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One of my favorite definitions of creativity is “not knowing where you’re going to end up when you start.” By that measure, it’s easier and easier to be creative these days.

And creativity matters. It cuts through clutter. It touches emotions. It solves problems. A new report out from The IPA found that, overall, campaigns that had been rewarded with the greatest number of accolades for their creative work were more successful in delivering positive results in the area of effectiveness (boosting market share, sales, profit and loyalty). Creativity delivers results.

And, just like everything else, creativity is evolving. The cover story of June’s Fast Company reports on its 100 Most Creative People In Business. The first thing I was struck by was the amount of very non-creative job titles (Research Director, Senior Software Engineer). But my big takeaway was that  – from the Fast Company perspective – a full quarter (27 of 100) had the title CoFounder or Founder. Creativity isn’t just “not knowing where you’re going to end up when you start.” It’s having a vision and executing on it.

Having ideas isn’t being creative. Recognizing and activating the game changing ones is.

I tweeted earlier this week: “Okay, Soccer. You win. I’m all in for the World Cup. Don’t let me down.” And I meant it. For a sport I’ve barely watched before, I couldn’t be more excited for what a good friend calls “a month-long celebration of awesome.”

But I find how I got here interesting. I’ve always known about the product of soccer. I played it for more than a decade. Marketers take note, it’s not the game of soccer that sold me on the tournament. It was the technology and the advertising.

Technology Changes The Game. It was just announced that AT&T Uverse will be launching ESPN 3D in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. I don’t (yet) have a 3D TV, but  HD already makes the experience thoroughly enjoyable. It makes things that were previously uninteresting to me imminently watchable. Case in point, I have recently enjoyed both hockey and curling for the first times ever. Technology, quite literally, changes the game.

The Power of Advertising. From McDonald’s to Nike, big brands have drawn me in with emotional messages. Especially Nike. The “Write The Future” campaign is so good, I think it could redefine the role a corporate sponsor plays – I hope FIFA paid Wieden + Kennedy handsomely. [Update: Nike is not an official sponsor. Which doesn't change my feelings about FIFA paying them.] Before I’ve watched a minute, I know some players and I am emotionally invested in the fates of not only the athletes, but their fans. That’s the power of advertising.

Until the technology and advertising changed the game for me, I was never a fan of the “product.” We’ll see how the next month goes. But fanaticism (and its ensuing loyalty) does not seem out of the question.

I don’t watch Lost. My excuse is not a good one. I just didn’t watch at the beginning – then felt like I couldn’t catch up. That said, I have a great deal of respect for the show.

It’s an old school drama that is leading the way in a reality world. And it weaves a story so compelling that its network let it run its course despite the fact that it was only going to lose audience as it moved towards completion (really, with all the plot complexities and questions, how many people were just going to “jump in” during Season Six?).

I recently listened to an interview with Carlton Cuse, one of the show’s head writers. As he talked about Lost for an hour – again, a show I really know nothing about – I became more and more interested in what he was saying. In describing his approach to writing the show, I felt like he was describing a strategic approach to brand management.

I thought he made four points that act as good reminders for any marketer building a brand via storytelling.

Embrace the community. Cuse said the writers write with intentional ambiguity. Think about that. Intentional ambiguity works to get fans involved. The show is meant to be discussed. In the world of branding, ambiguity sounds scary. But it can be a powerful engagement tool.

Execution really matters. In television, the premise is much less important than the execution of the premise. Exhibit A: Seinfeld. Exhibit B: Friends. The concept for Lost started as “Let’s do a show about a plane crash and an island.” Great execution can make an average idea powerful. It rarely works the other way around.

Don’t over-think it. The pilot for Lost was done – start to finish – in eleven weeks. That’s unheard of. On one hand, it’s amazing it got done. On the other, there wasn’t time to think it to death. Decisions were made. The creators got to trust their vision. There is always a reason not to do something. When the potential is great, we need to find more reasons to say yes.

Evolve. Cuse’s advice? You have to be willing to try things. The writers introduce characters based on both the storyline and ideas they have for great characters. They know there are lots of pieces. The show will tell you what it wants to be. They manage accordingly. How are you listening to your brand’s story?

An AdAge post, by agency head Bart Cleveland, got my attention as soon as I read the title: Millennials Have Gotten a Bad Rap in Our Industry. Most likely because it was focused on the generation I fit within. And even more likely because it addressed something I feel many people think, but rarely talk about (in front of me anyways, because I’m… dun dun dun… ONE OF THEM!).

