“Creativity isn’t a skill, it’s a state of mind.” – Steve Glaveski
With the rise of AI, being creative is more important than ever for media agencies. Don’t get us wrong, we embrace the automation, efficiency and aid that AI brings to strategy and planning – however, we still need humans, and most importantly, human ideas, at the heart of our media solutions.
Amidst all the AI buzz, creativity is being thrown in the ring, as if it will be the ‘last man standing’ when it comes to the human touch on media strategies and plans. But just what exactly do we mean when we talk about creativity? If we are hanging our hats on ‘creativity’ as our secret weapon, how do we enhance the creative outputs of agencies, to allow for bigger, better, bolder media ideas with real oomph and impact?
It is a question that we have been asking ourselves at The Kaimera Group in recent months, in preparation for the uptake of AI in our day to day. For us, we identified two main roadblocks that were preventing the agency from truly pushing the limits when it comes to creativity – time, and a lack of creative practice.
Time, as all agency folk know, is hard to come by – of course, getting client work completed is paramount. And when you are knee deep in day-to-day tasks and working to deadlines, there is barely a moment to be ‘creative.’ Afterall, being creative does not happen in an instant. Like any skill, it takes time, practice, dedication, and continual learning.
“If you want creative workers, give them time to play”- John Cleese.
Flexing your creative muscle is something we should be doing more often, but it’s never a top priority. So, how do we inject creativity into our agency, when time is of the essence and the to-do list is never ending?
We have implemented a creative strategy that aims to take staff out of their comfort zone and get their hands dirty – and it only takes a few hours a quarter. Our strategy is quite simple and inspired by our early schooling.
In primary school, going on excursions, silent reading hours and creative workshops were a part of your day. So why did we ever stop? Each quarter, Kaimera has committed to a creative theme that will inform and inspire a creative/cultural excursion in the first month, followed by a workshop in month two and an all-in agency brainstorm in month three – with biweekly silent reading hour throughout the year.
This quarter, the agency will be visiting Art After Hours and participating in a ceramic’s masterclass with our very own in-house creative powerhouse, Ella Dalton. Both are activities that are by no means remotely ‘mediary.’ By exploring creative and cultural activities that exist outside the media world, we aim to go beyond the boundaries of our day-to-day roles to expand our creative thinking and positively impact our innovative outputs.
And the benefits of our see-do-brainstorm strategy are endless – expanding critical thinking, building neural pathways, exercising cognitive flexibility, improving innovation, boosting team collaboration, promoting shared experiences, encouraging diverse thinking, and enhancing problem-solving skills.
Above all, we want our Kaimerians to expand their creative thinking by experiencing and trialing new activities that take them out of their comfort zone.
Magenta Porter strategist and Ella Dalton content & marketing manager at Kaimera