If you’re anything like me, Tim Semple: Mid-Level Advertising Professional, then you know keeping your advertising creative chops as fresh as possible is job number one. And in my some 12 years of professional advertising experience I’ve learned a lot about advertising's creative idea generation (Also known as Ideation™). And today, fellow LinkedIn professional, I’m sharing my patented* Cheatsheet For Being A Great Advertising Creative with you right here on LinkedIn Publishing. Here we go!
Find A New Route To Work.
Liven up your creative juices by finding a new route to work. We get so used to seeing the same old thing and thinking the same old way and that’s bad for advertising creative ideation™. Shake it up: Head into work a new way. You might get a fresh take on a new, perhaps even good idea!
Write, Write, Write.
If you can’t immediately generate great creative advertising ideas, that’s okay. Don't worry, sometimes that's normal. But it shouldn’t excuse you from writing. Write and write and write some more - Good, bad, mediocre - it doesn’t matter. Dump your thoughts on the page and, if you keep at it, you may eventually write something that feels like a good insight or creative advertising idea!
Take A Nice Walk.
Sometimes by taking a step back and not thinking of the creative problem the solution will show itself. Periodically, take 10 minutes of Me-Time™ just to go outside and take a nice, brisk walk. Loosen up, unwind, get your mind right. Yeah, that's it. Maybe walking isn't working, maybe skipping is your thing - See if skipping around the parking lot works. Ideas still not coming? Jog them out while jogging along the panhandle. If they’re still not coming, maybe try quick sprints across traffic.
Have A Drink.
When you’re out on your periodic 10 minute me-time™ break from ideation™, either walking, skipping, jogging or sprinting across busy interstates, try going to the nearest watering hole and pony up to the bar - Ask for a good ol’ fashioned drink. Of course it doesn’t have to be an Old Fashioned, no. But if you like Old Fashioned's then by all means get one, they’re delicious. For me, a nice dry double dirty martini with three olives really gets my creativity pumping. Hey, and two’s even better! And with three of those dirty dogs I’m an advertising creative ideating™ machine... Try it for yourself, tell them Tim Semple sent ya**!
Take Off Your Shirt.
Fact: Comfort is the cornerstone of all great creative advertising ideas. Also fact: When clothes feel restrictive, tight or troublesome that's bad news for creative advertising ideation™. Sometimes after taking a 10 minute dart through on-coming traffic and downing upwards of four stiff-yet-delicious dirty dogs, I take off my shirt and just relax. Mmmmmmm...Let those glorious creative thoughts penetrate your pours...That's it. It's true that - on occasion - I’ve been known to take off my pants as well, of course only in the event that some inflexible pant material constricts my bathing suit parts or my super muscular calves. Yes, taking off your shirt can be a great stress reliever and a wonderful comfort that really helps invigorate ideation™ once more!
Pray.
Ask God for a good idea. Any God. All Gods - every single God that can hear your prayer, ask that God. God has to have the answers, right? Only God can look at that totally thoughtless client brief, glean some sort of intelligent human insight and generate interesting (not-too-interesting but just-interesting-enough) creative advertising ideas that will sell, right? I mean, the Strategist can’t. Your partner can’t. Even the Creative Director can’t. But God can. So, get down on your three-sheets-to-the-wind, possibly pants-less knees and pray that the Lord God Jehovah Yahweh Creator-In-The-Big-Sky will inject you with some sort of good idea at-some-point-in-the-near-future-hopefully-before-the-next-check-in Holy Mother of God, please.
Fake Your Own Death.
Holy shit, they’re going to know you’re an imposter. THEY WILL KNOW IT. You've walked and skipped and jogged, almost died dodging cars on the highway, took off your shirt and pants, got drunk on dirty dogs, prayed to the All Mighty for an immaculate idea and yet the fresh, original advertising creative concepts aren't coming. THEY'LL ALL KNOW. They're all going to laugh at you. Now the only thing left for you to do is to get the hell out of Dodge while the getting's good. That’s it, pack it up, buster, there's nothing else for you but to fake your own death. It was all so simple before - the ideas. They bubbled up so quickly and they were interesting and you were proud of them and NOW THIS. You hack, your creativity’s been zapped from your lifeblood like some demon succubus sucking your soul through your asshole leaving you a husk of a human - shriveled and rotten. Oh, and let's not forget those chats with your obviously knowing boss: Why don’t you push it, own it and make it great? WILL YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE FOR A DOGGONE MINUTE HERE AND LET ME THINK. If you think it’s so easy, you do it! Go ahead and you try and see and meanwhile I’ll be starting over - A new life. A fresh start. I'm not an imposter, no. No, no, no. I'm smart and capable and creative... Shhhhhhhhhhhh, it'll all be over soon shhhhhhhhh...
Move To A New City.
Ok you’ve torched your hip, downtown loft and its belongings and you're presumed dead because they've found the hobo's charred remains so now it’s best to hit the road. Remember, you got into advertising because it seemed fun and you could do it anywhere, right? Well, now's the time to make it anywhere - And by anywhere, I mean ANYWHERE BUT HERE, GOT ME? Now, there are so many great cities in the world but how many have you visited (Canada doesn't count)? Never mind, time is of the essence - Get your shit-faced, shirtless, now-presumed-dead ass out on that highway, put out your thumb and hitch a ride to that place you’ve always wanted to go: Your Shangri-La. Try it on for size and if you like it, settling down there. If you don't, you're Caine from Kung Fu off to the next town in search of enlightenment. Moving to a new city, the city you always wanted to live in, might just be the thing that gets your creative advertising juices flowing!
Keep A Sketchbook.
Jot down your journey, write a book and sell the rights to Netflix. They’ll buy anything.
And there you have it, fellow LinkedInners, The Cheatsheet For Being A Great Advertising Creative is guaranteed*** to change your advertising creative ideation™ life. I hope this works as well for you as it did for me: Tim Semple, Mid-Level Advertising Professional.
Yours truly,
Tim Semple
Tim Semple is a mid-level advertising professional with some 12 years experience and the creator of The Cheatsheet For Being A Great Advertising Creative.
*Not patented but probably at some point.
**Unless it’s Lutz's where they’ll most likely kick you out if you mention my name.
***Not guaranteed.