Every generation is put into a stereotype, some they are happy to be a part of… and some they work their life to distance themselves from. I could go into talking about each of the generational stereotypes… but let’s be honest, I’m a Millennial, and to fit that selfish stereotype, I’d like to keep the focus of this post on, well, my own generation.

Despite the ominous title, it turns out Cleveland’s post was about sticking up for his Millennial associates, and bashing all the popular, negative stereotypes… But I am going to have to disagree with his debunk of some major Millennial myths… as I see them as truths.

1. Millennials don’t like the word “no” – We don’t! (But really, who does…) And I think this is a good thing; it comes as a part of a belief that anything is possible. Look at the library of apps we have access to on our smart phones. We can speak French without ever taking a class. We can find our way in a city we’ve never been to without asking for directions. If someone tells us “no”, we take that as a challenge, not a defeat.
2. We have no respect for authority – Ok, now I won’t say we don’t have respect for authority. We do. But as a generation that has had the world at our fingertips – access to every piece of information and knowledge we could ever want with just a click of a button – we don’t rely on authority as much as our previous generations did. We ask fewer questions, we rely on their knowledge less, and we feel that anything they know that we don’t, we can figure out on our own. I blame this on Google. They feed us the false promise they can provide us with all of the knowledge we could ever need and answers to any question we can come up with.
3. We expect a lot without doing a lot – Also known as the… Get-Rich-Quick Syndrome. There is a lot of pressure on us to have THE next million dollar idea. We’ve seen that it’s possible. If you drop out of college, and spend half as much time as you do in a cubicle on thinking up crazy ideas, you could be the next big thing, and happily retired at the ripe age of 28.

As Millennials, we are blessed to grow up in a world that has ultimately forced us into a corner of seemingly negative stereotypes. Like all generations, we are doomed to face them, and like all generations we will likely be criticizing the ones following us as well (I’m eager to know for what…). Stereotypes aside, the point of Cleveland’s post is that “hardworking young people are an asset to your agency”.  And that is the biggest truth in all of this. Our unique generation brings something different to the table that I am proud to be a part of.

I think too many blogs spend too much time bashing other agencies’ work. I’m not in to that. What follows is not a critique of Weiden + Kennedy or Nike. It’s an observation of the industry as a whole. Using the recent Tiger Woods ad as an example.

It’s not meant to be a trick question.

Did you like the latest Tiger Woods ad?

When the Tiger Woods ad broke before The Masters, my reaction was visceral. It felt off. Too self-important in its supposed transparency and its tense regretfulness. This was before I found out the voiceover was not a recording of Earl Woods actually addressing his son. For a guy with an authenticity problem, that’s a problem.

The Marketing Twittersphere, on the other hand, erupted in a chorus of applause. Kudos were passed around for the agency, the client and, yes, for Tiger. Courage had been shown. Chances had been taken. Congratulations were in order.

When we evaluate creative, our measure is not whether we like it or the client likes it. It’s whether the consumer will like it. Will they be able to engage with it? (Whether this is something they can accurately tell you is another story.)

On the subject of “Have You Learned Anything?,” the consumer, apparently, agrees with me. Favorability of the Nike brand has dropped from 92% to 79% since this ad aired. The mocking responses are much more powerful than the ad itself.

That’s the short-term. And I’ll grant that success is ultimately measured in the long-term. Maybe this ad will act as the lightening rod that Tiger needed to get out one more flood of “yuck” out before moving on. And if that was the intent – and it works – then kudos are, indeed, in order. But my gut says that this was instance where almost everybody loved the ad – except, of course, the consumer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately. In this business, we have a tendency to spend hours (and hours) deliberating exactly which adjective to include on a brief. Is the brand smart or intelligent? Nimble or agile? Fast or really fast?

For better and worse, words matter.

It strikes me as odd, then, that there are so many words we just let slide. Tim Williams, principal of Ignition Consulting, points out that most marketing words are based on the military: strategy, tactic, target, campaign. The list goes on. But string enough of those together and – at least on paper – we’re at war with the consumer.

His bottom line? We won’t change our behavior until we change our language.

“Traditional” is the first word I would change. Webster’s defines traditional as:

An inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)

and

A belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable

In our world, traditional media is often used to characterize any media that’s not digital. And the word itself suggests “old.” If you search for traditional media on Google, the first return is from Wikipedia – which comes right out and describes it as old media. In marketing, old is where brands go to die.

Traditional isn’t old. And new isn’t new. We’ve all seen incredibly innovative television commercials and outdoor executions. We’ve also all been exposed to exceptionally tired Twitter campaigns.

