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Creativity's Paradoxical Character: A Postscript to

James Webb Young's Technique for Producing Ideas
Professor Timothy A. Bengtson
Published online: 30 May 2013.

To cite this article: Professor Timothy A. Bengtson (1982) Creativity's Paradoxical Character: A Postscript to James Webb
Young's Technique for Producing Ideas , Journal of Advertising, 11:1, 3-9, DOI: 10.1080/00913367.1982.10672789

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 CREATIVITY'S PARADOXICAL CHARACTER:
A POSTSCRIPT TO JAMES WEBB YOUNG'S
TECHNIQUE FOR PRODUCING IDEAS
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TIMOTHY A. BENGTSON
Timothy A. Bengtson is associate professor and director of the
advertising sequence at the School of Journalism, University of Kansas.
He received his B.B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Michigan and
his M.S.J. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He has taught at the
University of Utah, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota
(Minneapolis), and Southeast Missouri State University. His teaching in-
terests are in copywriting and campaign planning. His research efforts
have focused on creativity.
Communications regarding this paper should be sent to Professor
Timothy A. Bengtson, School of Journalism, University of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kansas 66045.
ABSTRACT
This study reconsiders the classical work of James Webb Young, A
Technique for Producing Ideas. The analysis shows that although
Young's paradigm is instructive, it is not the whole story. Several
paradoxical ramifications to the Youngian model are presented. For
example, knowledge is shown to be something less than a creator's perfect
ally. Creative insight is not always the final step in a progression of iden-
tifiable events. Sometimes genius is more a matter of serendipity than of
intellectual brilliance. Finally, it is argued that deadlines are blessings in
disguise. They are blessings because they quicken the flow of creative
juices and the secretion of adrenalin. In contrast to Young's view that the
creator remove himself or herself from the process after collecting and
synthesizing information, the suggestion here is that the active pursuit of
solutions bears sweet fruits. In short, a pervasive paradoxical dimension
is superimposed on Young's conception of the creative process.
With a fraction of the advertising dollars budgeted by
General Motors and other American auto manufacturers,
is it possible for a German automaker to compete in the
@/OURNALOFADVERTIsING, Vol.11, No.1,1982
U.S. market? Volkswagen knows. Maya shirt-producer
compete against an established leader whose advertising
appropriation is 67 times larger? Hathaway has the answer.
Is there room for non-cola brands in the cola-dominated
soft drink market? Ask Seven-Up and Dr. Pepper. The
point of these questions is to underscore the critical role
advertising concepts play in successful marketing ventures.
Volkswagen, Hathaway, Seven-Up, and Dr. Pepper experi-
enced significant sales gains not by changing their products,
their prices, their distribution systems, or their packaging.
The one change each brand made related to product
positioning and the dramatic translation of that positioning
in advertising. Creative ideas are what propelled these brands
to fame and fortune. These are not isolated examples. Con-
sider, for example, how advertising concepts transformed
Avis, Chun King, Smirnoff, and Benson & Hedges. Is there
any wonder then why the advertising community is
genuinely interested in the question of how great ideas are
generated?
Advertisers and agencies have sought answers to this in-
scrutable question by probing the writings of acknowledged
creative experts. Among these works are Claude Hopkins'
Scientific Advertising and My Years in Advertising,
definitive statements on how advertising works and how to
win favor with the Muses. Hopkins was a creative wizard in
the early part of the twentieth century, succeeding the legen-
dary John C. Kennedy at Lord & Thomas (now Foote, Cone
& Belding). Alex Osborn's Applied Imagination and Your
Creative Power continue to influence creative practices in
and out of advertising. The Art of Writing Advertising, a
compilation of the creative philosophies of leading
copywriters, is revered. The detailed views of David Ogilvy
and Rosser Reeves are persuasively articulated in Con-
fessions of an Advertising Man and Reality in Advertising,
respectively.
