CMO.com Highlights — The Leading Drivers of Creativity in Marketing

Last week’s exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com focused on cre­ativ­i­ty. Embrac­ing cre­ativ­i­ty is one of the pri­ma­ry ways busi­ness­es remain rel­e­vant in an ever-chang­ing world. One of those changes recent­ly has been the increas­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to block adver­tis­ing alto­geth­er. Brands who want to get con­sumer atten­tion and earn their loy­al­ty need to get cre­ative in their mar­ket­ing approach­es. Many busi­ness­es don’t real­ize the key dri­vers of cre­ativ­i­ty, how­ev­er, and just as many fail to real­ize the bar­ri­ers they often put up to unleash­ing cre­ativ­i­ty in their people.

Rod Ban­ner, Agent of Change at 3LA, began the week by paint­ing a sober­ing pic­ture of the state of adver­tis­ing in a world where more and more peo­ple are uti­liz­ing ad-block­ing tech­nol­o­gy. The sim­ple fact, accord­ing to Ban­ner, is that peo­ple don’t view adver­tis­ing if they can avoid it. After being inun­dat­ed with adver­tis­ing every­where they go, most peo­ple ignore the adver­tis­ing in front of them. The adver­tis­ing they do see often gen­er­ates a feel­ing of dis­trust. Instead of view­ing adver­tis­ing, peo­ple invest their time in things that inter­est them. The obvi­ous take­away is that mar­keters need to be more cre­ative in how their adver­tis­ing is pack­aged. This often means cre­at­ing engag­ing con­tent that cap­tures con­sumers’ inter­ests and gen­er­at­ing word-of-mouth advertising.

The CMO.com inter­view with Aston Martin’s Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer, Simon Sproule high­light­ed the way Aston Mar­tin uti­lizes its rich his­to­ry and its product’s rep­u­ta­tion as key ele­ments of its mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Sproule shared the focus the brand takes at telling the best sto­ries and uti­liz­ing chan­nels like dig­i­tal to get those sto­ries out to con­sumers. Anoth­er high­light of the inter­view was the role data plays in dri­ving mar­ket­ing deci­sions. Sproule believes it’s vital for mar­keters to pay close atten­tion to data analytics.

A recap of the Inspi­ra­tion Con­fer­ence in Lon­don last month high­light­ed some key ele­ments to dri­ve cre­ativ­i­ty in mar­ket­ing. One of the pri­ma­ry dri­vers of cre­ativ­i­ty, accord­ing to Paul Bay of cit­i­zen­bay, is curios­i­ty. Bay men­tioned that curios­i­ty puts the brain “in a state that’s more con­ducive to learn­ing.” Bay warned that many com­pa­nies, though they claim to val­ue curios­i­ty, oper­ate in a way that shuts down curios­i­ty and pre­vents new dis­cov­er­ies. Oth­er key ele­ments men­tioned dur­ing the con­fer­ence were col­lab­o­ra­tion and the impor­tance of lis­ten­ing to out­side voices.

UK’s Heathrow Air­port uti­lizes data to shape the jour­ney cus­tomers take through the air­port to give them a bet­ter expe­ri­ence and guide them to where they need to be. The air­port uses data pro­vid­ed by the air­lines to cre­ate a mobile app that pro­vides a seam­less inte­gra­tion of the airport’s map­ping, cus­tomer flight data, its loy­al­ty scheme, and tar­get­ed pro­mo­tions for its cus­tomers. Simon Chat­field, Heathrow’s head of ebusi­ness and CRM, shares the chal­lenge Heathrow faces in antic­i­pat­ing cus­tomer needs and the fac­tors they pay atten­tion to for hints about what those needs might be on a giv­en trip through the airport.

Ben Pask, Co-Founder of Rare Con­sul­tan­cy, end­ed the week by dis­cussing the inher­ent cre­ativ­i­ty embraced by chil­dren that is often lost when peo­ple enter adult­hood. If busi­ness­es want to be inno­v­a­tive, Pask echoed what Paul Bay men­tioned as the key to cre­ativ­i­ty at the Inspi­ra­tion Con­fer­ence: curios­i­ty. Chil­dren are nat­u­ral­ly curi­ous, but that curios­i­ty tends to slow down when peo­ple get old­er. Pask encour­ages peo­ple to embrace the habit of child’s play to gen­er­ate inno­va­tion, which involves see­ing every­one as cre­ative and all ideas as valu­able, as well as learn­ing from mistakes.

Please take some time this week to check out our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com. Learn from some of the industry’s top mar­keters and let us know what you think.