But, if you need a game changer, who would go with something traditional? Especially when you could go with something new! And, if it’s new, we’d have to assume it’s… improved!

But “cutting edge” isn’t good. Just like “tried and true” isn’t good. Good is good. And any descriptor that – even subtly – impacts a strategic decision otherwise needs to be neutralized.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop – #Agency2.5  – in Chicago. It was sponsored by @4As and run by @TimWilliamsICG. And it was great. A full day of interesting statistics, fresh perspectives and conversation starters.

The #Agency2.5 workshop addressed how agencies are transforming for the future. One of the biggest themes of the day was the opportunity for brands to provide value. This is something that I believe to be at the crux of how we should be marketing. And, while this is by no means a new idea, there is a change afoot.

Value used to be provided post-purchase. Buy X to get Y. But smart brands are expediting that process. When “there’s an app for that” (digital or otherwise), brands can provide help and useful information pre-purchase rather than simply trying to persuade their consumers to buy, buy, buy.

It is a simple – but powerful – idea. We used to live in a time when consumers had a scarcity of choice and an abundance of time. That balance has shifted. A recent study from the University of California – San Diego found that Americans consume 34GB of information every day. Every day. It’s the very definition of information overload.

One way to get them to pay attention? Provide value. Done well, you might gain more than one time-starved customer. Provide the right value at the right time and you might just gain an advocate who gets the attention of their time-starved friends, fans and followers.

I recently had a conversation with a Creative Director who suggested that all creative briefs should be Tweetable. Forget the one page, give me 140 characters. The core of the core (of the core) of the idea. The concept scared me so much, I must have liked it.

I was reminded of this when I rediscovered on a collection of six-word memoirs. The most recent is called It All Changed In An Instant. The premise: authors boiling their lives down to six words. The practice is based on Hemingway. And the results are fantastic. (ex: “Father: ‘Anything but journalism.’ I rebelled.” – Malcolm Gladwell)

Forget the one thing. Shorten the elevator speech. Can you write a six-word memoir for your brand? Six words to tell the whole story?

Six words boil it down to the core. And, when well crafted, leave the room necessary for innovation and imagination. And whether or not you end up with the perfect six words, the exercise will help get rid of all the fluff.

So get editing. Build briefer briefs.

My favorite ad from last week’s #BrandBowl came from Google. Yes, Google. Whose CEO reportedly described the Super Bowl as “the last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America.” Let’s set irony aside for a moment. (Especially because Google’s ultimate objectives for the spot are up for debate.) Instead, I think the most newsworthy piece of this story for marketers is the fact that the Google Super Bowl ad wasn’t even a Super Bowl ad. It was a YouTube video.

And that’s important. The days of a job simply being closed are coming to an end. Assets are rarely used once. In this new age of continuous engagement, content is king and opportunities are everywhere.

A good marketing eye can identify a new opportunity for existing assets. In the case of the Google Super Bowl ad, “Parisian Love” had been on YouTube for three months when they decided they “wanted to share it with a wider audience.” Mission accomplished. It’s been watched more than 2 million times – just on the official Google channel – since Monday morning. I’m among those who checked in and, while I was there, I watched the others. The video featuring The National was also stellar.

The ability to identify opportunities has always been valuable. But with opportunities growing exponentially, content readily available and accessible technology becoming the given, the ability to identify opportunities in real time (and then activate the ideas) is a more important skill set to have than ever before.

In a way, the introduction of Apple’s iPad was a ringing endorsement of our business model.  We owe Steve Jobs a debt of thanks for being so optimistic about our future.  Full Circle branding now has a convergence device on which to display all our skills.  Especially advertising.

Pretty soon it’s going to be hard to decide what to use an iPad for, not so much because of its limitations, which seems to be the nit-picky focus of the technorati, but for what it’s possibilities are.  Magazines will no longer be static, but rich interactive environments.  The advertising possibilities will give us an opportunity to stream video, show photography, demonstrate products and provide links to client websites.  Video and music content will offer a target rich environment for sponsorships.  Even the most traditional form of communication, the book, will be open to advertising in ways never before possible.  A win-win when handled with some subtlety and style.

As inspiring as it is to consider the close-in possibilities, the next wave is even more of a ride. The iPad application base and technical foundation should rapidly evolve into large touch screen surfaces where we’ll be making presentations that make today’s Keynotes and Powerpoints look like cave drawings.

For an advertising person with an idea, this just could be the ultimate weapon.  We’ll now go to battle for our brands feeling like Ceasar.  iSaw. iPad. iConquered.