Brilliant Marketing

● a fully attuned sense of curiosity

● a lot of material to play with – don’t tell me a blank sheet of

paper is a good thing

● a sense of the need to produce something – deadlines are

great goads

● laughter.

252 brilliant marketing

brilliant

tip

Always listen to your inner voice (you may have 500 reasons to do

something but if your heart isn’t saying ‘yes’ don’t do it).

What Stanford University taught us

Professor Michael Ray, the John G. McCoy-BancOne

Corporation Professor of Creativity and Innovation and

Marketing, Emeritus, is a phenomenon who has changed a lot of

lives. His course at Stanford, which he ran with Rochelle Myers,

is spoken of with awe by those who’ve been on it. His advice is

simplistic:

● be yourself in life

● take a deep breath and ask yourself ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – often the

answer simply comes to you

● ‘Do only what is easy, effortless and enjoyable’ – that’s Jim

Collins, author of From Good to Great, who went on the

course in 1983 – yes, it’s been going that long

● your life is a work of art and the kind of creativity he

teaches is essential to health, success and happiness in life,

in business and above all in marketing.

It sounds a bit mystical but what is so appealing about all this is

that Michael is an obvious and keen student of human nature

and the positivism (unless you are a Van Gogh or a Proust) that

leads to great and life-changing cre-

ativity for marketers.The key for any

great marketing is to understand

who the target is, where they are at,

what is likely to engage them and

why they may be reached by what

you have to tell them. But it is not just about a transfer of infor-

mation, because marketing at its most brilliant is not a craft or a

science. This is the big lesson here. Brilliant marketing is an art.

Ted Nierenberg, founder of Dansk International Design, said

this:

‘The uncreative life isn’t worth living.’

I’m with Ted.

Creativity is high on the political agenda too

In a report recently published by the Department of Culture,

Media and Sport, it was concluded:

‘The challenge is to create a culture in higher education that links

creativity with innovation of creative value.’

I love the sang-froid of government.This is more than words-on-

a-page challenge. It’s a mighty adventure that needs massive

funding. Trouble with government. All talk. No walk. All mouth

and trousers.

In recent times, the number of creative businesses (62,000) in the

UK has been growing rapidly (by 40 per cent over a five-year

period). The skills in managing creativity are improving, but too

slowly. Too many of us regard the need to do things on time and

on budget as more important than doing things brilliantly. Sir

Jeremy Isaacs (ex head of Channel 4 and the Royal Opera House,

and no slouch when it came to managing creativity) said in the

Financial Times in 1999 these timeless words:

‘Your prime role as a manager is enabling creativity to fulfil itself.’

The art of creative thinking 253

marketing at its most

brilliant is not a craft or

a science. Brilliant

marketing is an art

Vodafone did a piece of research in 2005 which encouragingly

(well, I think it’s encouraging) showed the following:

● 28 per cent of their employees had at least one new idea a

week

● two-thirds believed their managers were likely to listen to

new ideas

● in companies where no inducement or reward structure was

in place just under a third of people never had an idea.

But it cannot simply be planned – ‘today I shall be creative’ – you

can try it, but don’t hold your breath. Amin Rajan, CEO of

Create, a research company, put it rather well when he described

creativity in an organisation as ‘a random explosion born out of

frustration with the status quo’. Creativity matters so much

because it is there to facilitate and drive change. And creativity

is vital in marketing, where the key aims in the quest for bril-

liance are as follows:

● to be noticed

● to change opinion

● or to strengthen opinion

● to provoke action.

Learning how to be creative

Claire Sparks of Shine Communications talks about the need to

be inspired by feeding her mind and there, in one leap, Claire

has nailed the core truth about creativity. Unless you have that

unquenchable appetite for the new, different and extraordinary,

chances are you won’t be able to join the creative club.

So how do you get into the creative zone? Here’s a ten-point pro-

gramme which can begin to turn you from a corporate duckling

into a suave creative swan.

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