Most people in the creative business have sources of inspiration – the ingredients for what are ultimately turned into ideas. If you’re in the business of selling ideas, isn’t it logical that you treat your inspiration like any other asset?
Above is my personal portfolio of inspiration: pop cultural, well-diversified and outstandingly positioned for the long-term.
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s now a Bookstore (powered by Amazon) on The Planning Lab that features great reads that I can really recommend.
It has to be said that most advertising agencies are pretty good at market sensing: we imitate, adapt and evolve according to the latest trends in communications. For a long time, this process used to be easily manageable, because trends only affected the output of the advertising agency, not the business model. And even if they did, the pace at which they did it wasn’t unmanageable.
Things are different today, because now trends equals technology. This has made change much more difficult to source and to leverage. Today, being up-to-date with the latest technology trends isn’t enough to gain a competitive advantage. This has opened up a field for new types of agencies with different business models, often with specialising in a certain innovations.
A competitive advantage can only be temporary, and considering the accelerating pace of technological development, a niched communications agency at the edge of innovation will almost certainly become outdated at one point in time. This is because innovation requires thought leadership, which in turn requires investment into human capital (e.g. R&D).
Perhaps the most successful innovation strategy for an agency is to find the sweetspot between innovation and commercialisation?
There’s no perfect template for creative briefs. But with the iPad there could well be. This template would be interactive and customizable in real-time – just drag ‘n drop the elements you need. Or download new ones.
The name of this software? iBrief of course. Could somebody please invent this?
Entrance: Welcome to a British Gentlemen’s Club
Our advertising agency is expanding its offices next month, and discussions on how the interior design of the office should look like has been a topic of interest among many (including myself). As I’m quite allergic to Barcelona chairs and Arne Jacobsen, I’ve made my own concept boards. Here’s a how an advertising agency should look like, in my opinion. Keywords: Functional, personal and fun.
Like it?
Meeting room: keepin’ it clean. Big table, retro chairs.
Idea rooms: eclectic and inspiring, bring your own personal things.
Landscape area: open, social, efficient.
The Copywriting Room: inspired by Harvard Law School.
By voting for The Planning Lab, which is the only nominated planning blog in this Swedish blog award.
Thanks!
How much does creativity matter in business? According to the research of Micael Dahlén, a professor at Stockholm School of Economics, a company’s success in terms of sales, market share, profitability and customer satisfaction is highly correlated to two areas: creativity in marketing and creativity in product development.
Some numbers to illustrate: if a company invests in marketing at a new product launch, the value will increase from 405 million dollars to 929 million dollars. If it doesn’t it will decrease to 122 million dollars.
The importance of marketing vis-a-vis product development is explained by the fact that most new products are incremental innovations on mature markets.
Money talks, and creativity should therefore not be taken lightly.
[Thanks to Camilla for the tip]
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