But perhaps the most respected treatise on idea-
generation was produced by James Webb Young late in the
1930s in the form of a lecture to his business history class at
the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Ex-
panding on the lecture, he created an advertising classic: A
Techniquefor Producing Ideas (27, 7-8). Leo Burnett depicts
the text as one of the finest statements on the subject (4, 5).
David Ogilvy pays tribute to the author by identifying him
as one of the five giants in the history of advertising
3
 copywriting (18, 114). Influential introductory advertising
texts cite Young's work as an authoritative analysis. San-
dage, Fryburger, and Rotzoll, for example, say Young's
revealing insight is "well worth our attention 30 years after
publication." (23, 246-247) Mandell reproduces Young's
complete paradigm, plus explanation, in his basic adver-
tising text (17, 498-499). A Technique for Producing Ideas
has sold over 100,000 copies (7) and is still regularly
promoted in Advertising Age. It is safe to say Young's views
on creativity have had a profound effect on how advertising
practitioners, educators, and students conceptualize idea-
generation and its attendant processes.
What precisely is Young's view on creativity--this perspec-
tive that defies time and transcends other postulations? The
Youngian model has five distinct stages: Ingestion,
Digestion, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. In
the first stage, one collects information uniquely pertinent
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to the problem he or she is attempting to solve while
remaining attuned to general events, which often provide
clues to solving problems. In the second stage, one commen-
ces to masticate the collected data. Young observes: "What
you do is to take the different bits of material which you
have gathered and feel them all over, as it were, with the ten-
tacles of the mind. " (27, 42-43)
The third stage is the point at which one is instructed to
turn away from his or her constant companion, i.e., the
problem at hand. Instead of attempting to discover a
solution through conscious calculation, the problem-solver
is advised to "turn the problem over to your unconscious
mind, and let it work while you sleep." (27, 46) About the
decisive fourth stage, Young proclaims: "Now, if you have
really done your part in these three stages of the process
you will almost surely experience the fourth." (27, 48) Fin-
ally, the fifth and final stage is characterized by Young as
the "cold, grey dawn of the morning after." (27, 52) Here
one is told to refine, revise, consolidate, and otherwise vali-
date the merits of the newborn idea.
INQUIRY'S OBJECTIVE
The Youngian view simplifies creativity and the creative
process. The simplification is not, unfortunately, the whole
story. The other part of the story shows the creative process
to be a veritable paradox. There are exceptions to every
characterization. For instance, collecting and synthesizing
information may sometimes be essential to problem-solving,
but it is not the sine qua non to creative success; oc-
casionally, as hypothesized later, knowledge isn't even
desirable. The chronology of events in the creative process is
not always predictable, albeit the Youngian model suggests
it is. One does not invariably start at Point A and move suc-
cessively through Points B, C, D, and E. Enigmatically,
solutions are sometimes conceived to problems not yet
defined, as was the case for Leo Burnett's tattoo notion for
4
Marlboro. What proved to be a $1 million idea for
Marlboro was given to Burnett by an associate's wife years
before Marlboro existed (8, 242)! Generalizing about the
creative process is tricky business, because the modus
operandi of the fickle Muses eludes simple categorization.
The object here therefore is to extend the Youngian concep-
tion by showing that there are many ways to produce ideas
besides plodding--often grudgingly--through the steps
outlined above. Special attention is given the paradoxical
dimension pervading the creative process.
KNOWLEDGE: A TWO-EDGED SWORD
There are classic instances to support Young's contention
that knowledge (Ingestion and Digestion) is an important
starting point to solving problems and that it pays handsome
dividends. The role knowledge sometimes plays is amusingly
illustrated by several cases involving Claude Hopkins, ad-
vertising's sleuth par excellence, who started all research ef-
forts at the advertiser's manufacturing facility. His plant
tours proved productive. At the B. J. Johnson Soap Co. in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, he discovered that one
of the many products surveyed used a combination of palm
and olive oils. He gave the product a new name (Palmolive
soap) and devised an advertising campaign utilizing the ser-
vices of the beautiful Cleopatra, who, if legend is believed,
used palm and olive oils in her own beauty treatments (13,
134-145). The campaign was an outstanding success.
Hopkins' yearning for knowledge also paid off for Schlitz
and Quaker Oats. While studying the production operation
at Schlitz, Hopkins noticed the bottles were washed four
times--a little-known conventional practice in the beer in-
dustry. With the discovery in hand, he moved post haste to
prepare advertisements to announce to the world that this
Milwaukee brewer actually washed its bottles four times, the
obvious implication being the other brewers did not. That
beer drinkers got the message was quickly reflected by a
dramatic surge in Schlitz sales (13, 83-85). By pre-empting a
common claim, Schlitz was catapulted to the premier spot in
the market.
On visiting the Quaker Oats plant, Hopkins was startled
to see wheat and rice magnified many times when expelled
from machines that looked like gigantic guns. Always
relating to the consumer, Hopkins hit on the proposition
that this new cereal was, of all things, "shot from guns." He
thought the idea would capture the public's imagination.
The critics gave the approach a cold reception, predicting its
imminent demise. But the "food shot from guns" campaign
became the most successful new product introduction ever
in the cereal market (13, 146-153). Again, knowledge had
saved the day.
However, like a sword, knowledge cuts both ways. As
knowledge may produce wonderfully sweet fruits, its pursuit
and realization may, paradoxically, also prove "hazardous
 to one's creative health." The pursuit becomes hazardous
when knowledge is treated as an end in itself instead of as
the means to solving problems. Draper Daniels laments that
many copywriters and artists spend so much time immersing
themselves in information that they have little time to ac-
tually create noteworthy concepts (2, 132). Perfect infor-
mation is a wonderful ideal. The problem is that it is
generally unattainable. The calling of copywriters and ar-
tists is not to discover the whole truth but to create potent
advertising in time to meet inflexible deadlines. After all,
even perfect knowledge is incapable of producing a single
advertisement!
The pursuit of knowledge can also be disillusioning when
one works to collect and study information only to find that
the problem remains unsolved. Preparation, however
thorough, is not a sufficient condition to the creative act.
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"Genius," said Thomas A. Edison, "is one percent in-
spiration and 99 percent perspiration." (10, 120) It's that
one percent that's decisive. True creativity involves imagi-
nation in combination with knowledge. The imperativeness
of this combination is charmingly illustrated by a conver-
sation between Edison and Edward H. Johnson, an Edison
employee. Lecturing Johnson on the absolute need for
"hard work, stick-to-it-iveness, and common sense,"
Johnson replied, "Yes, I admit there is all that to it (invent-
ing), but there is still more. Batch (another Edison em-
ployee) and I have those qualifications, but although we
know quite a lot about telephones and worked hard, we
couldn't invent a brand-new non-infringing telephone
receiver as you did when Gourand cabled for one. Then,
how about the subdivision of the electric light?" Edison
changed the subject (10, 120).
The realization of knowledge presents other hazards.
Faced with the prospect of carefully, if tediously, sifting
through mountains of data, one may become overwhelmed
and discouraged. Where do I start? Do I have to study
everything? What will benefit me most? The final question
may be: Is the advertising business where I really belong?
This dismaying scenario is described here:
... As one studies his product to find proposi-
tions, he is wondering about the nature of the
market; as he surveys the market, he wonders
about trade channels; and as he considers how
advertising should work in the specific case, he
wonders if he will ever create a solution to the
problem. He not uncharacteristically grows
dubious about his progress and ability to solve
problems (2,131).
Another hazard, equally probable, is that knowledge
will contaminate what might otherwise be a unique and
revealing view of a marketing situation. When exposed in
detail to an advertiser's plans: past, present, and projec-
ted, complete with supporting documentation, one's per-
5
spective is forever prejudiced. With the knowledge in
mind, is one likely to be objective in evaluating different, if
not conflicting, proposals? What are the chances that ideas
not coinciding with the established truth will dare to dance
in one's imagination? Claude Barnard, noted scientist, ob-
serves:
As a matter of fact, a discovery is generally an
unforeseen connection not to be found in the
theory, else it would have been foreseen. In this
respect, an ignorant man unacquainted with the
theory, would be best conditioned, since the
theory would not obstruct him nor prevent him
from seeing new facts invisible to one who was
exclusively preoccupied by theory (l , 59-60).
