GRAP 2412: Practice and Theory of

CREATIVITY
Lecture 1:
-Course Introduction
-Creative people / Creative thinking
What cool advertising ideas did you see over the break?

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Who am I ?

Nguyen Yen Khanh

khanh.nguyenyen@rmit.edu.vn

Office 8.4.5
Intro to Advertising RMIT International University Vietnam 3
If you need to contact me,
use professional communication skills!

•Email: State your name & ID, the course name, and
the nature of your query. Your email will be answered
after 1 working day.

Email Subject: PTC + topic (e.g. Assessment 1)

Dear Khanh
(your message)
Your name

•Making a meeting request, allow one working day for

an answer.

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Classroom guidelines:

• Respect the classroom/each other

• Speak in English
• Be on time for the start of the session
• Mobile phones/ipads/laptops switched off and out of sight
• 24 hour rule for emails

• No audio or visual recording of anyone in the class

Consequences of not following guidelines:

1. First infringement – verbal request to stop.

2. Second infringement – ask to leave classroom (to take a call
etc.)
3. Third infringement – request to meet privately with lecturer.
4. Fourth infringement – request to meet with lecturer and ASM.

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Technology in the classroom

• VW: eyes on the road

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHixeIr_6BM

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 “Musical chairs”
“Walkabout”
"No Bad Ideas”

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True or False?

•If you can’t draw you will fail

•If you can’t write you will fail
•Must take Intro to Advertising first…
•Must take Visual Language first…

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 Creativity in Advertising
PRACTICE THEORY

• Execution processes • Definitions and Strategy

• Creative techniques • Global and Local advertising
History and Trends
• Media formats and tools
• Applications/ Context
• Teamwork
• Creative responses to
advertising criticisms
• Personal Reflection

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 Are you Creative?

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 Assessments

Assessment 1:
Individual Task (Week 7)
-Portfolio 30%
-Reflection 30%

Assessment 2:
Group Task (Week 12)
-TVC Pitch 35%
-Peer Evaluation 5%

Imagezoo / Images.com. No year cited. Acrobats in front of circus tent. [Photograph]

Image source: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/72050590/Stock-Illustration-RF
[Accessed 19 Feb 2010].

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Main Course Materials

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 Quickie & Tute Materials

•A4 size paper

•2B or HB pencils
•Black thin markers (or CD marker pens)
•Magazines & newspapers (especially in week 3, week 9)

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Let’s rephrase the question…

Can you be
Creative?

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•Who provides creative solutions?
•Who provides innovative ideas?
•What are their specific tasks?

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Creative Roles Account
Executive
Market research/
consultancy
group

Media Planning/
Buying

Traffic
Management

Management Sales & Promotion

Services/ Dept.
Account Team
AD
Creative Director
AGENCY Graphic Designer

Copywriter
Print/ outdoor
Creative
Team Art Director
Photographer
3rd party
suppliers
Video/ Film
production house
Producer

Audio, music
studio/ Radio

PR/ events
company

Others Multimedia/
mobile

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GRAP 2412 is a training ground to become…

Account Executive
Art Director
Copywriter
*Creative Director, Account Director,
General Manager!

◘You will take on a different role each time

◘You will have a chance to work with different people
in class activities and 1 group tutorial
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 JOB HUNT

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Activity 1

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Which agency role is this relevant to?

“Good attention to details, team worker,

capable of trouble-shooting, passionate,
works well under pressure, willing to work
overtime and on weekends.”

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Expectations…

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Creativity is…

1.The need to build

RELATIONSHIPS.
2.Engaging people in
CONVERSATIONS.
3.Using 2-WAY
communication.
4.Keeping updated with
TECHNOLOGY to assist
your creativity.
5.Making STORYTELLING
the key.

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Take a 10 minute break!

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What are each of the people in this TVC famous for?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzu6zeLSWq8

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Creative Industries

• Advertising
• Art, architecture and design
• Film
• Music and recording
• Broadcasting –print, radio, television (traditional tri-media)
• Publishing (print/ electronic)
• Interactive narrowcasting – blogs, podcasts, etc.
• New media/ mobile/ interactive/ social networking
• Computing software, games and services
• And more…

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Creativity in Advertising

•Create (Latin) means to inspire to breathe life into

something.
•Advertere (Latin) to turn towards.
•Creativity is not defined within its own context but
with the production of advertising ideas.

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Western Cultural Model (Beliefs) of Creativity
Which do you agree or disagree with? Why?
1. The essence of Creativity is the moment of insight
2. Creative ideas emerge mysteriously from the unconscious
3. Creativity is more likely when you reject convention
4. Creative contributions are more likely to come from an outsider than an
expert
5. People are more creative when they are alone
6. Creative Ideas are ahead of their time
7. Creativity is a personality trait
8. Creativity is based in the right brain
9. Creativity and mental illness are connected
10. Creativity is a healing, life-affirming activity

Sawyer, R. Keith 2012. Explaining creativity : the science of human

innovation. 2nd ed. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 12-14

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Theories on Creativity

•It can be learned but not taught.  Barron 1958; Gruber 1962;
Perkins 1981; Amabile 1983; Alkin 1984; Woodman 1995; Ford 1995; Csikszentmihaly 1996

•Intelligence, past experience and creativity are

interrelated.  Guilford 1950; Getzels & Jackson 1962; Sternberg 1985

•There are personality traits peculiar to creative

individuals.  MacKinnon 1962; Barron 1969; Gardner 1993; Csikszentmihalyi 1996;

Pelz & Andrews 1996

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Types of Creativity

• Personally creative: artists, musicians, writers

• Organisationally creative: innovators,

entrepreneurs, managers

• Productively creative: researchers, academics

Detecting deficiencies and gaps in

information.

