Creativity Makes A Comeback!

Creativity Makes A Comeback!

With several business books already written to reinforce his point, bestselling author/thought leader Daniel Pink believes that creativity is at the heart of 21^st century work. But over the course of the past decade, big data, with its ability to zero in on more and more specific demographic groups, has been the big story.

But according to Henric Larsson, founder of Stockholm based agency, Chimney, big data may be taking a step back to make room for a renewed emphasis on, you guessed it, creativity.

Larsson points to two confluent events, the recession of 2008 and the rise of Facebook ads, as being largely responsible for the dominance of big data as a driver for targeting of specific audiences. At some point along the way, he says, data overcame creativity as the driving force and brands became “obsessively tactical and targeted.” In other words, building the ultimate delivery system has been taking priority over the actual content being delivered.

As a result, brands have become expert at drilling down to reach specific target audiences, but the content hasn’t kept pace. Creativity has been lacking across the board, and, over the last decade, brand equity has taken a beating.

According to Larsson, that’s changing, as companies and agencies that take the more imaginative approach, delivering content that surprises and disrupts, are seeing bottom line results. He points to recent campaigns from Old Spice and Harry’s as examples.

“As marketers, we need to respond to the broader spectrum of consumer needs and appeal to buyers’ inner desires: data alone certainly doesn’t,” Larsson says. “We refer to Content as King—but I’d say Creativity is the real capital C.”

As a company that’s been capitalizing Creative for years now, we say, “Amen to that!”