carries a lot more "weight" and prestige than a good grade in art/band or painting the scenery for the school play.

Being quite a bit of an analytic myself, I did very well in school... but now that I've been out for many years, I really see the value in nurturing the other side of my brain. Keeping fresh and current so that I can think of new ways of approaching a project ranks so much more important to me now than memorizing and regurgitating facts. Facts keep changing so they end up wrong anyway! Plus I can always go look it up. Many of my blogging posts are more analytical in nature. Marketing measurement. Tracking results. Focused on tracking, measuring, increasing sales and profits. Isn't that why we do marketing and branding?!?

But it should be a balance.

We know that there are 2 sides of brain... we shouldn't just feed and nurture one. Especially not just the analytic one. It's the pessimist one. The realist one. The "I've gotta know more before I can start" one.

We've got to feed and nurture the creative side too. Especially now in 2007. The "why not", the "what if", "how about if we try it like this" side. The side that isn't afraid to try. Something new. Something different. Mash it up.

It's not about right and wrong, it's about right and new.

Here are some of the ways I try to unlock and nurture my creative side:

• Listen over and over again to The Artist's Way CD
• doodles... I mean "graphic facilitation"
• Read Quinn Creative 's blog
• Custer using writing the natural way techniques
• Play rhyming games

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Technorati Tags: Marketing, Branding, 2007, Creativity in Business