Does Creativity Have Pronouns?

I can sometimes be insecure about what I do for a living because, let's be honest, creativity isn't valued the same way it was two, five, or ten years ago. I have dreamt up and executed some things that would make you, well, surprised and impressed but I still feel the way I do because marketing folks have been overinvesting in tech and underinvesting or not investing at all in creativity.

Technology is binary. Creativity, thought, and ideas are non-binary (this is where the clickbait title comes from, in retrospect, it is a little lazy, and I apologize).

I believe that any problem can be solved with creativity because it caters to complex human behavior and empathy, something that cannot be adopted by technology. Marketers often get lost in the binary nature of data and fail to understand the true potential to inform performance.

Data only tells us what people are doing (and people call me creepy), but it doesn't tell us why they are doing that or what they will do next. Using audience averages may provide a generic insight. Still, the Kooks (relax, it is a compliment, they are the people who sit outside of those obvious data points) will be the key to expanding your reach with new audiences.

My favorite brand is Nike. Ya know, Just Do It. Well, in the early days of Nike, they were all in on serious runners. That was their market, and all their data was about them. "Just Do It" was a major shift in that because they knew in their gut that to grow, they needed to be for a wider audience that they had no buying data on. They Invested in creativity and went from a technical niche brand for serious runners to one of the best execution of an aspirational brand. "Be like Mike" and "Gotta Be The Shoes" says you don't need to be a serious athlete to wear the best, but wearing the best will make you a little better no matter what level you are at.

Like Fran Dresher addressing the SGA, the time IS now to course-correct how we approach creativity. They can work together with the data folks and let the data help inform ideas, but data doesn't understand people, their needs, or their emotions. Too many creative ideas in my career have been left on paper because they couldn’t be substantiated by data, but there was also no data to support that "Just Do It" would work.

We need to connect with consumers on an emotional level, not just in short, unmemorable interactions. It is time to bring the power back to the creatives (or just me) because if Nike had chosen to play it safe, stay in its market, and continue to invest in tried-and-tested performance-driven marketing, it wouldn’t have become the brand it is today.