Intern-al Affairs by Alex : Day 1
The first part of the day was spent familiarising myself with the natural brands RGPR represents and getting a feel for their social media presence in particular.
In the afternoon we headed to Marketing Nation to catch a talk on creativity delivered by Darren Bolton from OgilvyOne. Through a combination of insights from successful artists, designers and children’s wisdom, the talk highlighted the importance of re-connecting with our ‘creative’ side in order to innovate. Despite the fact that marketing is a field where innovation is essential, adulthood and the corporate environment often lead us to supress this side of ourselves. This is in spite of the fact that, according to the Harvard Business review “curiosity is as important as intelligence”!
Darren argued that perceived lack of creative instinct is not due to ‘losing’ our innate creativity with age; we just need to re-engage with it. His anecdote about a sausage cupcake definitely provided food for thought regarding the fear of going against established processes.
One really useful technique highlighted was that of a designer who, to generate new ideas, set himself the challenge or forging connections between two completely random objects. Thinking of innovating a notebook for example, he would start at a glass of water. The challenges of stretching a design to include both of these elements sparks new perceptions of our surroundings, new solutions and thus innovation. Radical yet effective, I’ll definitely be giving this technique a try when stuck for ideas!
The talk overall was pretty inspiring, and certainly left me eager to tap into my creative instincts at the next opportunity. Alongside highlighting the importance of creativity as a stepping stone to innovation in marketing, it also dispelled the myths that you need to be stereotypically ‘artistic’ to exploit your creative skills!
