Common Knowledge | Wondering something?
Getting your Creative Process Started
Take a Wild Approach to Brainstorming
Let your creative ideas flow, even if they start out big and wild. You can always scale down an idea so It’s important to let your creativity take charge.
Jon has been getting lost in Netflix and entertainment holes. As a result, he went down a rabbit hole of quantum physics and quantum mechanics.
He started thinking about this in terms of creative, and how we’re testing creative. He learned to not limit your brain in terms of thinking beyond what is currently working or possible. While working on Manly Bands, he saw that there needs to be a process of really taking things to the extreme, where they’re so wild they seem out of bounds. Start there and then strip back to what’s feasible and test it.
Try Adspy for Unbounded Inspiration
Iain spends a lot of time in FB ad library, but it’s pretty inaccurate. Iain’s been checking out AdSpy.com It’s got a free trial, check it out for creative inspiration, and share your thoughts with Iain.
Explore Video Ask and PickFu
Giann stumbled on a really interesting piece of evolving software that may change the way people interact with websites. Let us know what you think!
Check it out here:
Taylor contributed a piece of software he’s been playing with to quickly gather feedback on ideas:
Don’t Expect Perfection
Don’t hold yourself to unrealistic expectations that may lead you to stress and worry. Nothing starts out perfectly, just believe in your process.
In the Creative Jam, geared more toward designers, something that DJ noticed was that being a designer, and being critical of his own work was that it’s ok if work isn’t perfect in the beginning. You start with an idea, bring it a shape and bring it to reality, and then you add more as you go.
Some changes will be for the better, and some will not. It’s important to get feedback, understand what’s working, and always improve. No one’s perfect, good enough will get better.
Solve A Problem
Check out this brief conversation between Taylor and the creative team about How to Solve a Problem and problem solving in general.
The document he’s walking through is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oMLuO88lHQUkmChLcnaDgKuttbzo8eh1t0RN7_8nD3g/edit?usp=sharing
Lead and Set Boundaries
Don’t Sweat the Low Priorities
Jon has learned that it doesn’t do you any good to worry about problems that are not a priority.
1) set priorities
2) put aside the low priority items and don’t stress about them.
Eat That Frog
Rather than look at your hardest task and put it off, Brian Tracy says to do that task first.
The first rule of frog eating is this: if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.
Josh has found great success applying this formula to his work. Slack him about it!
Self-Manage for Freedom
After the CRTV talk with Ash Thorpe, Krista took some of his workflow practices and put them to work. One thing that he does is actually block out tasks by time in the day.
In the bigger picture, everyone’s process is going to be a little bit different. Observe yourself, come to terms with the times, environments, and context that make you productive. Be sure to continuously create these environments for yourself so that you can thrive and be in your element.
For Krista, this meant finding two-hour blocks fully and intentionally free from distraction, and creating those moments really made a difference in her week.
Use a Framework for Focus
Our AIDA framework is an incredibly powerful tool, and our ability to focus and apply that tool to our production and ideation has been powerful. As we’ve migrated to intentionality of optionality it has brought us to a place where we’re going back-to-back with hits including Igloo and Andar.
Rather than doing a ton of things up front and seeing what sticks, working through the framework gets us more results faster.
Keep Smashing!
Stay Creative at Home with Ashthorp
CTC Creative Cafe presents Ash Thorp: A guided conversation covering three topics:
- Staying Creative with at home creative workflows.
- Unlocking Creative Potential
- The future of Creative in COVID world
Watch it here: Ash Thorp Q&A
Password: ctcprivate
Practice Patience, Empathy, and Positive Reinforcement
In a recent campaign to produce UGC material, Nana discovered that simply signing people up doesn’t always lead to the outcome we’re looking for.
After a quick one-sentence question to a UGC creator, she received several paragraphs about the creator’s entire life, including COVID chaos, how beautiful her husband is, and how great he is with their kids. She also said that the ask was causing a lot of fights.
So, Nana asked if the hard part was the scripting process and all the rules. Nana then described how those were guidelines and touch points and reiterated that we selected this particular creator because she’s so lovable and approachable. Within ten minutes she sent 20 videos, and got it done.
There are always bumps in the road working with talent. Meet people where they’re at, butter them up a bit, and you’ll see results.