Wednesday, 10th February 2021 at 1:29pmWhat is creativity?

Both creative and non-creative types alike will often have you believe that creativity is a mystical gift bestowed upon a special few. That it is unattainable to the creatively sterile and effortless to the creatively endowered.

Certainly, there are those with a special gift for creativity: Da Vinci, Shakespeare and Bowie spring to mind.

But one of those extraordinarily gifted individuals, Maya Angelou, said something pertinent on the subject, which might challenge our preconceptions. She said: “you can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

What her words suggest is that creativity is a bit like a muscle that can be exercised and strengthened.

It isn’t effortless and it isn’t exclusive.

Creativity is everywhere, in all walks of life, exhibited by all individuals, at least in some way.

From the shelf stacker who devises a new method and solves a problem that trebles productivity, to the composer who stirs the deepest emotions in her audience; creativity is the act of thinking differently to create something of value.

In the world of advertising, creativity works on the same principles as those in art, music and literature, it just has different objectives. Namely, to clear away the clutter that crowds the message and to make the product wanted.

Research by Neilsen quantifies the importance of creativity in advertising, showing that it has a 47% influence on the overall effectiveness of any campaign.  

Bill Bernbach, the father of creative advertising, understood this long before the research was published. He said: “[advertising] is a subtle, everchanging art, defying formularisation, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation; where what was effective one day, for that very reason, will not be effective the next, because it has lost the maximum impact of originality.”