CHAPTER 9: CREATIVE STRATEGY: Implementation and Evolution

1. Roger von Oech 4 STEP CREATIVE MODEL:

Do you want to be fully creative? To not only have wild ideas, but to actually create and
bring remarkable things to life?
There are four distinct roles to be performed for the creative process to be as effective
as possible. Each one requires that you play different characters, with different mindsets
and skills.

The roles are: Explorer, Artist, Judge and Warrior.

Learn how they help unleash your creativity and how to master the skills each one
requires.

1. The Explorer
Ideas do not come out of the blue. In order to build them you first need to gather the
raw materials: facts, concepts, experiences, knowledge, feelings — that’s what ideas are
made of. To get all of that, you need an attitude of ongoing curiosity and exploration.

The Explorer is always in search of new things. He is relentlessly curious and never
limits himself to a particular area of experience and knowledge. To have ideas is to
connect dots. First and foremost you need lots of dots to connect — you need fuel for
the formation of new ideas.
- Research from friends, family, competitors
- EX: Comedy serial talk about today’s happenings
- When we talk about around brand communication, important to know the
current happenings and current problems of brand and sell solution.
- We either look to solve customer problem or try and associate it with happiness,
fun, aspirational feelings.
- Aim is to communicate product as solution for consumer need
- EXPLORATION to find out customer’s need and what drives aspiration
How to Develop Your Explorer

 Be curious and alert. Poke around in unknown areas. Be like a child, by paying

attention to the world and being receptive to it. Rediscover the fun in finding
things out.
 Seek out as many inputs as possible. Do not limit yourself to the tried and true.
Read different books and see different movies from the ones you like. Also, don’t
 mind going after information “you’ll never use”. Seek many different areas of
knowledge.
 Talk to a lot of different people. Get to know many different perspectives. Talk
to strangers. Don’t limit yourself to expert advice.
- Brainstorming before implementing: (Rules of brainstorming)
1 — Defer Judgment. Creative spaces are judgment-free zones—they let ideas
flow so people can build from each other's great ideas.
3 — Encourage Wild Ideas. ...
4 — Build on the Ideas of Others. ..
4 — Stay Focused on the Topic. ...
5 — One Conversation at a Time. ...
6 — Be Visual. ...
7 — Go for Quantity.
8 Think of all the elements of communication mix
9 Free association, don’t dominate others idea
10 Positive inside outlook view- Positive beliefs, we can do it, confidence
has to be there. This view has to be there while going for brain storming.

2. The Artist
- Rule out ideas from brainstorming
- Integrate, garnish ideas

The artist has ideas. He takes the raw materials from the Explorer and combines them
in novel ways.
When people say someone’s “creative”, they’re usually referring to the Artist. The Artist
has ideas mostly by trying new things. He applies his imagination by rearranging,
turning things upside down, stirring things up. He pursues different approaches and
finds unexpected connections. He’s playful; he doesn’t care about what people expect
from him.

How to Develop Your Artist

 Flex your idea muscles. Write down new ideas as they come to you; it stimulates
your brain to generate more and more ideas. Also, use idea-generation tools
deliberately: Lists of 100, Idea Quota and SCAMPER just to name a few.
  Play! We all know it: the most efficient way to have new ideas is by having fun.
Don’t always take problems too seriously. Entertain yourself and keep your brain
fresh and ready.
 Use your imagination. Leave practicality aside; don’t be afraid to let your
imagination run wild and visualize new possibilities. Dare to ask ‘what if’ and
watch new realities unfold.
3. The Judge
The Judge is all about “getting real”. His job is to analyze the Artist’s wild ideas and
assess if they’re practical — in the real world.
The judge questions assumptions; he compares and analyzes. He checks how feasible
ideas are. No matter how much the Artist loves an idea, the Judge looks for
counterarguments, checks evidence, and makes hard decisions. Combining gut feeling
and analytical tools, the judge must only let through feasible ideas.

The Judge gets a bad reputation — but only because people usually invoke him too
early. Killing an idea before the Artist can play with it is a pity; killing it later is oftentimes
a necessity.

- Evaluate idea, Plan B, how to better

- Take out pros and cons of ideas
- Come into conclusion, Yes this idea will work out!

How to Develop Your Judge

 Develop critical thinking. Check your assumptions, experimenting with

hypotheses, analyzing results and drawing conclusions. Master decision making.
 Be aware of thinking traps. Our minds deceive us. Be always aware and vigilant
of your own biases. There are more ways than you can imagine that your thinking
can go wrong. Really.
 Be real. Will the idea give you the return you want? Do you have the resources to
make it happen? Are you willing to put the effort to make it happen? Be practical
and down-to-earth.
4. The Warrior
As soon as you have an idea ready to be executed you’ll realize the world isn’t set up to
accommodate every new idea that comes along. The enemies can be external:
competition may be fierce, or people may just don’t “get” your beautiful ideas. Even
harder than those, there are more than enough enemies already within you: think
resistance, excuses and fear of failure.
The Warrior’s job is to make ideas happen. For that, you’ll need not only a strategy
and plan of action but to put in the hours — fight the daily fight.
That means remaining productive, developing the resilience and courage to overcome
obstacles and, of course, being able to sell your ideas — whatever’s necessary to
materialize them.

- Do the ground work

- Do the actual work
- Make ideas happen
- Defend your ideas inside agency, in front of client

How to Develop Your Warrior

 Overcome resistance. When you create something new, resistance inevitably

creeps in. You need to find ways of overcoming procrastination and staying
productive day in, day out.
 Be courageous. In order to make things happen, you’ll need to let go of self-
doubt and conquer fear of failure.
 Market and sell your idea. Are you the only one who thinks your idea is great?
Can you convince others of the merits of your idea? If you can’t sell your idea, it
won’t get far.
Awareness and Timing are Critical Too
In reality, we all know the path to creativity is not that sequential — explorer-to-artist-
to-judge-to-warrior. Usually, there’s a lot of switching back and forth between roles: The
Judge may return an idea to the Artist for further development; the Artist may want
more data from the Explorer to develop a certain idea, and so on.

This is fine. The main thing is to be aware of which role you’re performing at
different points in time. We often get stuck in the Explorer role for too long. Or we
may jump the gun and summon our Judge while our Artist is still working his magic.
There are so many ways to spend too much or too little time in each role, or to overlap
ineffectively.
The lesson is: make sure not only to develop the skill set for each role, but also to play
each one at the appropriate time. Be aware of which phase of the creative process
you’re in and what you’re trying to accomplish. All roles are equally important: make
sure they’re playing well with each other.
This how we come with new ideas and integrate with new campaigns

DIFFERENT APPEALS

- BIG ADVERTISER: If going through commercials and traditional media, done by

big companies. They start with traditional and digital happens to be support
media. TV commercial is the base for big advertiser (mass advertisement) and
then link it with radio, newspaper, internet etc
- SMALL ADVERTISER: Small companies may not have budget, have to be present
on social media, have youtube, have websites etc. Even if small companies, SEO,
websites, fb, ig, tiktok have become a must. Need to create new posts. Run
campaigns.