Knowledge directs thinking. It is, in this sense, hazardous
to one's creative health, for knowledge is guardian of the
status quo and a formidable foe to forces that threaten it.
This contamination effect is remindful of a simple exer-
cise a fellow professor uses to illustrate the power of
suggestion. "Please," he implores his students every
semester, "don't--under any circumstances--don't think of
a pink elephant." The students of course cannot control
their thoughts. They all immediately see a pink elephant
rumbling through their minds. Knowledge is the pink
elephant. Once one knows how things are supposed to
work, it is arduous to view them differently. It may
therefore be prudent for creative people always to start
solving problems by exhausting their own uninformed per-
ceptions, which may produce fresh insight. If the percep-
tions fail in this capacity today, they may provide
stimulation later; accordingly, as a matter of course, one's
"imaginings from ignorance" should characteristically be
recorded on paper or tape. They should be revisited
periodically, perhaps even shared with others in an on-
going "perceptual sharing" program. When the
"imaginings" are no longer forthcoming, one closes ranks
with experts by commencing to build and study his or her
own information bank.
The third hazard associated with realized knowledge is a
perceptual disease called "expertitis," meaning en-
slavement to a pattern of thought. Only the most
knowledgeable individuals are susceptible to the ailment.
Such is the price the expert pays for spending considerable
time and energy studying a subject, whether DNA or the
beer market. Having both breadth and depth of
knowledge, as called for by the Youngian model, the ex-
pert is considered ideally suited to producing creative con-
cepts. Then "expertitis" enters the picture. By being in-
timately familiar with a system and seeing it work on a
regular basis (i.e., having its many relationships apparently
validated), the expert's establishment view is constantly
reinforced. With reinforcement comes regidity. Before
long, there is little, if any, fluidity within the system as it
 exists in the expert's mind. William J. J. Gordon observes
that the "expert tends to discuss the problem in the
language of his own technology. This language can
surround the problem with an impenetrable jacket so that
nothing can be added or modified. The result is that it
becomes impossible to view the problem in a new
way .... " (11, 95) John Dewey terms the phenomenon
"occupational psychosis." (3, 38-40) Given the immobility
ofthe system's information bits, there is little likelihood of
unique combinations being formed. Without unique com-
binations--the very essence of creativity--questions go
unanswered. In conclusion, extensive knowledge is the
potential ally of the problem-solver. But when the
knowledge is immotile, the expert becomes a prisoner of his
or her own thoughts, in which case expertise is transfor-
med to "expertitis," and the wealth of knowledge inhibits
instead of fostering creative thinking.
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SERENDIPITOUS BRILLIANCE
By Young's rendering, the creative process is a logical
progression, one event following another. He comments:
..... The mind follows these five steps (in the creative
process) in definite order--that by no possibility can one of
them be taken before the preceding one is completed, if
an idea is to be produced." (27, 31) Elsewhere Young
notes, "Whenever an idea is produced this technique is
followed, consciously or unconsciously." (27, 31) Crea-
tivity is thus a product resulting from a journey along a
delineated route. Stops are scheduled at strategic points
throughout the trip. The stopping points--in their fixed or-
der--are Ingestion, Digestion, Incubation, Illumination,
and Verification. Those deviating from the itinerary will
have problems getting to the promised land. As described
by Young, the creative process is a closed system; there are
no short cuts. Either one plays the game by these rules, in
which case he or she has a chance to win, or one plays by
other rules, in which case the game is generally rained out.
