Making Creative Choices
Where do good creative ideas come from? How do we maintain a fresh creative approach? How do we keep our work from becoming predictable?These are tough questions that creative professionals face every day. Developing good creative is more than just thinking up cool ideas. It’s an organic process that grows out of a specific business need to change a target audience in a particular way (see my post, “Making Change”).
Actors can provide great insight into the creative process. Their work in plays and films forces them to make thousands of creative choices. Every line, every look, every gesture requires a conscious choice.
When preparing for a role, an actor considers the character’s “given circumstances.” These are traits that the actor can’t control… a character may be smart or dumb, rich or poor, short, blond, fiery, from Texas, an only child or a war veteran. These aren’t choices the actor makes; it’s background assigned by the scriptwriter or director.
As creatives, it’s the same for us. Our actions are influenced by the given circumstances of our assignment (client goals, target audience, market research, key messages). These are part of the project’s DNA, but they are not our tactical goals. Like actors, we must understand the background and then focus on the objective: to influence someone’s behavior.
An acting teacher I know demands “spontaneous inevitability” in creative choices. A spontaneous choice seems to come out of nowhere. It is completely original and different from anyone’s expectations. A choice is inevitable when, on reflection, it makes perfect sense. In fact, given the surrounding circumstances, there is no better choice that could have been made.
Creative choices that seem both spontaneous and inevitable grow organically from the given circumstances of the assignment (goals, audience, research, messaging, tactics and technology), and work directly to accomplish the project objective. This method requires originality and freshness, but keeps us connected to the client’s goals. It takes us to a creative place where we can find surprising ways to change the target.
We have to fight the tendency to do what’s worked for us before, or to mimic what’s “hot” right now, and let the given circumstances of the assignment – the strategy – guide us to fresh, new, organic solutions that accomplish the client’s objective.
Almost anyone can do “good” creative. “Great” creative requires risk. It demands that we do something that no one else has done before. With careful attention to the given circumstances (goals, audience, research, messaging, tactics and technology), we can increase our chances for success and deliver truly original concepts.