Where to go when you need inspiration
No matter where you fall on the digital advertising industry spectrum, you cannot escape brainstorming sessions!
You are asked to come up with new relevant ideas that are just the right size for your campaigns, because the digital advertising industry is just a constant flow of ideas; our jobs are just an ebb and flow of creativity.
But on some days, ideas are harder to come by than usual. We’ve all found ourselves sitting in front of a screen with a frozen blank mind, struggling to find concepts to build on.
At Remark, we know the struggle, so we took it upon ourselves to gather some tips. mostly from experience (and desperation) that we use when faced with a lack of ideas.
First, our most valuable tip would be that you get out of your own head.
We recommend that you take a break, get up from your desk, and start engaging in random conversations with workmates or people outside the office. Ask about their day, listen to their anecdotes, laugh with them and just have a good time. But always remember to be ready, in the middle of conversation you may hear a phrase or a story that will spark your interest; take notes. Carry around a small notebook or even use your phone to write down interesting things you hear from people around you instantly. Doing this will accumulate later on and give you a bank of ideas to use for now and later. You will also stay aware throughout the day, with your mind trying to get you the idea you were looking for without getting too worked up about it.
The second thing you can do when you are literally at a loss of words is to take a dive into social media. Social media is magic when you need to see what people are currently talking about, the recent trends, social issues, or even brand complaints. You can learn a lot through watching; try to find links between what is happening now and what you need, or try to establish patterns. Is there something happening now that is similar to a previous event? Are there certain causes on the rise? How are people responding to trends?. Asking yourself those kinds of questions and finding the answers on social media give you insight on your target audiences’ reactions, what they will expect from your brand and will surely help stir the creative waters in your brain. Trust us, ideas can pop-out when you least expect them!.
If you can’t find inspiration from the real world, it’s time for Netflix. Watch a documentary, movie, series or stand up comedy. You can go with familiar favorites or something you’ve never watched before, but always remember to keep the previously mentioned notebook close by. You know where we’re going with this; it’s time to start taking notes again. If you hear a catchy phrase, watch an interesting scene, or an epic plot twist, write down where you found it and what you thought about it.
Look deeper into the creative structures and story lines, try to link your campaign to any interesting sequence or story you can find. You will be surprised how much fiction can link with reality.
All the previous methods were non-work related, and we are strong advocates for finding creativity in everyday life, because we all know googling “creative ideas for….” sucks out all the creativity out of everything. Once you see what someone else has done, you become fixated on their idea and try too hard to exceed expectations you put on yourself.
But if you need a faster, more direct industry-related method, you can opt for looking at campaigns executed for different industries, break them down yourself and read their existing analysis, see if you can identify what made them unique and catch their insights. If you need to, try to explore visually rich and creative platforms; take a behance trip, explore vimeos of your favorite industry directors, dip into youtube etc.
You can use all our 4 methods when you need to find creativity on slow days because we swear by it when we need an instant shift of mindset. Waking up our brains and helping the team get those creative juices flowing; which is all we need for ideas to start emerging out of the darkness.
Although our ways work when you find yourself stuck and in need of a quick creative fix, they work just as well (and even better) when you create a routine out of them!.
Using those techniques regularly will help ideas come easier to you when you’ve already fed your mind everyday with stories, ideas, incounters, and created a library inside your own head that will make invisible links to reality and spark ideas when you need them.
