A while ago I visited Bletchley Park, home of the famous codebreakers of the second world war. The story of Bletchley demonstrates how humans react with amazing innovation and creativity during the most challenging times.
A particularly inspiring story was how “pigeon espionage” was employed when British birds, wearing the tags of captured German pigeons, became double agents and successfully managed to infiltrate Nazi pigeon lofts. When the Germans unsuspectingly used the British birds, they flew home to “Blighty” carrying the intercepted messages with them. Listening to this, I tried to imagine sitting in the meeting when that idea was first mooted.
What’s so marvellous about this true story is the idea, which – difficult or dumb as it probably initially appeared – wasn’t killed. A new idea is a fragile thing; it needs nurturing. If there were voices in that meeting at Bletchley that started to evaluate and pick holes in it, they were, mercifully, ignored. Instead the concept was embraced, developed, delivered … and it worked. It solved a major problem.
Shortly after my visit I found myself judging some industry awards. I was saddened by the lack of original thought and creativity published in our industry today.
The work was effective, but safe.
It begs the question: why? It’s not because the creative spirit in our industry isn’t alive and well – at least at the brainstorm stage. Instead, it’s that the desire to push boundaries with groundreaking ideas and activations is lacking. It’s a lot easier to say “no” to new ideas than it is to dedicate time, budget and resources to developing them. Is that the fault of the agencies or clients? A bit of both, I suspect.
This is important because creativity is at the heart of our ability to best solve our clients’ challenges. Creative problem-solving for our clients enables them to achieve an edge over the competition. By embracing the call to “do different” in 2016, our industry can positively impact our clients’ businesses and add tangible value to bottom lines.
Barbara Holgate is partner at The Big Kick
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