Activating Creativity

Bringing brands to life across channels and disciplines moves people to action

Hub, October 5, 2009 — When the legendary New Zealand All Blacks rugby team lost unexpectedly at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, its sponsor, Adidas, realized it had an opportunity to restore the team’s close ties with its disenchanted fans and, in the process, make real its own brand purpose.

To do this, Adidas employed a “new world” manifestation of creativity to bring the brand to life for its fans. Specifically, the sports footwear and apparel maker drew from the fans’ deep connection with the ultimate symbol of the All Blacks, their jersey. Adidas made it both the message and medium.

Smart Balance Keeps Tight Focus on Creativity†

Heart-Healthy Food Developer Outsources Manufacturing, Distribution to Target In-House Strength on New Products

Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2009 — The product-development laboratory at Smart Balance Inc., a food marketer keen to grow through innovation, contains chemical analyzers, lab benches and refrigerated cases. But there are rarely people.

"We don't have legions of white coats," explains Robert S. Gluck, Smart Balance's chief operating officer. Six of its staffers are charged with developing products, but they often work in suppliers' facilities nowhere near its headquarters here.

Smart Balance helps people stay lean with "heart healthy" merchandise, including low-cholesterol spreads, peanut butter, popcorn, cooking oil and milk. The company itself is lean as well, with just 67 employees and scant fixed assets. Its "virtual" business model outsources almost everything else, including... continue reading

Inside the Lego-plex: No Wonder They Hatch Such Great Ideas

Fast Company, March 9, 2009 — Lego is one of the world's most creative companies. What kind of office is equal to the task of housing its development staff? Here's a peek inside the company's work space, designed by Bosch & Fjord. It's clever enough, with mildly wacky touches that recall dotcom offices, circa 1999. But there is a strong, overarching design principle at work: Notice how many meeting spaces there are. That's intentional, but it's also a move backed by sociology.

The Coming Creativity Boom

The real source of all growth is human ingenuity and entrepreneurship, which often thrive in the worst of times--and are always surprising.

Forbes, November 6, 2008 — Knowledge is about the past; entrepreneurship is about the future. In a crisis the world of expertise pulls the global economy ever deeper into the past, where accountant-economists ruminate on the labyrinthine statistics of leviathan trade gaps, tides of debt and deficits, political bailouts and rebates, regulatory clamps and controls, all propping up the past in the name of progress.

Creativity Has to Be a CMO's Core Competency†

Harley-Davidson's Top Marketer on How Not to Strangle Ideas and, in Turn, Business Resu

Advertising Age, September 8, 2008 — So, I shot my mouth off at a Spencer Stuart CMO conference recently, wondering aloud why CMOs did not select "creativity" as a core competency for the successful CMO ("As If You Didn't Know By Now, It's About the Bottom Line for CMOs,". And as sometimes happens when spouting, Ad Age called me on it and asked me to back up my view. What I will do here is explain, but also expand on my view that creativity (without quotations needed) is as much a core skill set for a successful CMO as a results orientation. In fact, it may be the key differentiator between business success and failure.

Tapping the Creativity of Downtime†

Web-Design Firm Uses Projects Employees Pursue in Their Spare Time at Work to Help Win New Business

Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2008 — In its early days, Chris Wallace's company didn't always have enough work to keep its staff fully occupied designing interactive Web sites for clients. But it didn't want to lose any talent. So he and his co-founders decided to tell employees they could pursue their own interests in their downtime, doing just about whatever they wanted, on the clock.

An unexpected side benefit emerged. Employees spent some of their spare time writing music and building photography and video skills. When the company needed ideas to pitch to potential clients, it tapped into employees' personal projects. Mr. Wallace says he has had meetings with potential clients where 40% of the work he showed them was done by employees in their downtime.

Let Computers Compute. It’s the Age of the Right Brain.

New York Times, April 6, 2008 — I’M of two minds. As a matter of fact, so are you. And until recently, corporate America wasn’t doing much to take advantage of one of them. But now that we’re hip-deep in what has been called both the “Creative Economy” and the “Conceptual Age,” no one can afford to ignore the artist within: the right hemisphere of the brain.

Want New Products That Get Noticed? Change the Process†

Bad Call: Results From a New Survey Show Marketers Are Reluctant to Financially Invest in True Innovation

Advertising Age, October 1, 2007 — The media are always looking for new "darlings," and every now and then a sensational new product emerges, whipping them into a frenetic state. Swiffer, the iPod, TiVo, Crest Whitestrips, Red Bull — all are products that had the industry gushing about their features and benefits. Part of what drives these stories is the fact that there are so few wildly successful new products — especially in comparison with the number of products launched.

At 3M, A Struggle Between Efficiency And Creativity

How CEO George Buckley is managing the yin and yang of discipline and imagination

BusinessWeek, June 11, 2007 — McNerney was the first outsider to lead the insular St. Paul (Minn.) company in its 100-year history. He had barely stepped off the plane before he announced he would change the DNA of the place