Creative Vs inventive

Every marketing person knows this. Creative is what comes out of a  ‘Creative’ Department, where creative people sit, feet-on-table, chair tilted at a gravity and common sense defying angle, waiting for a brain flash, after which ‘The Idea’ arrives, accompanied by the resonant thunder of creativity. Can we have some applause, please?

Actually, the creative process is nothing like that. It starts with hours of grappling with the brief, followed by hours or days of getting tired ideas and clichés out of your system. Then and only then happen upon some fresh thoughts. If your Creative Director kills those with a casual flick of his underpaid hand, you start over.

Anyhow, this is not about creativity. One started this little gander through the woods of my words by stating rather boldy ‘Creative versus Inventive’.

The point is rather simple, really. Good brands have great creative. Iconic brands invent.

Is that to say, their marketing and advertising don lab coats and make stuff up? Well, not literally. Let me drop a couple of three examples, since I find this generally helps me make the what-cha-ma-call-it, ah, point.

IBM was a computer company, till they ‘invented’ e-business in 1999. Did they really invent it? No. They spotted that business was slowly moving from traditional interfaces to digital interactions. What they did next was really smart, they branded it ‘e-business’. Then they launched a global campaign that told the world how business would be conducted in a increasingly networked world, helped by IBM’s products and services, of course.

Go back to last year. Volkswagen wanted to talk up the new Golf’s driving capabilities. Instead of talking about it, they invented a new driving experience. Night driving. I urge you to visit night-driving.com and see for yourself.

Fifty years back, Avis, the number two car rental company in the US, invented a new attitude. In a culture where number one was always king, they invented ‘Number 2ism’, the attitude that celebrated and defined the virtues of the under dog. Their calling cry, ‘We work harder, because we are only number 2’.Recently, Burger King invented the counter-culture mascot when they launched The King.

Here, at home, we have had our share of branded inventions. Lead India by Times of India. The Zoozoos by Vodafone. ‘The Power of Ideas’ program by The Economic Times. But why invent at all? Because when you invent something new people take notice and if they begin to take ownership of it, you get to own a piece of real estate in their hearts and minds.

Of course, after you invent something you still have to express it in a way that is ‘Creative’ otherwise it won’t be engaging and compelling. So maybe I should change the headline to Creative and Inventive. Ah, well another time maybe, I have more creative things to do.

(The author is theChief Creative Officer of the Mudra Group.)