Why?
The more you know about how anything works, the better you'll be able to work it.
I know I've mentioned it before, especially in reference to how the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (KCWP) so closely parallels its basic structure.
Most of us don't think about the process itself. We're more concerned with the results this mystical, magical, mysterious creative act gets. Knowing the steps, working them, gives us a structure to anchor our creative juices. It also gives us ideas about how to deal with when it doesn't. The dreaded Creative Blocks and dead ends we all hope never happens to us.
There are five steps to the Creative Process.
Step 1: Define the Problem.
Just as Creative Directors look at Copywriters as problem solvers, the CP (Creative Process) is viewed by our brains as solving a problem. How many solutions we come up is directly related to how we define the problem.
Specific, close-ended problems restrict the number of possible solutions. Open-ended, more broadly posed tasks do just the opposite. The more general the problem, the more ways you can solve it. Define the problem as How do I build a door? your only option is to build a door. Glass door, screen door, storm door, wooden door, double Dutch door. Barn door, sliding door trap door. No matter what it's called - still a door. One possible solution, executed a gazillion different ways. All doors, nonetheless.
Expanding the problem allows infinite possibilities limited only by imagination and the root problem itself. Root problem? Isn't building a door enough? As everything in Kamikazeland, it must be drilled down, simplified, reduced to its lowest common denominator. Ironically, this expands creative possibilities, doesn't limit them. OK, so you want to build a door. But why? To pass from outdoors, in. From inside, out. To go from room to room.
The bigger, simpler, drilled down problem isn't which style door to build. The bigger problem is How do I go inside from out? How do I pass from room to room? All of a sudden, you've created almost infinite promise. Which works best is, of course, the business of your KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan). For now, we want the biggest pool of possibilities.
Passing from one place to another may not take a door at all. You can take down a wall, use the window. Tunnel. Crash through the roof. Build a chute. Tent flaps. Astral project. You get the idea. Possibilities become more creative. The more creative they become, the more infinite the options.
Infinite options are a large part of what Kamikaze is all about.
Step 2: The better the Input, the better the Creative
This is the fact finding phase. Gather all the information you can about moving from one place to another. About doors, chutes, tent flaps, out-of-body-experiences. More information than you think you could ever need. When you think you've enough, dig up some more. No matter how crazy it may seem (sometimes, the crazier the better), if it relates, write it down.
Like how you define the problem, the depth of information you dig up increases options. Options are what we're after.
It's as important here as in how you define the problem. Hunt your input in a broad sweep, touching upon every aspect, no matter how far fetched the information may seem. (Great ideas hide in far fetched information - come across something juicy, if irrelevant, save it for another time, another problem.)
Step 3: Incubation
Our brains work in many unconscious ways. How many times have you pushed, worried, rushed your way through a problem only to find the solution getting farther and farther away? Felt blocked stalled out of ideas? It's because you haven't gotten far enough away from the problem to allow the brain to do its thing, play with all your great information, without conscious awareness.
Incubation is why great ideas happen in the shower, while we're driving, in our sleep, in the middle of a great party. You cannot create without it. Unfortunately, ours is a deadline business. What if you don't have time to incubate? There are techniques you can use to compress the incubation period/process. There is no way you can solve the problem without it.
Mediation/self-hypnosis, taking a walk, taking a nap, playing with the dog the cat the kid. A good movie, making a great meal, animated discussion - anything that fully engages the senses and precludes applying direct thought to the problem. The point is to relax. To engage in anything BUT what you "should" be doing.
Without Incubation there can be no Step 4, no solution. It's a physical fact of life. Incubation is why I've held classes in bowling alleys, pool halls, parks and at Jonathan Richmond gigs. Get too focused, too stressed - everything takes twice the time. If at all. With none of the fun. None of the brilliance in the final concept.
One former student told me (years after she had graduated to a successful, award-winning copywriting career) how, as a student, she had originally resented my taking her class bowling instead of holding the usual class, going over the work yet another time. I saw a class of frustrated, frayed students with heads ready to explode not with ideas, but with stress. I'd been pushing hard. They'd been working harder. Yet none of them was working to their usual level.
She saw a lost opportunity to go over the same work one more time, or to get in an extra night's tips at work.
Then, she told me, after a wild night (!) wearing someone else's shoes, the ideas started pouring out of each of them. Eureka!
One more thing about incubation. We're all adults, we're all aware (may have even done so ourselves) drugs, alcohol, etc., are often used to juice the creative process. I am far from judgemental on the subject, but over the years have observed this: if you depend upon external substances, acts, people to juice the incubation/creative process, you can lose the confidence you need in your own abilities. Personally, I don't care if you do or don't. What I do care about is that confidence in your own abilities. Nothing will kill the process faster than losing your belief in it. And in yourself.
Recreate or not, creativity comes from inside. Externals can feed it. Kill it. Or handicap its ability to create on your own.
