We asked some of the trends and innovation experts on the Purple List a couple of questions about the term creativity and they gave us some surprising responses. Today, we publish the answers that came in from around the world to the following question:
Thinking about how things have changed what do you see as the meaning of the word ‘creative’ these days?
“Synoyms for creative: innovative, risky, sexy, engage”
Andres Colmenares of Bogota who offers trend research in Latin American market
“‘Creative’ = what works. It used to be part of the solution. We’re doing an ad…so what’s ‘the creative’. Today creativity is not about art or even cleverness…nor it is limited to those with the actual word in their titles. “Creative” is synonymous with what delivers results. “Creative” drives the entire strategy, including the product itself. “Creative” ties together a singular idea that drives a brand, and is communicated at all levels and through all channels.”
Scott Burns of St Louis who offers experiential integration planning & ideation
“Creative is contextual. It ranges from surprising solutions to welcome interruptions on the senses.”
Charles Frith of Beijing who offers cutural analysis and trend forecasting
“Differentiation.”
David Carlson of Falsterbo (Sweden) who offers strategies in design and brand development and trend insights
“‘Creative’ means not being afraid to change or look things through a different perspective. Creativity is a fine combination of freedom, exploration and discipline to filter and execute the best ideas.”
Ivana Cunha of Sao Paulo who offers brand ID, design ID, behavioral research and insight generation using a global creative trendsetters panel and new products and services development
“‘Creative’ has traditionally been associated with the production of a thing or image. Marketing has been king until very recently. Now, with booming sensory overload and saturation, a new emerging creative seems to be developing based on data aggregation (the organization of things) and disruptive process methodology (the re-organization of things). As a result, qualitative and quantitative practices are bleeding into one another more and more. Strangely enough, these days, statisticians, scientists and even curators are becoming sources of creative (cross-trainer creative if you will). There has never been a time when words like “algorithm” and “genome” have sounded so sexy.”
Jason Tan of Manila who offers trend and research services in Asia
“For me, creativity is applied lateral thinking with the goal of injecting newness into any issue – wherever it is needed, (and often, thinking differently about where it is needed is actually the place that you can get most creative).”
Jordan Herald of Toronto who offers innovation consultancy
“From a communications point of view, The first thing that came to mind when I thought about creativity was the word “honesty” – and I think that has a lot do with the way products and services have been taken to market. It’s a lot of BS on all ends of the value chain. This may explain the current stigma of advertising. You’re creative if you can engage people honestly and in doing so, add value, but not necessarily in a tangible way. If I feel good because of something I saw or read, that in and of itself is value.”
Lourenço Bustani of São Paulo who runs a behavioral trends and innovation boutique that services companies throughout Latin America.
“Things changed but creativity didn’t: we feel the opposite just because our global exposure is rather a new experience and that brings us exposure to others’ (from all over the world) creativity. On the other hand, we must admit creativity sometimes is confused with “ability to do something new” or “having the instruments to be creative”: that’s a consequence of digital technology brought to everyone’s pocket. But we have to keep in mind that creativity is a personal quality (not everybody is creative) and has to be fed in a systematic way (as every human quality it needs strong – professional – exercise to become excellent). Finally our living and professional ambients are no longer definite and our profession is frequently a mix of specializations and competences: in that case creativity is more a communication and collaboration personal attitude to understand and to think on reality.”
Mario Soavi in Milan who is a marketing, communication and design expert
“To me, working with new talent and constantly developing new interesting music of all types that can be presented in different ways through all types of channels the creativity ALWAYS starts with the creator. The more creative the music is, the more it stands out and truly tells a story and speaks from a honest perspective, the more creative I get as a consultant and music supervisor getting it out to the world…”
Patrik Larsson of Stockholm who sees himself as a gateway to cool, trendy and young Sweden.
“Creativity is about experimenting, taking risks, pushing limits, having fun, being naive and fresh, never looking back on previous successes, intellectual curiosity – that hasn’t changed. Of course in the corporate world a ‘creative’ is often more of an artisan than an artist, most are too restricted by their superiors or clients. And when the client is creative (Jacobs, Galliano etc) why would they need an agency semi-suit creative? Instead they prefer to collaborate with contemporary artists for whom the word creative has not changed its meaning.”
Philippe Mihailovich of Paris who offers unique ways to add soul to a brand, alternatives to advertising, CRM and all the other standard marketing tools.
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There is nothing creative about these comments. They sound like marketing strategies. Where is the poetry? The imagination? They read like someone was trying to come up with the “right” answer and miss the point of creativity completely. Not all creativity is produces marketable commodities or even good ideas…it is generative. Writers, or good ones, throw out ten times as much as they publish. It’s about the process, not the result, it’s about bringing ideas and fantasies into tangible form, creating chaos out of order, putting judgment aside and just making things…words on paper, art taking shape, connections between people or ideas, being creative for its own sake. I don’t think people are either creative or they are not. It’s just that most people censor themselves, their voices and their talent and don’t follow their imaginations because it seems impractical or it won’t make money or someone in the life won’t like it or they don’t have confidence in themselves and their talent. I’ve seen ordinary people bloom once they see the pursuit of creativity as an art in its own sake and stop thinking of it as a quality you do or do not have and stop thinking about the end product before they’ve even put pen to paper. Most people learned when they are very young to squelch their creativity and they have to feel free to discover it again and know that they will fail as, or more often than, they will succeed.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
take away all strategy, client proposals, sales, etc. what you have are creative beings, people. people are called creatives I feel because they are creating instead of following, for example, following the lines provided to people to go through life. creativity i think is recognizing your own natural reactions either to the order in yourself or the order that has been applied to you through the outside world. so, in the arena of business, its people doing what is closer to them, and as people become closer to themselves, things change, systems evolve, good results.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I was surprised and interested to see how many of the Purple List experts appeared to relate creativity solely to their own personal spheres of influence, not taking a broader – can I say more creative – view of the word. Are we lacking creativity among the very people we turn to for explanations? I also find there is much marketing speak among these varying responses and believe me, that comes from a marketer. It would be unfair to be overly critical because I have not attempted an answer myself; equally I appreciate that the subject matter is totally subjective, or at least it would appear so. But to illustrate my point, “Creative drives the entire strategy” – so its a business thing right? And what about “Strangely enough, these days, statisticians, scientists and even curators are becoming sources of creative.” Since when were scientists not creative? And how can we understand the future if we “never [look] back on previous successes”? Why should referencing the past be deemed uncreative? As for “Differentiation” – is that not simply a possible desired result of creativity? “Applied lateral thinking” would get me laughed out of a meeting were I to use it; and “not everybody is creative” I would argue: I believe that everybody is (or has the ability to be) creative to a greater or lesser degree (equally we exercise our ability to a greater or lesser degree). Ok so I’m cherry-picking but point made: creativity seems to be little understood by many who lay claim to it. Incidentally, psfk, interesting question that can give us all something to chew over. Just for me, it’s also illustrated who to turn to when in need of creativity.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Amen. Somehow these “innovators” make creativity sound as dull as dishwater instead of relating the excitement that comes with the true discovery or creation of something new.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Surfed back through and was immensely relieved to read the first (and subsequent) comments. Thank you for redeeming PSFK.
March 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm