Creativity Is a Team Sport
- BUILD A CREATIVE DREAM TEAM
Embrace the daydreamers. Empower the quiet voices to speak the loudest. Let diversity be the oxygen that breathes life into the creative pursuit.
- GET OUTSIDE YOURSELF
Complacency is the enemy of creativity. Don’t wait for inspiration to hit you. Make a plan to go out and find it. Where can you go, what can you see, and who can you meet? Spark your imagination by bringing the outside world inside yours.
- SEE WHAT OTHERS SEE, FIND WHAT OTHERS DON’T
Empathy is what turns good brands into great ones. Use your broader vision to gain a greater understanding about the world and the people beyond your own experience. With this “Vision Advantage,” you will uncover deeper insights beyond what you see directly in front of you.
- ALLOW SPONTANEITY TO REVEAL OPPORTUNITY
You can’t plan your way to every creative breakthrough. Rigidity can stifle creativity. Allow the structure of your team to unleash moments of self-expression.
- TALENT STARTS THE GAME, CHEMISTRY WINS IT
Pass the ball. Create a culture where the left and right brains multiply each other. Drive radical creative collaboration between the minds, skills, and dreams of each other.
Never Play It Safe, Play to Win
- DON’T ASK FOR PERMISSION
The fastest way to suck imagination out of your brand culture is to require the team to ask for permission to use theirs. Build daydreaming into a daily habit with time that is protected.
- TAKE BIG SWINGS
The average major league player in the Baseball Hall of Fame has a .301 career batting average, meaning they get out more than they get on base, but they are still considered all-time greats. Take the big, innovative swings. Even the misses will lead to success down the road.
- MAKE THE MOVIE POSTER
What’s the movie poster of your idea? How can you tell your story within an image in an instant? Talking about an idea can only go so far. Get visual, sooner, to bring the team into your idea, and the idea to the consumer.
- EMBRACE THE LIMITATIONS
Sometimes it’s better to have less time, and even less money. The pressure of time and budget restraints can be an imagination boon. Let the urgency generate ingenuity.
- BUILD THE ARENA
It’s hard to create emotion if your space is void of it. Whether it’s physical or digital, expecting to spark brilliance within a rigid white cube is fleeting. Make the environment as innovative as the solutions you seek to create.
Game Face for Greatness
- MORE THAN A LOGO
Your logo may feel like just a visual signature in the beginning, but treat it like the most important part of your brand future. Commit to getting it right, and it will be able to carry the weight of your consumer’s lifelong aspirations.
- THE PICTURE AND THE FRAME
Create a strong and identifiable brand frame, but don’t let that frame outshine the picture within it. Your brand foundation is a stage for the stories you want to tell. The stronger the frame, the more powerful the stories.
- HAIRCUTS MATTER
Style without performance is fleeting and forgotten. Performance without style can be respected but doesn’t transcend. When performance and style multiply each other, you get brand distinction.
- THE PICTURE WITHIN THE PICTURE
Provide depth and discovery within the image of your brand. Let there be layers of meaning. The closer the consumer gets to seeing who you are, the deeper their connection to your brand will be.
- SET THE SCENE
What movie has the consumer just walked into and what are the scenes they are a part of? Build an immersive world for your brand and its products to play a movie that engages all senses and—more important—tell a story where the consumer is one of the characters.
- SIMPLIFY WITHOUT COMPROMISE
Sometimes what you don’t say is as important as what you do. Your brand identity is an exercise of addition and subtraction. Reveal what matters most and let the rest fade away.
- OBSESS OVER THE LAST 10 PERCENT
Make even the smallest details meet the highest standard. Each of those details, no matter how small, is an opportunity to reveal more about your brand story and say, “This is who we are.” Over time, your respect for quality will be returned by the consumer’s respect for you.
Dare to Be Remembered
- REVEAL YOUR SOUL
Pull back the curtain to offer a clear view of your brand values. Allow the audience to see your personality, and in turn, they will respond to your humanity.
