Cole Heilborn (00:00):

If you haven't noticed lately, we've kind of had a bone to pick with the outdoor industry over the last eight to six months. A reoccurring theme on a number of our episodes has been this idea that the outdoor industry is creative, frankly, is pretty terrible, that brands do a poor job of creating content, be it campaigns, social content, branded content that actually speaks to their audience emotionally. Frankly, that's a really easy and fun narrative to push. It's really easy to be a cynic Early, early on in the podcast history, David Taylor, he had this quote, he said, be a fan, not a cynic. And in the creative world, it's really easy to be cynical of people's work, and there's a point where being candid is helpful, but there's also the point where it crosses the line from candidness into cynicism. And in an effort to make sure we're coming across positively as a fan of the industry, I took some time and I am going to share with you how we at Portside, how we be creative.

(01:09):

The title of this episode is How to Be Creative. It couldn't be more self-explanatory. And so I'm going to run you through a bunch of ideas, a bunch of frameworks, and a bunch of insights that we have learned over our 10 years of producing campaigns, branded content and social video content for brands in the outdoor industry, as well as insights that guests have shared on our show over the years that we have taken and adopted and built into our process. So if you're in the middle of working on a project and you're beating your head against your desk, asking yourself, I want to be creative, how do I be creative? Then stay tuned because this episode is for you. Okay, so let's talk about what being creative really means. I think there's a misconception out there that there's creative people and then non-creative people. I don't think that's true.

(01:57):

I think everyone has the potential to be creative. However, the ones who are labeled creative are often the people who practice their creativity the most. Like everything. Creativity takes discipline. It takes effort. You have to work at it. It's a muscle that you have to use. So before you label yourself as a non-creative, stop yourself, you are creative. It just takes effort. You just have to try. If we were to examine the world's population in an overly simplified way, there's convergent thinkers and divergent thinkers, and the reason this is important is because the way that you naturally think can make you more inclined to think creatively. Now, let's define convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is reflected in your IQ score. It's your ability to examine a situation and find the right answer. It's using logic and it's using your ability to reason to determine an outcome.

(02:55):

Divergent thinking isn't measured based on your iq. It's measured based on your ability to brainstorm, to come up with ideas, to connect seemingly unconnected dots. I read this book once and it said to determine if you're a divergent versus a convergent thinker. Think about a brick and think about a blanket. Now make a list of all the things that you can do with bricks and or blankets. And if you come up with a long list of things you can do with a brick and a blanket, you're probably a divergent thinker. And if you can only come up with a handful of things, it's probably because you're more of a convergent thinker. Now, it's not to say that people can't be divergent and convergent. Obviously we are, but some people are more naturally divergent than convergent. Divergent thinking focuses on the idea of being free flowing.

(03:43):

It's focused on finding many solutions rather than finding the right answer. And I think why this is important to recognize is that because in marketing so often we're chasing the right answer, right? It's how do we show up in the right way? How do we use the data and understand it and analyze it and make informed decisions the right way? And I think Michael Minter put it really well. He said, sometimes we're hindered by all the data that we have. And so that's my first piece of advice, to trust your instinct as well as the insight. Okay, the next point that I want to talk about is this idea that culture eats strategy for breakfast. This is a famous quote from Peter Drucker who's a business consultant. And the idea is that it doesn't matter how impressive your strategy is, if you don't have the internal culture to pull it off, it doesn't actually matter.

(04:37):

So a few things to consider when it comes to being creative. It takes a whole team buy-in. That's everything from leadership to the brand team, to the marketing team, to the sales team, to your social team. Creativity doesn't exist without candor. For those of you who have read Creativity Inc by Ed Kamo, a book on Pixar and its history and its founding, one of the key principles of Pixar's success is their culture that's been built around candor. Candor means that you are honest, you provide honest feedback, you are frank, and that the idea is that you can't be overly protective of ideas. If someone asks for feedback, there should be a culture in place that readily accepts that feedback. Feedback shouldn't attack the person. Feedback should attack the idea. When it comes to building a team to be working on your next piece of creative, there's a few things to consider.