Step 4: Illumination/The Big Idea/The Eureka! Moment
Once it starts, it's our job not to stop it. Let it flow, get it all down. Whatever you do, don't closely consider, reject or flesh out anything. Don't self-edit. Self-correct. All those things stop the flow. Follow each idea where it takes you, then move on to the next one. Don't presuppose any are THE idea. Don't play favorites.
Generate as many concepts as possible. Drill down every one of them, following each as far as it leads you. Follow each new idea - and each variation on existing ideas - without judgement, reservation or worry. This is the fun part - the part that gets those endorphins pumping out more ideas.
An important part of this is understanding the power of the word "No!" I worked with a GD once who was so focused on budget, instead of considering the idea, then how it could be produced, one of her favorite remarks was "we can't afford to do that." Drove me crazy. There is no "No!" in the Creative Process. It's not just an idea killer, it's a team killer.
Worry about what things cost, how it can be executed, whether or not it's exactly on strategy during Step 5. Never in Step 4.
Step 5: Verification
This is where the KCWP saves your kiester. Time to go through all those ideas, comparing the best - the most original, unexpected, Kamikaze - against your Creative Strategy. Starting with your Prospect and working your way through it, you'll know right away which will - and won't - work. Which can be tweaked to work. What to save for another day. Which offer hope of brilliance.
It's also another way to verify the strategy itself. Many people - especially clients - don't understand a strategy - creative, advertising, marketing, whatever - until they've seen work against it. This is another of those big reasons great ideas get killed. Not your fault, but the Advertising/Marketing Strategy you're writing your KCWP to help fulfill may be flawed. This is your chance to make sure it isn't.
I can't tell you how many times verifying concepts against the KCWP has sent the entire team - client, AE, creatives, media included - back to Square One because for the first time, everyone can see exactly what it is they've agreed to. I've seen it even with experienced, trained and highly conceptual clients, AEs and fellow creatives. Everyone agreed before you started. Problem is, no one agreed to the same thing.
Even statements of hard fact - dates, names, key ingredients - can be interpreted dozens of different ways by dozens of different people. I hate to say it, clients hate to pay for it, but sometimes you're the guy building his house upon the sand. No one notices until something happens to bring it tumbling down.
That "something" is Verification - the final step of your creative process. What the entire creative process stands on. It not only validates what you've done, it's your best friend at Presentation time. If your creative strategy is right, the solution will be. Follow the process, you'll have an easier - and more fun - time working it.
The more you know about how anything works, the better you'll be able to work it.
I know I've mentioned it before, especially in reference to how the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (KCWP) so closely parallels its basic structure.
Most of us don't think about the process itself. We're more concerned with the results this mystical, magical, mysterious creative act gets. Knowing the steps, working them, gives us a structure to anchor our creative juices. It also gives us ideas about how to deal with when it doesn't. The dreaded Creative Blocks and dead ends we all hope never happens to us.
There are five steps to the Creative Process.
Step 1: Define the Problem.
Just as Creative Directors look at Copywriters as problem solvers, the CP (Creative Process) is viewed by our brains as solving a problem. How many solutions we come up is directly related to how we define the problem.
Specific, close-ended problems restrict the number of possible solutions. Open-ended, more broadly posed tasks do just the opposite. The more general the problem, the more ways you can solve it. Define the problem as How do I build a door? your only option is to build a door. Glass door, screen door, storm door, wooden door, double Dutch door. Barn door, sliding door trap door. No matter what it's called - still a door. One possible solution, executed a gazillion different ways. All doors, nonetheless.
Expanding the problem allows infinite possibilities limited only by imagination and the root problem itself. Root problem? Isn't building a door enough? As everything in Kamikazeland, it must be drilled down, simplified, reduced to its lowest common denominator. Ironically, this expands creative possibilities, doesn't limit them. OK, so you want to build a door. But why? To pass from outdoors, in. From inside, out. To go from room to room.
The bigger, simpler, drilled down problem isn't which style door to build. The bigger problem is How do I go inside from out? How do I pass from room to room? All of a sudden, you've created almost infinite promise. Which works best is, of course, the business of your KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan). For now, we want the biggest pool of possibilities.
Passing from one place to another may not take a door at all. You can take down a wall, use the window. Tunnel. Crash through the roof. Build a chute. Tent flaps. Astral project. You get the idea. Possibilities become more creative. The more creative they become, the more infinite the options.
Infinite options are a large part of what Kamikaze is all about.
Step 2: The better the Input, the better the Creative
This is the fact finding phase. Gather all the information you can about moving from one place to another. About doors, chutes, tent flaps, out-of-body-experiences. More information than you think you could ever need. When you think you've enough, dig up some more. No matter how crazy it may seem (sometimes, the crazier the better), if it relates, write it down.
Like how you define the problem, the depth of information you dig up increases options. Options are what we're after.