Making guesses and formulating hypotheses.

Evaluating, testing, and communicating

results.

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Left Brain vs. Right Brain

• In the late 1970s researchers discovered that the left side of the
brain controls logical functions and the right controls intuitive
functions.

• In 1980 Betty Edwards published Drawing on the Right Side of

the Brain which had techniques whereby you can consciously
access the right side of the brain when drawing, which helps
you draw or paint what you “see” rather than what you know .
(http://painting.about.com/od/rightleftbrain/a/Right_Brain.htm)

• Check out if YOU are right brained or left brained here:

http://homeworktips.about.com/library/brainquiz/bl_leftrightbra
in_quiz.htm?questnum=4&aa=1900&bb=4279&cc=3800&dd=95
0
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Thinking Styles that affect Creativity
Creative Team
Account Team Imagination
Gets the job gets audiences
done! attention

Fact based Value based

•Hard data •Intuition
•Facts and figures •Emotions
•Controlling •Values
•Logical •Morals and ethics
•Efficient •Embraces change

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Activity 2

• “Drawing with your Right Brain” copyright by Susan Olij

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smellmyknee/sets/72157623830967789/with/4562935494/

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Left brain drawings Right brain drawings

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smellmyknee/sets/72157623830967789/with/4562935494/

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Organizational Creativity

•As its simplest, creativity could be described as the

ability to create products or ideas which are original
and which possess a strong social usefulness.

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Organizational Creativity

•As its simplest, creativity could be described as the

ability to create products or ideas which are original
and which possess a strong social usefulness.

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Organisational Creativity

•‘Advertising creatives are not

artists nor auteurs, they are
business men… Their job is not to
explore the unexplored. It is to sell
stuff.’(Bob Garfield, 2003)

•‘I do not regard advertising as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhkpDUZkick

entertainment or an art form, but

as a medium of information.
When I write an advertisement, I
don’t want you to tell me you find
it ‘creative’. I want you to find it
so interesting that you will buy the
product.’ (Ogilvy, 1983)

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Organisational Creativity

• Purpose of Advertising: ‘to solve

problems of the client’
• Creativity can therefore be seen
as a process for solving this
problem
• Role of Creativity in Advertising:

1. Informing
2. Persuading
3. Reminding
4. Punch line, ‘Boom’,
X-factor

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The Big Idea
• The ‘big idea’ is a surprising solution to a
marketing problem, expressed in
memorable verbal and/or graphic imagery
(Lois 1991)
• It takes a big idea to attract the attention of
consumers and get them to buy your
product. Unless your advertising contains a
big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”
(Ogilvy)
• Big idea is a creative concept that
implements the advertising strategy so that
the message is both attention getting and
memorable (Wells, 2008, p.340-342)

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A common problem…

“Give us the problem, not the solution. Ask

the question; don’t give us the answer. Let
us solve the problem. That’s what you hired
us for. We want to help you get to the right
place.”
~Robert Solomon
on clients that just hire agencies simply to execute their ideas
(The Art of Client Service, p.108)

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Another Theory…

• Sternberg's (1999) theory on successful intelligence suggests

that creative intelligence can be better measured by problems
that assess a person's ability to cope with relative novelty.

• Finding the best way to get around traffic

• Bargaining for the best price in the market

• Fixing a broken high heeled shoe in the middle of a party

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Activity 3

• Problem: Your client

is a soft drink company
who has just received
bad publicity of having
the biggest plastic
waste by-product in
the world…
• What’s your big idea to
solve this crisis?

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An example of Pinoy problem solving…

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Quickie 1: In-class

Outdoor Guerrilla Ad

NO BUS STOP ADS or BILLBOARDS…

• …unless it is interactive or has something unique to
offer.

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Reading for next session…

• Felton, G. 2006 Ch. 13 ‘How to be Creative’ In:

Advertising Concept & Copy. NY: Norton & Company, pp.
144-151.

• And ‘6 Thinking Hats’ (See BlackBoard)

• (From now on, please read the weekly readings BEFORE coming to class)

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More guerrilla ideas for you to think about…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlBMF1MvAGY

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Additional References:

Amabile, T 1998, How to Kill Creativity, Harvard Business Review, September-

October 1998. p. 79
Ford, C & Gioia, D 1995, 46 essays on how organisational settings affect the
creative process, in Creative Action in Organisations: Ivory Tower Visions & Real
World Voices, Sage Publications, London.
Ford, CM 1995, Creativity is a mystery: clues from the investigators’ notebooks, in
Creative Action in Organizations: Ivory Tower Visions & Real World Voices, Sage,
London, pp.12-52.
Frenzen, G.1994, Advertising Effectiveness, Admap, Oxfordshire.
Janson, HW 1967, A History of Art: A Survey of the Visual Arts from the Dawn of
History to the Present Day, Thames and Hudson, London.
Ogilvy, D 1983, Ogilvy on Advertising, Prion Books, London. p. 7
Perkins, DN 1981, A critical review of creativity research in the 1950s - early 1960s,
The Mind’s Best Work: A New Psychology of Creative Thinking, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Rossiter, J R & Bellman, S. 2005, Marketing Communications: Theory and
Applications, Pearson Education Australia Free Press, French Forest, NSW.

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