Welcome to the segment Creating Creative Content. We learned in an earlier segment that content is king, so how do you create it? That will be the focus of this segment. This is the agenda. I'll start by talking about 'What is creativity?'. Then I'll talk about how to source the ideas for creativity. I'll then talk about the creative concept creation process. And finally wrap it up with a case study on a film that I made. So, let's get started. What is creativity? I think people have different notions about what creativity is. But to me, creativity is about solving problems. So, take for example this very famous problem. Where you have to connect all nine points using only four lines. So you can try this way, and that way and that way, and diagonal. But you still have that one point at the upper top in the middle remaining. So again, it's not as simple as you think, and that is why you really have to have an open mind. You have to be creative when you solve difficult, when you solve new problems. So the way to do it is by, for example, having one line which is literally out of the box. So we commonly talk about thinking out of the box, here you actually do it. So you start there. So that first opening, that first line is very important. Then you have the second line, which again is out of the box. Then you have a third line which looks like that and after that it's relatively straight forward. So again, I never told you that you could not go beyond the box. That wasn't a rule. That rule may have been assumed. It could have been self imposed, but by going beyond conventional thinking, you become creative. You solve that seemingly difficult problem. That in a nutshell is creativity. Okay, so creativity it's about problems and solutions. It's also about aligning ideas, which is part of the problem and execution which is part of the solution So, you have a before and after situation. And in some cases, you have a notion of what the problem is, what the idea is. But then you poorly execute. So instead of having this alignment, you have a misalignment. You see that in, for example, movies. You see that in books. Where you have a good concept but it's not very well executed. But in the movies that I like, in the books that I like, in contrast you have an idea, a concept. But you also have an execution. Which is aligned and therefore you so called seamless integration. That is the nirvana of creativity. That is what you're trying to see when you create creative content. Okay, so some examples. A recent movie that I really liked. It's a movie called Gravity, directed by Cuaron. And there is this long take that lasts about 17 minutes. And it really does hold the attention of the audience. It entertains. And of course there were some graphics involved. But again, it seemed seamless. And it was very immersive in how you felt part of being trapped in that situation in outer space. Again, the concept of being trapped in outer space, and the execution were perfectly aligned. Okay, so how do you source for these big ideas? I'll get to execution later. I think the main point here is that you don't necessarily have to start in a vacuum. In fact, there can be many, many different sources from where you can source. Big ideas. So if you are a company, it could be in your logo, things that you may have overlooked before in your logo. Or your brand and Coca Cola has been doing this for years. So especially if you are a company that has a long history of branding, that is where maybe your brand and logo, maybe this rich source of new ideas. It could be in the packaging. And so a good example of that might be Absolut Vodka. Doesn't even have to be pretty packaging as long as it's unique. It could be in the value delivery system. And more and more of that system, it's being changed because of the Internet. But even offline, Dominos, I think, was a good example of how they differentiated based on their delivery system. It could also be based on your country of origin. So if you are a country that is lesser known, not a country like the US or England, or Italy, or France that have well established country of origin images, but you are a relatively new one, like South Korea. South Korea, where I'm from, has become again a very new kind of country of origin. And having this open slate, you can create new associations that then become the source of your big idea. Continuing on it could be based on the history of the company, something that hasn't been noted before. Such as who the founder was and if he had some very positive, unique and favorable characteristics that can be the source of your idea. It can be based on nostalgia, which is of course, related to history. So if you have something that was used a long time ago, maybe you can revive that. And I think the Volkswagen Beetle, the new Beetle, was emblematic of that kind of nostalgia that people had about that very small car It could be based on the universality of themes and there are many archetypes that we can refer to in that vein. And finally it could be some unknown product benefit that heretofore has not been recognized by you and of course by the consumer. So again, the implication here is that you shouldn't be at a loss seeking for a big idea. There can be many sources.
