By Rob Bridges, CEO

I’ve worked with creative teams for nearly 30 years. In that time, I’ve produced more questions than answers. That’s a good thing. The creative process demands we question, test, and question again, iteratively. Inside the labs of Mad Genius, these questions lead to experiments. Experiments lead to discoveries. Discoveries lead to breakthrough reactions. This cycle is how we uncover new lanes for innovation and simultaneously distinguish the irrelevance of others. 

Mad Genius’s culture allows for a constant push-pull of risk and failure, resulting in unanticipated outcomes. We observe, question, test, and analyze, bringing unexpected solutions to clients seeking the impossible.

As our weekly time tracking reports will tell you, it can sometimes be a hard way to work. So, why do it? 

Expertise Narrows Critical Thinking

I once read a fascinating article on the deception of expertise. The report offered a surprising premise. Experts (those with 10,000+ hours of experience in a field of study) are no better at critical reasoning than novices when pushed beyond their comfort zones. The article compared the outcomes of a world-renown surgeon and a first-year medical student. Amazingly, the surgeon’s advanced training didn’t improve his speed or accuracy when treating primary care patients. Why? The prevailing explanation is that the surgeon repeatedly practiced the same techniques, honing knowledge and experience in a narrow field. And when presented with something new, something unpracticed, his years of experience had no impact on decision-making. I guess it’s hard to diagnose an ear infection when you’ve focused on removing spleens your whole career!

Okay, so, what does this have to do with creative agencies? Simple. 

The world is changing fast. Problems are continuously unwinding. Business goals today are radically shifting. Amassing 10,000+ hours of experience in any marketing field is challenging given how quickly our industry evolves. As a result, the tried and true solutions agencies have relied on for decades no longer work. And people are freaking out.

Embrace It

Don’t fall into the expertise trap. Let go of what you think you know and ask, “what if?” instead. Look for answers in unlikely places. Challenge your ideators and subject-matter experts to push past associative thinking and explore a beginner’s mindset. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but it is doable. It doesn’t involve your entire creative team sitting in a room throwing idea-spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks. However, it does require that your leadership encourage and reward failure with enthusiasm. Put simply, bad ideas are the barometer that measures creativity and productivity. Outrageous solutions usually lead to unexpected results that surprise and delight clients. 

So, how do we do it?

Think Little to Find Big Ideas

You’ve probably had your fill of counterintuitive marketing BS, but this approach has rescued tricky projects more than once. It breaks down like this…

Small Teams

When you put ten people in a room to brainstorm, you end up with ten people thinking about one idea at a time. So instead, form five two-person teams. Pair designers and writers, animators and UX specialists, social content creators and account planners. By combining unlike disciplines, you force teams to adapt and learn. The resulting alchemy is space magic we call Creative Fusion. Generate and explore a bounty of revolutionary creative solutions from multiple perspectives in a fraction of the time. 

Short Attention Spans

Creatives notoriously fall in love with bad ideas. Artists burn hours perfecting a sketch that is off-brand. Writers tweak and polish headlines that don’t align with target audiences or serve business goals. It happens! Our creative impulses take over, and we can’t help ourselves. The miracle cure for this curse is simple. 

Limit the time and space for artists to explore. 

Give the team an hour and a stack of note cards. Then challenge them to come up with 75 to 100 possible new iterations. That’s it! They won’t have time to chase creative rabbits. If an idea is too complicated to express on an index card, it wasn’t a viable solution in the first place. Another benefit to pushing the team for quantity before quality is to exhaust the mind of possibilities. Original ideas only present themselves when associative and ungrounded thinking runs its course, and there’s really no shortcut.

Get Comfortable Making Clients Uncomfortable

Consumers are exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ads a day. Is the work you’re doing standing above the noise? 

Let that sink in. This means you no longer have to overcome the competition; now, you must overcome the media platforms that jade consumers against our industry. People bring built-in perceptions and expectations to the table. They expect hospitals to have board-certified physicians and for oil changes to be speedy. If your messaging only reinforces what shoppers already know, your brand risks being dismissed. Or worse, being knocked out of the buying cycle altogether in favor of something more entertaining or new.

Instead, campaigns should strive to give audiences something to get excited about. Something relevant. Something worth sharing. The best way to do this is to be different. 

Zig where others zag. 

Deliver the unexpected.