words by Tay Guan Hin
SINGAPORE—The theme for the 2nd Creative Circle Conference is the Nxt Normal. This year has brought about massive changes. Businesses, schools, the economy, the job market, all our plans, have been disrupted. Yet, our creative industry has not been spared. It has left so many of us in a desperate situation.
Creativity has not been a priority for many brands. Big data, ad tech, mar-tech, UX, CX –the marketing world has been distracted by new disciplines and other opportunities.
Is creativity still important?
The simple answer is “Yes, it’s more important than ever.”
When CEOs were asked, “What is the skill you value most in your people?”, they said creativity, it’s the ability to come up with innovative solutions to solve complex problems.
Businesses and organizations that embraced creativity, supported by innovation and technology is not just surviving, but are thriving. We have seen many successful agencies and organizations develop fresh new ideas to engage more audiences to connect better and deliver immersive customer experiences. Just surviving the new normal is not good enough. We need creativity to thrive in the next normal.
We were fortunate to have five fantastic speakers who shared how creativity can navigate us towards the Nxt Normal.
The first speaker of the day was Greg Braun, Adjunct Professor & Retired Dp. at Global CCO/ Commonwealth/ McCann. We met during an international judging show, and he happened to study in the same school called the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He called in from the USA and happily stayed with us from 3 am. He shared about a brand attribute called Empathy. The best work with Empathy falls into four general categories:
- Relief, when people are looking for comfort, they want to hear what companies are doing for their employees and communities;
- Release when people are looking for a break from the pandemic;
- Relate when people want a brand to reassure them, that it knows what we are going through and that they’re not alone in this thing that we’re experiencing, and;
- Recovery, with a vaccine in the works, we will soon hopefully be in a stage for good recovery when restrictions are loosening. People get back to their lives gradually.
Up next we had Valerie Madon, Chief Creative Officer of VMLY&R in Asia. We used to work together in JWT. Valerie is one of the most influential female creative leaders in our industry. She shared about Practical Magic. The creativity that rewards beyond logic. It’s her everyday reminder that her role as a creative is not about being merely logical, practical because clients are very capable of logic themselves.
Instead, our creative value is in the fairy dust that we bring to every brief that moves the world and have an exponential effect on people, the business and society, especially during these difficult times. Clients need a partner they can innovate with, to ride through this challenging period.
Instead of fast, they need us to be nimble to seize opportunities, test and learn since everything is no longer certain.
Instead of cheap, they need ideas which are feasible within the shrinking budgets that they have. Instead of good, they need us to be effective and stretch at all with our magic. We need to be magically effective by generating more earned media that leads to real business growth. This is the true value of creativity, making paid media work harder for our clients. So that we can help stretch every dollar when it matters. The world needs magic, especially during the toughest times. So never underestimate your creative value.
Alan Leong is our third speaker. He is currently working with me on different projects on TikTok. Alan is from TikTok Creative lab in Southeast Asia. He shared how you can create TikTok content that grabs attention. So, we paid close attention to what he had to say.
Every brands and marketer needs to capture attention, but because of the change in technology, human behaviours, our marketers have a tough challenge to capture customer’s attention. Today’s customers are getting impatient. Marketers only have seven seconds to capture the attention of our young audience. They have high expectations when it comes to a digital experience. They have no patience when it comes to a slow website, boring mobile content, or mobile applications. Less is more. Our customers have a finite choice at their fingertips and prefer content to be more entertaining. Brands need not be so serious. Authenticity and trust play an essential part in the attention elements.
TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video with missions to inspire creativity and bring joy to everyone. It is also a place for raw, authentic, creative self-expression. It is a place for flawsome, and this is what we must celebrate. I think being flawsome is a new way of getting attention. And the change in technology and the digital landscape has empowered people to start to create attention for themselves. Everyone can be a creator; it doesn’t need a lot of effort; even a 70-year-old grandmother can be a fantastic creator. All we need is an idea and a smartphone.
I met May Seow on Facebook while she and I worked together for a Unilever project in Bangkok. Our fourth speaker is the Regional Creative Strategy Lead on Facebook. She prepared an in-depth presentation on how we can utilize Facebook’s platform to create human experiences, conversations, and commerce:
Our world is increasingly getting noisy.
To stay relevant, brands must amplify their unique personality every time they engage with their audience. How do they do that well? How do they remain consistent and recognizable? Brands may have a wide range of guidelines from photography, logos, colours, and styles, but can we translate that to chat on Facebook “Live” and Facebook “Messenger”? The strength of “Messenger” is it’s one to one platform.
Think about “Live” because it’s where your content strategy can also come from. The “Live” format can be as casual or as formal as you want it to be but plan for the funnel so that people know your ‘Live” is happening, plan for the “Live” to happen. And they must pick up the critical parts of what we’re doing the “Live” session and retarget folks who are interested in your content.
The last speaker of the day was Dominic Stallard. He did some fantastic work when I first met him in Saatchi and Saatchi, and he is now doing even more outstanding work in PWC SEA Consulting where he leads the Experience Centre. He shared the role of technology and innovation in the next normal. It has been a year of a massive number of problems surrounding COVID, with crisis comes this incredible innovation and problem-solving culture. And what he believed moving on to next year is going to be how can we solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.
Technology is incredible, but it is about people. Everything should be human-centric. Everything should be about how technology can improve our lives, how it can help us to do difficult things for us and add value to our lives. It’s not the end solution. Technology is the driver. It’s the engine of some of the things we do. And can add a lot of value, but storytelling, human values, connections of people and in workplaces. That’s the exciting part of technology today and moving into tomorrow.
The session ended with a live panel discussion with some questions from the audience. The goal was to focus on the Importance of creativity in the Next Normal through topics like:
- Does adapting to the next normal require Creative thinking?
- How has the role of creativity changed in today’s landscape? And what do we have to do to keep up with the changes?
- What’s the biggest challenge brands or agencies will face in the next normal?
- What do you think will be the next up and coming trend?
- What’s your half-crazy prediction about the next five years in our industry?
- What’s the one piece of practical advice for young talents who are about to graduate and start their creative journey?
The Next Normal presents a new vision for much growing organization. It’ll encourage brands to adapt to a new creative canvas. Let’s continue to surprise, re-connect, invigorate, and empower our customers.
Data and technology will open the power of connected creativity. I hope you are inspired to begin this year with a fresh start. The world is done with the new normal. It’s time for creativity to see what the Nxt Normal will look like.
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