(05:35):

Not everyone should be in the room, but you need someone who can understand the objective that you're working towards, a stakeholder, someone who understands the audience, and or can interpret data and research about the audience or someone who understands the brand deeply. Now, that doesn't mean you need three separate people necessarily, but you need someone who can understand all of those various touch points. Here's a few ground rules for your creative team. One, no egos. This is not about choosing your idea versus my idea. The whole premise of brainstorming is to choose the best idea for the brand, for the audience. Attack the idea, not the person. Leave personal bias at the door. Great ideas can come from anywhere, be it a janitor, a field rep, a sales associate, or the creative director. Avoid decision by committee. It dilutes creative. Let's talk about some guardrails.

(06:39):

Great creative happens when there's guardrails, when there're parameters. Contrary to popular belief, creatives, we need limits to understand what rules we need to play with them. So define timelines, define budget, define tone, voice, and other mandatories that have to be included in this next project. Otherwise, you're just going to be dreaming pie in the sky ideas. Okay, so now that we've set some ground rules, let's get started into how we actually make this happen. What are some parameters? What are some steps to go from ground rules to ideation? The first thing that you have to do is start with your goal. This is really obvious, but it can't be overstated. What are you trying to achieve? What is this creative accomplishing? So many times when we work with brands, the goal that they come to us with isn't often the goal that they think they're trying to solve, which is why we employ a technique called asking why three times, and it's pretty self-explanatory.

(07:37):

Ask why three times. And on that third explanation, you will likely uncover the root problem that you're trying to solve. Dylan Snyder said it really well in our recent podcast episode. He said, if your goal is to drive sales or create awareness, those aren't goals. Those are outcomes. Goals are specific problems that need to be solved that will drive those outcomes. The second step is to define and get to know your audience. If you don't know who you're speaking to, then it's really hard to actually develop creative that works because you're not speaking to anyone. So here's a few things to consider, and here at Portside, we go deep. We go as deep as we can when uncovering truths and insights about your audience. Because if we're going to create creative that emotionally resonates with them, we need to basically know everything about who they are. So that's everything from demographics to psychographics to behaviors, emotions and motivations, personas, archetypes, jobs to be done, cultural and contextual insights, audience journey mapping, community and social listening, feedback from your community, be it UGC, ambassador athlete programs, and then doing a competitive analysis on your competitors. What are they producing? What are they not producing? How can your brand show up in a way that speaks to your audience as well as your competitor's audience in a unique and different way that your competitor isn't speaking to them?

(09:09):

With that basic framework done, now you move into the ideation process. So here's some specific techniques that you and your team can use to brainstorm one. Use a what if reversal. Flip assumptions on their head. Take ideas from other worlds and combine them. Look outside the outdoor industry. What is the music industry doing? What can you learn from other cultures and other subcultures that could influence how you show up? Exaggeration, push ideas to the extreme. I love the question, what if we did this? What if we sent someone to space and they jumped out? Red Bull already did that. Build on ideas and ask, what if? Use constraints as fuel instead of asking what if, set a really set tight of parameters and then ask yourself, what could we do within this tight set of parameters? Go to your audience. Use social listening. Dig into Reddit, dig into your comment feed. What are people saying? What are they not saying? These things can inform. Get great creative as well. Think about your audience and think about what drives them emotionally. What would make your audience laugh? What would make them cry? What would give them goosebumps? What would make them indifferent about your brand? Ask yourselves those questions and you might start to reveal great ideas too.

(10:34):

Look at culture as a whole. Outside of your category and the outdoor industry, what else does your audience interact with? What other subcultures can you play within? Here's a fun one. Try setting 50 ideas in 30 minutes. The idea is that your team just riffs. Write on pieces of paper, grab a whiteboard and just write down ideas. The goal is not to judge the ideas, but to produce a quantity of ideas. This one is a personal favorite. Music is a universal language of emotion. Use it to help you come up with ideas. So let's say you're working on a project and an idea and you have a vague idea of what you want your audience to feel. Sometimes it's so hard to put that into words, but music is a tool that can transcend words. What we'll do here is we'll go to one of our stock music sites and we'll spend hours looking for the right song.

