Why is Creativity Important in Marketing?

Admittedly, there are self indulgent idiots within the marketing industry who have given creativity a bad name by making campaigns that are heavy on the abstract and light on the message.

However I do believe most customers, clients and people can spot the difference between ‘wanktivity’ and ‘creativity’.

Therefore I make it my mission to prise the word ‘creativity’ back out of their cocaine encrusted, award clutching hands and explain why creativity is important in marketing.

The benefits speak for themselves

Look what happens if someone screws around creatively with the rules of marketing and copywriting. Look at what happens when IKEA hands their outdoor advertising over their Banksy to hack. Or if Metro Transport decide to pair a novelty song with animation to get a safety message across.

Things become exciting again   

If you ignite the mind, the message hangs around long after the engagement has happened. And it will be talked about. It’ll resonate with people, intrigue them. And it will help with brand recall, word of mouth and influence a purchase decision.

It’s risky

Why should that stop you though? It was risky to ask your first love out for a date. It was risky to head bush or backpack in another country. It’s risky buying a house, wearing a different kind of hat or having children. But we still do it because the rewards usually outweigh the risks, and even if they don’t, we learn something and can cross another idea off our list.

Look around you

There is no such thing as “the mass market” anymore. As Seth Godin rightly points out, we’re all weird. Using creativity to uncover which slice of the market is your kind of weird and speak to them in their own weird terms is your only hope. And you have to do it creatively because someone else is also speaking weird to your weirdos.

Creativity is the art of thinking around corners, changing the goal posts, not being afraid of failure, creating something people don’t expect and knowing the rules of the game so damn well you know exactly how to break them so you make the best possible impact.

That’s why creativity is important.