- EXPAND YOUR EDGES
Your brand voice should never be static. It is a constantly shifting blend of characteristics, beliefs, and passions. By expressing different traits, your relatability becomes the ultimate invitation into your brand.
- LISTEN BEFORE YOU LEAD
You’ll have plenty of ways to express yourself. Before you do, listen to who you are serving, know their environment, understand their mission, and see their challenges to fulfill their dream.
- MAKE PEOPLE FEEL
We are at our best when we worry less about how people feel about us and more about how we make them feel about themselves and their ability to achieve their definition of greatness.
- EMBRACE THE GAUNTLET
Fight for your creativity, but invite diverse perspectives into the room along the way. To achieve a story that is indeed remembered, welcome the rigor and discourse when creating it.
- WIN BEFORE THE MOMENT
Don’t wait until the moment of truth happens. Plan for the best outcome, and create a story that is ready when it matters most.
Don’t Chase Cool
- LET AUTHENTICITY BE YOUR CULTURAL CURRENCY
Leverage your legacy. Your original mission is what got you here, so remember why you were loved in the first place. You can’t manufacture authenticity, so protect yours. It will be here long after the latest trend disappears.
- PLAY IN THE INTERSECTIONS
Don’t stay in your lane. Merge into other cultural currents that share your brand values. By crossing paths with the worlds of art, music, and beyond, you can invite new consumers into your brand and, in turn, have a greater impact on culture.
- CREATE WITH THE COMMUNITY
Brands don’t create icons on their own; your success is due as much to the consumer as it is to you, so reward them. Make the relationship personal by giving them the tools, the moments, and the canvas upon which to share their passion for you with the world.
Spark a Movement
- AN AUDACIOUS FUTURE
Movements are about change. The goal should be attainable, but also audacious. Audacity is, after all, far more inspiring than timidity. It should make dreamers sit up and skeptics scoff. It’s the dreamers you want; leave the skeptics on the couch.
- A CATALYST FOR ACTION
Movements need an inspirational, charismatic leader. Likewise, a leader must be both relatable and work as a catalyst to action. As a brand, your consumer needs to feel inspired by the leader and, just as important, see themselves in the leader.
- TOOLS FOR EMPOWERMENT
Successful movements are tied to tools of empowerment, the means by which people can achieve the audacious goal. Too often brands think technical superiority drives consumer affinity. Although people care about what’s in the product; they care more about what they can do with the product.
- MOVEMENTS NEED MOMENTS
Use a time or place to let people see that they are part of something that is both meaningful and growing. They began alone, isolated, and stuck sharing a dream but without the means of realizing it. Now they are part of something bigger, something important, and something that has made them better than they were before.
Close the Distance
- STRENGTHEN YOUR PERIPHERAL VISION
Go beyond simple observations and assumptions. Dig deeper to find the unseen needs that exist in underserved communities. By increasing our ability to see, hear, and feel, we can unlock access to a better future for everyone.
- REVEAL THE HARD TRUTHS
Embrace the uncomfortable conversations to uncover the deeper truths within society and to reveal them in more profound ways. Use your platform to amplify the voices of others, not just your own.
- PULL TOGETHER TO RISE HIGHER
Avoid entering into the creative process with the final answer. To build solutions that respect the community you look to serve, you must include them. Shape your ideas together. This will develop a sense of pride and ownership in the future.
- BE MORE THAN A PRODUCT
Go beyond transactions. Use your product as an invitation and a catalyst to a more equitable future. Strive to serve the moment as well as a lifelong journey of progression and transformation for the community.
- LIVE THE PERSONAL IN THE PROFESSIONAL
Creating more diverse representation by the numbers isn’t enough. It’s crucial to empower diverse individuals to bring their life experiences into their work experiences. By leveraging one’s life perspective, you can affect the lives of countless others.