Bob Hoffman let loose a gem on his blahg today.
“What is good creative and how do I get it?” is a speech Hoffman gave to a roomful of agency owners. The speech contains all sorts of quotable items and on point ideas that will naturally swirl inside a thinking person’s head.
Here’s a Hoffmanian idea that I like for it’s amazing precision:
Creativity is completely unrelated to strategy. Let me say that again — creativity is completely unrelated to strategy.
Creativity is what happens after the strategy is done. Creativity is the process that transforms a strategy into a terrific ad.
Or, more usually, the absence of creativity is what transforms a strategy into a smelly turd.
That’s not to say that strategy is not an important component of advertising. It is. It’s just that advertising has two components. The first is strategy. The second is creativity.
Hoffman argues that true creativity is extremely hard to come by; hence, its high price. He also mentions that creative people are hard to find and impossible to manage and that clients often dislike them.
You know, I’m starting to feel awfully creative all of a sudden…