Young's depiction implies a couple of things. First and
foremost, it suggests one should travel the straight and
narrow. Observes Young: " ... The production of ideas is
just as definite a process as the production of Fords; that
the production of ideas, too runs on an assembly line .... "
(27, 15) As it makes little sense to start the assembly
process of an automobile with an engine, it makes little
sense to Young to seek solutions before engaging in and
completing other activities first. The second implication is
that hard work pays off. By doing a conscientious job on
the assembly line, all bets are covered, i.e., the potential to
create is maximized. Young intimates that commitment
and assiduousness are imperatives to the creative pursuit.
With these qualities, one can move upward and onward.
Without them, one is immobilized.
The position assumed here is that neither of these im-
6
plications is invariably true. Brilliant concepts are not
always produced by systematically passing through a
preordained series of stages, nor are they necessarily, if
generally, the consequence of diligent effort. In contrast to
the stereotypical view, the creative wizard does not always
ha;e special intellectual endowments differentiating him or
her from the. rest of humanity. More than one heralded
creative genius owes an unfathomable debt to Lady Luck,
i.e., to being at "the right place at the right time." Classic
instances of invention and discovery support this unseemly
suggestion. For example, Alexander Fleming, the honored
discoverer of penicillin, benefited inordinately from ran-
dom events on two occasions. Koestler describes these
serendipitous circumstances:
They started in 1922, when Alexander Fleming
caught a cold. A drip from his nose fell into a
dish in his laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital; the
nasal slime killed off the bacilli in the culture;
Fleming isolated the active agent in the mucus,
which was also present in tears, and called it ly-
sozyme. That was the first step; but lysozyme
was not powerful enough as a germ-killer, and
another seven years had to pass until a gust of
wind blew through the lab window a spore of
the mould penicillium natatum, which happened
to settle in a culture dish of staphylocci (15, 194).
Fleming is a genius for, among other things, having caught
a cold and opening the window in his laboratory!
Goodyear discovered the vulcanizing process after
dropping crude rubber on a hot stove (11,141). Masonite
was discovered when William H. Mason forgot to turn
off the heat and pressure on an experimental press in which
he was trying to create a new form of porous insulation out
of exploded wood fiber. When he finally released the
pressure, he found a hard, dense, smooth board--the first
hardboard ever made (20,242-243). Paul Saltman explains
how he discovered the iron polymers while engaged in
chemical research. "By accident we put ten times too much
sugar in a solution we were making and as a result of this
the sugar complexed the iron. All of a sudden we had
found a new reaction. Out of this one experiment we
developed a whole new chemistry of sugar complexes .... "
(22, 122) Edison's phonograph invention was providential,
as he observes:
I discovered the principle (of the 'talking ma-
chine') by the merest accident. I was singing to
the mouthpiece of a telephone, when the vibra-
tions of the voice sent the fine steel point into my
finger. That set me thinking. If I could record
the actions of the point and send the point over
the same surface afterward, I saw no reason
why the thing would not talk. I tried the experi-
ment first on a strip of telegraph paper and I
shouted the words "Halloo! Halloo!" into the
 mouthpiece, ran the paper back over the steel
point, and heard a faint "Halloo! Halloo!" in
return. I determined to make a machine that
would work accurately, and gave my assistants
instructions, telling them what I discovered.
They laughed at me. That's the whole story.
The phonograph is the result of pricking a finger
(10,66).
Lady Luck has not confined her operations to the scien-
ces and arts. She has made her presence felt in advertising
as well. For example, the long-lasting "halitosis" cam-
paign for Listerine was created in 1922 when Gerald Lam-
bert fortuitously perused an article from the British Lan-
cet, in which the term "halitosis" was used to denote bad
breath (26, 384-385). The "I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel"
theme was first said to a billboard painter by a man who
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had just bummed a cigarette from him (25,27). "Ask the
Man Who Owns One" was advice offered in a letter from
the president of the Packard Company to a writer who had
inquired about the Packard car (26, 267). Schlitz's essen-
tial theme, "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of
beer," was first uttered by a happy patron in a basement
tavern in the Prudential Bldg. in Chicago. Referring to
another brand, the patron declared with staggering em-
phasis: "When you're out of Budweiser, you're out of
beer!" An astute Leo Burnett media planner overheard the
line, liked it, and submitted it to Don Tennant, then
creative director on Schlitz (24). The rest is history. Once
again, happenstance produced brilliance.