(11:30):

So we'll put together a library of music, and this music will set the tone. And once you have found music that sets the tone for your project, that feels right, then go back and start brainstorming. Turn on that playlist and let it play in the background, and you'll be amazed at what sort of ideas and dots you're able to connect. Embracing boredom. This is a hard one for everyone. Great come from boredom. And in a world where we are so task focused, where our lives are managed by our calendars, it's no wonder that we lack creativity. So take the time, block off time on your calendar, shut off your computer and just be bored, and you'll be amazed at what ideas you can come up with. Lastly, change it up. Go on a walk, go on a bike ride. Go to a brewery and work with your coworkers. You'll be amazed at where ideas can come from, and seldom do they actually come from sitting at the desk or in the conference room.

(12:32):

Okay? I want to talk about some insights and ideas for you to consider as you are guiding and managing and leading your teams. When you're looking at past projects, acknowledge what works, but don't be bound by it. Respect the 80 20 rule. Generally, 80% of your content should be on brand, while 20% can have some leeway and explore. The more brand equity you have built with your audience, the more you can explore. Use a flow state, turn on flow music, set a deadline, remove distractions, and do a deep intensive work session for 30 to 45 minutes. Take a break and come back to it. Embrace waste. This is a hard lesson for folks in corporate America. Innovation and efficiency don't coexist perfectly. Highly innovative teams can't be highly efficient by definition because innovation produces waste. Now, innovation and efficiency are on a spectrum, but if you want to be highly efficient, chances are you're not highly innovative.

(13:36):

So from a leadership perspective, make sure your team knows that it's okay if they waste time, if they come up with ideas that aren't good ideas, this inherently produces good work down the road. When it comes to testing your ideas, this is an important and vital step, but remember that when you test ideas, oftentimes it's only confirming biases because people respond to what's familiar to them. Remember that testing environments aren't often real. They're contrived, they're fake environments. And while there's something to be learned from testing, it's not the end all, be all the 99 1 rule, 90% of viewers on social media observe passively. 9% casually engage and 1% of people actively engage. The reason this matters is because you shouldn't be producing content just for the 1%. Embrace the idea of minimum viable creative Will. Troutner shared this on our show about a year ago, the idea being that there are limitless ideas as to what you can actually, what you can create.

(14:43):

His whole concept was come up with a minimum viable creative, just like an MVP. What is the minimum viable creative that you can produce? Start there. This is a good reminder. What can you actually achieve? Because ideas without the ability to execute are just as meaningless. So don't create an idea that's impossible to execute on if you don't have the budget or the resources or the right people. Marginal gains sometimes when you've reached a good idea, the great idea just means pushing and improving two to 5% more. Oftentimes, the great ideas are just good ideas that have been marginally improved upon. Knowing when you've arrived. This is a hard one, but frankly for us here at Port side, when we know that we've arrived at a good idea, we feel it. You feel it in your bones, you feel it in your body. There's no other way to describe it other than you feel it.

(15:37):

Some ways to confirm that what you're feeling is in fact a good idea is to test it with your audience. But if it feels risky, remember it's likely not because the creative is risky. It's because you don't actually understand who your audience is. If you understand your audience, risky, creative will feel right. Here's some other things to consider as you're evaluating ideas. Does it ladder back to our goal? Will it make our audience feel something? Is it distinct versus our competitors? And lastly, I want to end on this idea of culture and creativity because great brands don't just rally together once every quarter to come up with a good campaign. Creativity is baked into their culture. It's a part of who they are.

(16:26):

So write down ideas as they happen. Encourage candidness, encourage collaboration, encourage cross-pollination across departments. Encourage people to get together and have conversations about things that aren't work related. I know that's a lot, and I know some of those ideas are easier said than done. But if, again, if you are working on an idea, try using one of these techniques. Try remembering some of these principles. Reflect on some of these ideas. Write them down, add them to your own list of internal processes. And if you need help coming up with great creative, reach out to us. This is where we live. This is where we thrive. We love helping brands develop video and content strategy, developing creative, and then going out and actually helping you make the thing possible, making it a reality. Get out there, keep being creative, and I'd love to hear from you. What else works for you? What other techniques have you tried that can lead to great ideas?

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