#2 _Creativity in research

Beyond just 'bringing to life' + keeping rigour firmly in check

A lot gets written about creativity in marketing communications. Particularly on how to ensure it can thrive in an exacting age of automation and artificial intelligence. But, even after all of these years, there’s not so much about what it means in the world of insight.

Maybe it still doesn't mean that much to most in the world of insight. If so, that feels a shame and something worth confronting. Admittedly, there are quite a few challenges lurking here - and the biggest and baddest might well be ‘rigour’.

It's not quite a word I hate, but it wouldn’t be so hard to end up there. Rigour seems to hang heavy over so much in market research. Like a threat. An admonishment. A major killjoy, and often the nullifier of creative impulses.

By which I mean the pursuit of rigour. Not actual rigour itself. I'm fully convinced it's rarely achieved in anything like the manner that the rigour-merchants claim; or in a way that really appeases clients. I'm also absolutely certain that the best projects I've worked on (and yes, I fully acknowledge that different agencies are called on for very different things), have not been the best because of the intensely high levels of rigour on display.

Enough about rigour and back to creativity. If it appears at all in research, it often gets shoved to the back of the project - to the role of the 'output', a 'deliverable'; that most hackneyed of terms, a bit of 'bringing to life'. It gets tangled up in the industry's demarcation lines, too. Cue more risible terms: 'quallies' versus 'quanties' and handing the research over to 'the creatives'.

What creativity is rarely allowed to do is run freely through a project, from start to finish. More as a mode for how to work and think than a discernible phase. To steal a bit from Rick Rubin's recent The Creative Act: A Way Of Being book*, everyone is a creator. And - gasp - that should even include market researchers.

'Those who do not engage in the traditional arts might be wary of calling themselves artists. They might perceive creativity as something extraordinary or beyond their capabilities. A calling for the special few who are born with these gifts.'

'Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It's our birthright. And it's for all of us.'

Everyone in insight should have the license to be creative. It starts with trying to encourage that mindset in the business, and it continues by thinking about project design. How to create the spaces for more serendipity. How to integrate ideas and approaches that are really stimulating and immersive to pull off; that stakeholders and agency people alike can honestly get excited about; that are then talked about with others further removed from the work.

It's in how the materials are presented at every stage. How the WIP is shared. How to get clients to trust the passion and energy of the researchers, rather than all parties stifling projects in a methodological stranglehold.

Sometimes it's about settling for small acts of creativity, nudging the work in the right direction. It's definitely about starting projects off on the best footing. If the creativity is getting squeezed at the outset, it’s highly unlikely to make a bold appearance toward the end.

And it's surely about breaking the patterns (so often deeply embedded in businesses) in how RFPs are approached. The structure of the meetings in which briefs gets discussed. Which parts of the RFP to focus on the most, and to use as the springboard for project design. And it's in the questions and conversations you have with the client in those opening stages - avoiding the obvious and the rote.

Rubin also references the beginner's mind - maintaining a sense of excitement, and curiosity in what you're doing, even if it’s no longer new to you. But then, every brief in research should feel like something new. No one is going to dismiss the value of experience. Of course not. But truly, it's a condition which can be responsible for shutting so many things down, too.

In similar but different terms, it's a theme which comes up in this piece on why we often struggle with new ideas. Particularly attention grabbing for me:

The notion of 'cognitive entrenchment'; as in, the more expertise you have, the more ossified your knowledge structures become and the less you expose yourself to other sources of information.

Which is why I sometimes feel I was better as doing insight work after one year than after 15 years.

I think having some good pace to projects is also often important. It's far too entrenched an industry platitude that projects need to go on forever-and-fucking-ever in the pursuit of the true answer. Sure, we need time to reflect. Yes, people work at different paces. And no, I'm definitely not advocating for instant 'solutions' spat from blackbox tech. But very often this abundance of time - and how it is then used - produces distraction, inertia and a further blunting of creativity.

This probably all sounds way more negative than intended, when really there's a big opportunity here to make fruitful changes. This could start with shouting more about successes in bringing creativity - in myriad forms - to research, demonstrating to clients how to think about the work differently (and helping them show the value of this to their stakeholders).

It's in showing that this doesn’t mean a complete abandonment of the aforementioned rigour. Similarly, that robust strategic outcomes and creativity aren't in total opposition of each other. Quite the contrary: creative thinking, working, designing, collaborating, curating, documenting, sharing etc will get to places that buttoned-down management consultants won't come near to.