According to Advertising Age. David Ogilvy conceived
the eye patch notion for Hathaway while sitting in his
bathroom reading a magazine. There he noticed a picture
of a diplomat whose eye had been injured and who was
wearing an eye patch (9, 14). Telling the same anecdote
slightly differently, Fairfax Cone says Ogilvy "put the
eyepatch (sic) on the man in the Hathaway shirt as a gag to
amuse a photographer, and found that he had given a
dashing character to Hathaway shirts that they never had
before." (6, 217) Accidents occur in reading rooms,
alongside billboards, in bathrooms, and on location. Ed
Biglow now explains how even highway accidents--of a cer-
tain sort--facilitate the creative act. Biglow originated the
award-winning billboard for Volkswagen that shows a
group of nuns piling into a Volkswagen station wagon.
The headline was the perfect complement: "Mass Tran-
sit. " Biglow reports on how the concept was conceived:
In 1966 came a work requisition for an outdoor
board on the (Volkswagen) station wagon. Stra-
tegy was simple: It holds a lot. Solution was
tough: We already had shown The Box carry-
ing a baseball team, boy-scout troop, a band,
etc. How to be fresh? I was mulling this while
moseying down the freeway when--VROOMM--
a big car passed me like a bat out of purgatory.
7
It was filled with nuns apparently trying to make
it back before the cloisters closed. There was
our poster (21, 110).
These cases serve a number of purposes. Most
dramatically, they demonstrate that not all creative con-
cepts are by-products of a predetermined system. They
show that generalizations about the creative process are
not without exceptions. Certain guidelines may appear
fruitful the majority of the time, but contradictions also
surface. The accidental inventions and discoveries point to
an inequity inherent in creative activities. How else can one
justify the good fortune sometimes befalling laggards and
"ne'er-do-wells" as they are banged on the head by
striking revelations, while others remain locked in their
libraries and laboratories looking for answers that never
come? This inequity pervades all creative enterprises; it's
apparent in agency operations and the college classroom.
The tyro copywriter conceives a solution long eluding
senior creative officials, and a college student gets an A on
a copy assignment completed en route to class while his or
her more scrupulous classmates earn Cs. Unless this
inequity is understood, adherents to Youngian principles
are going to be greatly discouraged when after doing the
background research, sifting through the findings, then in-
cubating, they come up empty-handed while paradigmatic
deviants produce radiant concepts.
Still another lesson the cases underlie is that creative
ideas can occur anywhere and any time; in addition, they
are often fleeting. To insure life for ideas occurring at
bizarre and inopportune times, one should always have
ready access to paper and pencil or tape recorder. The
Muses resent procrastination and have been known to
withdraw generous offerings, as they did to Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (2, 254-255). Ogilvy takes precautions: "I do
keep a drawer in my office in which I put things, and I
have a pad beside my bed on which I write things in the
middle of the night." (19, 93)
Finally, serendipitous brilliance by itself does not com-
plete the creative act. The brilliance must be recognized for
what it is, since it seldom announces itself. Fleming made
the most of his two fortuitous moments, but one wonders
how many of his contemporary researchers would have
seized the propitiousness of the very same events. History
may make discernment appear obvious, but it is so only in
retrospection. The Pepsodent case demonstrates the
distinctness between conceiving and identifying brilliance.
Here a young copywriter at Foote, Cone & Belding
produced the theme line, "You'll wonder where the yellow
went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent," only to
reject it. By happenstance, Fairfax Cone asked to review
the neophyte's work. Sifting through the discards, he spied
the Pepsodent line that was destined for greatness (6, 242).
Who is the creative genuis? Is it the copywriter or Cone?
