What is creativity? What is your direction? What are you looking for in this industry? How do you perceive your environment? Are you well informed of your field and this industry?- This are the questions forwarded by my creative director on the first day of my work. It left my in a state of deep pondering of what is and what ifs'. My brains went numb, logic and aesthetics clashes in my head; puzzled by these questions I've started to frantically search for answers to these questions. I came up with my own theories of creativity and opinion of these industry. I answered and got a pretty good 'slap' on the face by reality.
I was right but not correct enough. It's like telling someone that greenhouse gasses creates holes in the ozone layers but you couldn't give them the proper rational behind the phenomenon. You know the answer by common sense and hear say, but you didn't comprehend the essence of the situation youself. The same applies to me when I was answering my boss.
"Each and every situation requires a deep 'excavation' of information and insights for us to comprehend it to an extent. Advertising is a world where arts, business, creativity and problem solving is intertwined. Each and every of these are interdependent to create an effective medium of advertising in terms where solutions for a business problem is found in the addition of arts and creativity in the equation."- That was the summary of what my boss explained to me. It seems short and easily comprehendible but there is a profound meaning to all those.
Advertising is a very interesting field. Idea's, solutions and innovations that manifests have to cater to the ever changing and different needs, wants, and scenario of the clients and consumers. I don't mean to say it just business centered; we learn about people, culture and nature. Clients come over to the agency saying that I want my ad campaign to be like this or like that, and he will state what are the outcome that he or she desires. The interesting side to all this is, we have to get to the bottom of the cause where the clients come out with an objective, look and feel to the persons agenda; the advertisers will make a study on the audience on their preferences. A study is made on their mindset and from there, ideas or imagination is creatively manifests into an innovation that manipulates their perception in reference to the cause. Like it or not, this entire process requires one to understand the core elements that exists in the equation.
Creativity... is such a complicated topic and yet it is an indispensable side of life. The most basic idea of creativity is creating something new, fresh and novel. On the other hand, as people change with the flow of time, their needs and wants change- creativity gives rise to new definitions depending on the situation and needs. Creativity has a new meaning on the business end. Creativity now is defined by constraints such as culture, advertising objective, personal skills, money, politics, rules and regulations set by authorities, ,and so on.
As far as what I've understood till the moment I wrote this entry, creativity in advertising is similar to the analogy of a bartender mixing a fine cocktail that pleases the taste bud of the crowd that i have adopted from a japanese mangaka called 'Bartender'. He's sees observes their different taste in beverage consumptions and searched out for something that can please them all at once; most of them if not all. He takes in all the information he have and he tailor makes a cocktail with the ingredients that everyone is fond of. And the bottom line is... He sells the drink in the end of the day. Just like what we do in Advertising... We take all the ingredients that is necessary and it appealing to the audience and client, tailor make it into a fine 'cocktail' (ads) , then we sell the 'cocktail' to them. If they like it they gonna buy it. If they don't like it... it creates a 'blind spot' in their 'taste bud' (view).
I may had made mistakes when I wrote this but I never regretted or ashamed of posting this as this is my first point view of what's in front of me. Perceiving life as it is and learning from the mistakes that came along is the greatest stepping stone for one to rise to his goal.
Just to quote a statement that is shared with me today to end the entry,
"When you do not know of what need to be done or to be done, Just do it as we'll talk about the options later"... (Mars)<----- Btw he's my senior here... Saw this phrase in action today. Real world practice people. I was impressed and humbled by the people around me.
Navin.