If you really believe in it, you could even make this quest for more creativity a core part of your agency proposition - for employees and clients alike. Against an increasingly congested backdrop of those talking about data, data and not much else than data, that really would stand out.

* Perfect excuse to mention a few more books about music and creativity, from which ideas can be lifted either directly or tangentially (ok, mainly the latter):

• Dilla Time. Dan Charnas' immense exploration of how Dilla made music in such a stand-out special way. Inspiration to take: knowing when attention to detail is important - and when progress over perfection is more important.
• How Music Works. In which David Byrne considers creativity as much in societal as sonic terms. Inspiration to take: how collaboration and environment can influence so much that happens (for good and bad).
• As Serious As Your Life. Val Wilmer isn't just brilliant because she lives around the corner from me. She's brilliant for her writing about jazz and no place more so than here, reporting on Black music's true revolutionaries of the '60s and '70s. Inspiration to take: embracing uncertainty, and setting creativity in the context of race, identity, politics, and social justice.

Class Divide podcast series

Working class potential and education inequality

Thank you to Curtis James for pointing me to his Class Divide podcast series. For anyone with an interest in understanding education inequality in the UK (though no doubt lots of themes here are relevant elsewhere around the world), it's a wonderful listen - very revealing, very human.

Class Divide spends time with families on the Whitehawk estate, situated among the windswept hills on the eastern edge of Brighton. It's a place, like estates across the UK, where far more children end up excluded from mainstream schooling and where far fewer move on to further education.

It's a complex challenge - often mired by cross-generational (poor) education experiences and the feelings of inadequacy that follow - and one that the UK remains spectacularly bad at acknowledging; let alone putting right.

But Class Divide does point to progress - they've helped influence Brighton & Hove policy, enabling those entitled to free school meals to have more choice of secondary schools, irrespective of which catchment area they live in. Please do take a listen.

On (and off) Sertraline

May involve hearing your eyes move

Albeit hidden deep in a not-exactly-high-profile newsletter, a small contribution from me to being more open about mental health. I'm coming off of Sertraline at present. The process is known as 'tapering' and, though the air feels a little crackly at times, overall, it's turning out to be a low-key experience. I have a friend who's also coming off of Sertraline (2024 - the things you get to bond over...). He's getting the full-blown brain zaps, the stuff that has you "hearing your eyes move." I'll stick with the crackly air.

Some say you lose a bit of your inner self when on Sertraline or similar. That's probably so but, for many, it's a fair trade for a while (or even a blessing to lose a bit of that inner self).

I figure I should offer something akin to advice while on this topic. If you're starting on Sertraline it's likely a pretty savage experience. It's tempting to jump into the countless forums that are out there, seeking advice on coping strategies for getting through the first month or two or three.

You will encounter a majority of posts telling you that the drug is bad, that the experience of getting yourself onto it is not worth the trouble, that there are no coping strategies to speak of and taking it won't help you whatsoever anyway.

Before you let that knock you off course, it's worth noting that you have found yourself in an echo chamber; that there are plenty who do adjust and who do get something from it. These people are far away from said forums, and getting on with happier things.

A few more things to check out

• Kate Bush makes tea. Once a year, bare minimum, I make a return visit to this clip of Kate Bush chaotically, magically making tea. I like to think it's some kind of window onto her creative processes (even if it probably isn't).
• Williamsburg timeline. From disrepair and outsider status to the, ahem, electroclash years, TV On The Radio popping up all over the neighbourhood, the arrival of the ‘Wall Streeters’, venture capital-backed coffee stalls and beyond. Fascinatingly comprehensive timeline story about Williamsburg.
• Bob Marley x Admiral Collaboration. Celebrating the distant days of '77, when one Bob Marley plus assorted Wailers would take a break from recording, and pop to Battersea Park to play football with the locals, Mundial's collaboration with Admiral does what so many campaigns purport to but rarely deliver on. They actually work with the community - including people who were there to witness those games. Just imagine if more work could tap into this kind respect for people and the stories they have to tell.
• A teen’s fatal plunge into the London underworld. Enough with Netflix crime series - when long-form written journalism is done well it's a thing to behold. Here it is done very well indeed.
• Andrew Weatherall playing his last ALFOS. Depending on when you're reading this, it's roughly four years since Weatherall passed away. His music, his knowledge, his wit - that will all live on for a lot longer yet.

Thanks for reading. If you'd like to chat about anything covered here (serious through to less so) do get in touch.