The stance here is that it sometimes takes genius to
 recognize brilliance. One can only surmise how many gems
have ended up in the circular files along Madison and
Michigan Avenues for lack of discernment. This multi-
faceted view of creativity underscores the specialness of
individuals able both to generate and evaluate concepts. Ad-
vertising legends like William Bernbach, David Ogilvy,
and Mary Wells not only create and evaluate concepts,
they also succeed in selling them to tight-fisted clients.
DEADLINES: BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE
Young's third stage in the creative process is
paradoxical, for it is easy yet difficult to follow. In a word,
Young's advice is inaction. He says: "In this third stage
you make absolutely no effort of a direct nature. You drop
the whole subject, and put the problem out of your mind
as completely as you can." (27, 45) Then, according to
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Young, "you will almost surely experience the fourth. Out
of nowhere the Idea will appear. " (27, 48) His call to inac-
tion is easy to practice. By doing nothing one does
something. Yet the advice is difficult to heed when after
days, weeks, months, maybe years, there is no revelation.
It becomes increasingly difficult to twiddle one's thumbs
while an advertiser, ready to implement his or her
marketing plan, waits impatiently for the creative com-
ponent.
Advertising pragmatists find inaction hard to accept.
William E. Ross, former creative director at J. Walter
Thompson, Chicago, and current president of inter-
national operations for Thompson, comments: "We must
produce some advertising, so we do not follow the in-
cubation process whereby you feed everything in and let
the subconscious go to work and you go out and garden
somewhere or wait tables or something like that. We begin
to solve our problems almost immediately." (2, 143)
Draper Daniels is more pointed in his reaction. He says the
call to inaction is "a lot of mush," then adds, "We don't
have time to incubate." (2, 143) The contrast in views
represents idealism on the one hand and creative prag-
matism on the other. Young, with his extraordinary career
behind him, addresses creativity as a concept unen-
cumbered by deadlines while Ross and Daniels, prac-
titioners with major day-to-day responsibilities, cannot
conceive of creativity in a context free from constantly cir-
cling deadlines. In this sense, the views are of the same
variable, but the difference in perspective colors and dis-
torts what is actually beheld.
Although there is little information on incubation prac-
tices in advertising, evidence in other creative fields
suggests inaction is not always the best method. Many out-
standing creative products would never have been
produced had it not been for deadlines. For example,
Harold Lasswell reports on a young French
mathematician, Evariste Galois, who in 1832 was goaded
8
into a duel by a political enemy. Not knowing whether he
would survive the challenge, Galois spent the evening
preceding the duel writing his last will and testament. (This
may help to explain why he lost the duel; he was
exhausted!) The deadline, writes Lasswell, teleased the
floodgates of creativity. The judgement made by experts in
1937 was that what Galois "wrote in those desperate last
hours before dawn will keep generations of
mathematicians busy for hundreds of years." (16, 215)
Nathaniel Hawthorne had a similar deadline imposed on
him, and he reacted equally prodigiously. Being removed
from his governmental post in Washington, D.C., after a
change in administrations, he was forced to look for other
means to support his family. He visited publisher James T.
Fields to discuss the commercial merits of a short story.
Suddenly realizing he could make more money with a
novel, Hawthorne redirected his energies to convert the
story into a better income-producing form, i.e., into a
novel--The Scarlet Letter (5, 52). Other works have been
created in response to deadlines. Handel wrote the Messiah
because he was destitute (12, 48). The deadline imposed by
economic necessity frequently stirred the creative juices of
Dashiell Hammett (14, 152-153). Recognizing necessity as
the mother of invention, Koestler suggests a writer under
pressure does a better job than if he were to "sit down and
suck his thumb and write for eternity." (14, 152-153)
In conclusion, Young's call to inaction may result in
great creations. There is an absence of data to support or
refute the contention. The problem with inaction,
however, is that advertisers can seldom wait for the
creative process, as depicted by Young, to run its course.
