#marketresearch

Call us biased, we’ve always thought there is real dough (value) to be made through play and unleashing your inner child, but we just love this one-of-a-kind market research study: ‘Imagination is a Super Power’ – by the smart cookies over at PLAY-DOH and the wondrously colourful champion of play, Emma Worrollo, founder of the Playful Den.

We particularly like Tamara Grindrod’s, Hasbro global play leader & SVP, comment: “…embracing freedom from failure as a child unlocks the free flow of imagination and creativity. If you don’t like how something is turning out, don’t be afraid to squish it and start again. That confidence building in childhood inspires adults to explore new possibilities and take on challenges, freeing minds to think differently. From our perspective, the solutions to today’s challenges haven’t yet been imagined.” (One life lesson learned!)

And also this one from study participant Jason Loik, toy inventor and sculptor: “Imagination is what you have going on upstairs. Creativity is the ability to turn imagination into actuality.”

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/emmaworrollo_develop-your-imagination-muscle-play-doh-activity-7120892050706685952-Ou3r?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

#fintech

Moving on to another play-fuelled creative idea, our thumb is up for this ad by Nordic company Vipps MobilePay that featured in Adweek. It just goes to show that fin-tech marketing, or that of any other complex systems-based product or service, needn’t be (gulp) dry. The squishing of some pre-existing ideas, an injection of a little play and, dare we suggest, a touch of metaphor, and you could carve out your creative equivalent of a gymnastic-tastic dad. (Note, we said creative equivalent and not budget equivalent.)

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adweek_a-regular-dad-does-olympic-gymnastics-in-activity-7122220397533491200-pgUb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

#sustainability

Sustaining the playful or creative exploration theme, just how do you create a visual language around sustainability without using the same old tropes or getting too po-faced about it? This article extract from Creative Review draws on examples of B2C brands it thinks are doing this well, in the process providing learnings for B2Bs. It isn’t about ‘appearing’ to do or be anything; that way lies ‘scepticism of greenwashing’.

In fact, we agree with Koto co-founder and CCO Jowey Roden‘s comment, which gets straight to the meat of the matter in echoing our preferred approach: “We’re trying as much as possible to ignore the traditional [sustainability] tropes and find other ways of telling the stories that are really true to the products and businesses that we work with.”

[Not sure we’ll look at meat in the same way again. Although, to be fair, the majority of us NEOs are veggies anyway!]

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/sustainable-branding-design/?cmpid=232_os_li_pos_crell_susbr

#b2b #technology

Creativity, like play, is an iterative process, requiring a time investment and some long-term thinking if it is to have the right impact and be truly effective against its strategic aim. But, according to a recent post by Rory Sutherland, technology has changed things, moving marketing’s focus from effectiveness, which requires creative exploration, to efficiency and an over-investment in media automation. This value shift, or rather imbalance, isn’t exactly music to the ears of us creatives! So, we were heartened to hear from LinkedIn & The Drum’s ‘The Art of B2B: Creative Campaign Secrets’ panel that B2B creative is firmly focused on effectiveness, sustained campaigns and making more human connections. This certainly reflects our focus!

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rorysutherland_this-tweet-originally-appeared-on-twitter-activity-7122581062538403840-IRgy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.linkedin.com/events/linkedin-thedrumpresent-thearto7120442447905611776/

#cocreation

Transmedia storytelling isn’t what you’d call new, as this article explains. Despite its title, it isn’t about telling or broadcasting the same story using different media, rather it is more to do with co-creation. The idea being that you take an original story and extend it through some form of cultural or creative remixing. In this way, it becomes a new story, but one that remains linked to a common ‘storyworld’. Totally tied up with play and imagination, the article references the influence of Star Wars on this type of storytelling and quotes something @Will Wright, the creator of simulation computer game ‘The Sims’, said about the franchise’s appeal in an interview with WIRED magazine contributing editor Frank Rose:

“You’ve got lightsabers and the Death Star and the Force and all this stuff that leads to a wide variety of play experiences. I can go have lightsaber battles with my friend. I can play a game about blowing up the Death Star. I can have a unique experience and come back and tell you a story about what happened. The best stories lead to the widest variety of play, and the best play leads to the most story. I think they’re two sides of the same coin.”

Fan fiction is another good example of such a creative remix. The fact that the word ‘fan’ appears in the name of this genre reveals the power of this type of storytelling. The result of empowering people to take the original story and to run with it is that they properly engage with it and become invested in it. That there is one hell of a strong brand connection or relationship – and to think, its origins are rooted in creative play.

https://transmediajournalism.org/contexts/what-is-transmedia-storytelling/

#thinkcreative

To round things off, as opposed to wrapping them up, here’s one we made earlier: ‘The Latte-ral Coffee Cup’ – an exercise in play and way of tapping into your creative side.

https://www.neoposition.com/think-creative-techniques-the-latte-ral-coffee-cup/

The magic’s in what we do together. Play nicely,

Team NEO

[This content was originally posted on LinkedIn. Follow us on LinkedIn.]