It's as important here as in how you define the problem. Hunt your input in a broad sweep, touching upon every aspect, no matter how far fetched the information may seem. (Great ideas hide in far fetched information - come across something juicy, if irrelevant, save it for another time, another problem.)
Step 3: Incubation
Our brains work in many unconscious ways. How many times have you pushed, worried, rushed your way through a problem only to find the solution getting farther and farther away? Felt blocked stalled out of ideas? It's because you haven't gotten far enough away from the problem to allow the brain to do its thing, play with all your great information, without conscious awareness.
Incubation is why great ideas happen in the shower, while we're driving, in our sleep, in the middle of a great party. You cannot create without it. Unfortunately, ours is a deadline business. What if you don't have time to incubate? There are techniques you can use to compress the incubation period/process. There is no way you can solve the problem without it.
Mediation/self-hypnosis, taking a walk, taking a nap, playing with the dog the cat the kid. A good movie, making a great meal, animated discussion - anything that fully engages the senses and precludes applying direct thought to the problem. The point is to relax. To engage in anything BUT what you "should" be doing.
Without Incubation there can be no Step 4, no solution. It's a physical fact of life. Incubation is why I've held classes in bowling alleys, pool halls, parks and at Jonathan Richmond gigs. Get too focused, too stressed - everything takes twice the time. If at all. With none of the fun. None of the brilliance in the final concept.
One former student told me (years after she had graduated to a successful, award-winning copywriting career) how, as a student, she had originally resented my taking her class bowling instead of holding the usual class, going over the work yet another time. I saw a class of frustrated, frayed students with heads ready to explode not with ideas, but with stress. I'd been pushing hard. They'd been working harder. Yet none of them was working to their usual level.
She saw a lost opportunity to go over the same work one more time, or to get in an extra night's tips at work.
Then, she told me, after a wild night (!) wearing someone else's shoes, the ideas started pouring out of each of them. Eureka!
One more thing about incubation. We're all adults, we're all aware (may have even done so ourselves) drugs, alcohol, etc., are often used to juice the creative process. I am far from judgemental on the subject, but over the years have observed this: if you depend upon external substances, acts, people to juice the incubation/creative process, you can lose the confidence you need in your own abilities. Personally, I don't care if you do or don't. What I do care about is that confidence in your own abilities. Nothing will kill the process faster than losing your belief in it. And in yourself.
Recreate or not, creativity comes from inside. Externals can feed it. Kill it. Or handicap its ability to create on your own.
Step 4: Illumination/The Big Idea/The Eureka! Moment
Once it starts, it's our job not to stop it. Let it flow, get it all down. Whatever you do, don't closely consider, reject or flesh out anything. Don't self-edit. Self-correct. All those things stop the flow. Follow each idea where it takes you, then move on to the next one. Don't presuppose any are THE idea. Don't play favorites.
Generate as many concepts as possible. Drill down every one of them, following each as far as it leads you. Follow each new idea - and each variation on existing ideas - without judgement, reservation or worry. This is the fun part - the part that gets those endorphins pumping out more ideas.
An important part of this is understanding the power of the word "No!" I worked with a GD once who was so focused on budget, instead of considering the idea, then how it could be produced, one of her favorite remarks was "we can't afford to do that." Drove me crazy. There is no "No!" in the Creative Process. It's not just an idea killer, it's a team killer.
Worry about what things cost, how it can be executed, whether or not it's exactly on strategy during Step 5. Never in Step 4.
Step 5: Verification
This is where the KCWP saves your kiester. Time to go through all those ideas, comparing the best - the most original, unexpected, Kamikaze - against your Creative Strategy. Starting with your Prospect and working your way through it, you'll know right away which will - and won't - work. Which can be tweaked to work. What to save for another day. Which offer hope of brilliance.
It's also another way to verify the strategy itself. Many people - especially clients - don't understand a strategy - creative, advertising, marketing, whatever - until they've seen work against it. This is another of those big reasons great ideas get killed. Not your fault, but the Advertising/Marketing Strategy you're writing your KCWP to help fulfill may be flawed. This is your chance to make sure it isn't.
I can't tell you how many times verifying concepts against the KCWP has sent the entire team - client, AE, creatives, media included - back to Square One because for the first time, everyone can see exactly what it is they've agreed to. I've seen it even with experienced, trained and highly conceptual clients, AEs and fellow creatives. Everyone agreed before you started. Problem is, no one agreed to the same thing.
Even statements of hard fact - dates, names, key ingredients - can be interpreted dozens of different ways by dozens of different people. I hate to say it, clients hate to pay for it, but sometimes you're the guy building his house upon the sand. No one notices until something happens to bring it tumbling down.
That "something" is Verification - the final step of your creative process. What the entire creative process stands on. It not only validates what you've done, it's your best friend at Presentation time. If your creative strategy is right, the solution will be. Follow the process, you'll have an easier - and more fun - time working it.
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