Procter & Gamble is not, in the words of Ross, "going to
wait nine months to three years for Mr. Young to come out
of the orchard." (2, 145) Deadlines, on the other hand, by
virtue of being inherently uncomfortable, quicken the flow
of creative juices and the secretion of adrenalin. They
stimulate creative people to start solving problems im-
mediately, to work longer and harder. The major
drawback is that deadlines sometimes force one to settle
for mediocrity. Yet one adequate idea on time is preferred
to brilliance after the deadline has come and gone. Too,
inaction does not guarantee success. What may be the best
course of action is to move from inaction to action and
vice versa. If one grows weary waiting for the Muses to
show their benevolence, he or she has little to lose by
traveling an alternative route. After all, what does one give
up by becoming actively engaged in the search for an-
swers? Young never says.
CONCLUSION
Young's views on the creative process are insightful and
useful. His paradigm is supported by the experiences of ac-
claimed creators from Einstein to Picasso, as reported in
 Brewster Ghiselin's classic anthology. The Creative
Process. However. the process cannot be reduced to one
paradigm; it is more complex than that. As if to remind us
that our understanding is far from perfect, the Muses sup-
ply us with notable exceptions. The intent here has been to
point to these paradoxes--to show that knowledge is not
always helpful. to demonstrate that genius sometimes is
not intellectual brilliance but serendipity discerned, and to
illustrate the productiveness of deadlines.
The study has sought to show that the creative process
follows more than one route. One course runs a predic-
table progression while others leave no traceable marks,
only glittering solutions. One may influence providence by
regularly deviating from normative practices. Unexpected
radiance is sometimes generated by doing what one knows
to be nonsensical, as Salt man and others can testify. In-
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13. Hopkins, Claude. My Life in Advertising/Scientific Advertising.
Chicago: Advertising Publications, Inc., 1966.
14. Koestler, Arthur. "Social Sciences," The Creative Experience, Stan-
ley Rosner and Lawrence E. Abt., eds. New York: Grossman, 1970.
15. Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. New York: Macmillan Co.,
1964.
16. Lasswell, Harold D. "The Social Setting of Creativity," Creativity
and Its Cultivation, Harold H. Anderson, ed. New York: Harper & Bros.,
1959.
17. Mandell, Maurice I. Advertising, 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jer-
sey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980.
18. Ogilvy, David. Confessions of an Advertising Man. New York:
Atheneum, 1963.
19. Ogilvy, David. "Conversation with David Ogilvy," The Art of Writing
Advertising. Interviewed by Denis Higgins. Chicago: Advertising Publi-
cations, Inc., 1965.
20. Osborn, Alex. Your Creative Power. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1948.
21. Rowsome, Frank, Jr. Think Small. Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene

stead of waiting for accidents to happen, one can guaran-
tee them by proceeding recklessly.
In problem-solving, ignorance can be bliss and
knowledge blindness. Invention rests in seeing unique
relationships, not in knowing established ones. Justice
does not always prevail in the creative realm. Hard
workers and good players do not always win creative con-
tests. Sometimes one has only to be lucky. Perfect freedom
is not to be cherished in creative circles. Too often it
legitimatizes unproductiveness while inviting melancholy.
Instead of being the feared enemy, deadlines are creative
catalysts. They prod where freedom pampers.
Press, 1970.
22. Saltman, Paul. "Molecular Chemistry," The Creative Experience,
Stanley Rosner and Lawrence E. Abt., eds. New York: Grossman, 1970.
23. Sandage, C. H., Vernon Fryburger, and Kim Rotzoll. Advertising
Theory and Practice, 10th ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1979.
24. Tennant, Don. Lecture to Institute of Advanced Advertising Studies,
Northwestern University, Chicago, Spring, 1968.
25.Watkins, Julian Lewis. The J()() Greatest Advertisements. New York:
Dover Publications, 1959.
26. Wood, James Playsted. The Story ofAdvertising. New York: Ronald
Press Co., 1958.
27. Young, James Webb. A Technique for Producing Ideas. Chicago:
Advertising Publications, Inc., 1960.

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