5 UN-Creative Thoughts About Creativity
By. Dan Kennedy
Part 3 of 5

#3: BE MARKET/BUYER DRIVEN IN ( ALMOST) EVERYTHING YOU DO

I started out, ever so briefly, in the “traditional” advertising business, and have occasionally been involved -such as a few years back when I butted heads with Weight Watchers big name Madison Avenue agency. They tend to start their creative process with random ideas. If you watch the advertising-related exercises on ‘The Apprentice’ , you’ve seen this same mistake made. So, gather a bunch of ad industry creative types together to talk about advertising for a new perfume, they’ll instantly leap off a dozen creative cliffs: names, colors, package, celebrity, music. I say: wait a damn minute! Tell me who the “target” is - don’t even bother telling me about the product. I don’t give a rat’s patootie that it smells like jasmine or ocean breezes or beached whales in the last throes of death or is made from cedar planks or horny minks’ glandular secretions. I want to work backwards for who the intended buyer is. It matters if she’s 18,25,30,35,40,45,50,55, single, married, etc. I catch clients constantly playing BLIND ARCHERY. Don’t develop a product or service or offer or Marketing Message unless you are developing it for a particular somebody. Not only is that the best and surest way to make money and avoid flops, it’s a terrific creativity shortcut because it narrows your range of creative work from the git-go. If you want to manage time better, by now you probably know my best strategy is to give yourself less loose time to manage. If you want to get through the creation process quicker, give yourself a smaller canvas.