Creativity is an all time thing and Brands are for always. When we think of a brand – we think about how creative it is, in terms of –

Utility | Proposition | Benefits | Communication | Value

A brand can we creative is many ways. A creative communication leads to a great recall and a creative product/service makes a brand forever. We are going to understand the creative phenomena in branding with some significant points for the start-up brands.

 

Creativity is Innovation

Looking at the Brands of today, creativity is innovation. The transformation from landline phones to today tabs come instantly to the mind. Isn’t that a creative innovation, you can say the popular jargon for it is design thinking. But this certainly is bringing creative solutions is smallest form possible. They have brought the world to your palm. The industry is working on innovation and they are working everyday on creative solutions.

Creativity fosters Competition

I would say, not all the organizations are creative. Some are competitive. They follow the creative process of the pioneers and create competition through pricing strategy, better service, value added features, sweepstakes and marketing.

Even if we look at the communication strategy, only few instill creative thought process, creative insights, creative copy and the competition simple reverts/reacts to that communication strategy. The Cola wars, the Mobile companies are such examples. An innovation is launched and the competition takes the ‘response thinking’ process.

That suggests that Creativity fosters Competition.

Each of us is Creative

Whenever I work on a brand, I get to work with different set of people. And that is why I can say that each of us is creative. While a marketer thinks from the consumer’s perspective, a manufacturer will think about the creative features of the product/brand/service.

The creative phenomenon is different from a process. A manufacturer works on the design process and the marketer works on the marketing process. Both the things are different but both the things are significant from a consumer’s perspective.

Creativity is Original

But the ongoing Branding Process is mostly lead by the copying the leading examples. Innovation is a thought – everybody wants to have a pinch of it but they also want the brand to look like – a certain industry leader.

Creativity is Original. That is the only pre-requisite. One cannot be creative when the brief is ‘create a brand like ABC’, when the iterations like – ‘check the color of ABC and the font’, ‘no ABC doesn’t have a tagline neither do we’ and this is how the entire creative phenomenon is turned into a creative process.

Many a times, the beauty of the new brand/offering is changed, the brand owners confuse themselves. For start-ups it gets dangerous.

For making a brand engaging creatively, remember that –

Being Creative is good. But be calculative while taking risk.

Going wild can be considered trendy but trends are not all in a brand creation process. A brand shall depict value, its benefit and its customers. One needs to measure the amount of creativity and sense. Creativity without purpose is nothing.

Original is always preferred and considered. A copycat idea is caught & remembered derogatively

Many a times, people presume that if we create a replica of something already existing which is selling well – it will also be hit. But that works like watching a duplicate instead of your favorite actor in a movie you have been anticipating a lot. There you feel ditched. And no matter the former gets affected but you lose a customer for always. That is why – it is good to be inspired but create original, offer value and mark new creative lines. The term ‘Chinese product’ is a very generic example of copied creative ideas. The term itself stands today for cheap, not durable products. They might be seen as fancy but they are not at all seen as value. Why I used this example is to emphasize the perception of – original & copy in a consumers mind.

Consider all the stakeholders of a Brand

It is important that we consider all the stakeholders in a creative process. A brand should be creative in technology, communication or value added services should be well thought about; it must have a vision – of service, or positioning or of change, all these are critical factors and can only be result oriented if the leaders as well as those who execute the brand work in sync.

These are significant for a creative brand. Rest is all fine for managing a brand.