As the demand for more content on a daily basis becomes the norm, the topic around the brainstorming process and what tool is best for brainstorming quality ideas for creative content becomes essential. I can tell you—from the many years that I have worked with exceptional gaming and music creative teams—I would be focusing on one area when working with creatives & influencers: culture.
Creative Teams
The only way you get great ideas is if people feel safe to say them out loud. The tools needed to achieve great narratives and to get great campaign content are rooted in a culture where people feel safe to express ideas out loud and not get judged. When a team feels safe to speak up and share ideas that are relevant to pop culture at the time, the creative content is unstoppable and this creates successful new content. The reason most organizations and companies struggle with good ideas is that there is usually someone in the room that is the killer of ideas imposing his/her political will against the rest of the crew, leadership styles that create fear and narrow viewpoints.
I have been fortunate to have worked with some of the best teams in the tech industry and the common thread, in my opinion, has always been a crew that supports humility, kindness, and curiosity as those are the elements to unlock the creative process and unless you have a culture like that, you’re dead. If your boss makes people feel scared to throw things out for creative discussion the future of the team is in jeopardy.
This is called cultural execution.
Focusing on planting seeds with your entire team to create an inclusive environment will achieve more. If allowing everyone to contribute to the success of the team is a priority, the campaign will align with new creative ideas. Your team should feel safe, where if they have a new idea and can throw it against the wall out loud to see if it will stick and is respected for contributing, this act alone creates trust which equates to results.
Try to avoid this scenario: for example, a Sr. creative with tons of experience comes into the meeting and makes the entire team feel little. This is not effective and creates fear and is counter-culture to great creative campaigns and, by the way, Gen Z can smell it a mile away. Collaboration is the key here to creating creative authentic relevant content.
Influencers
Particularly when working with influencers directly, allow them to create without interference and encourage them to lead the narrative. They know their fanbases the best and know how to engage them. Fans, consumers are more sophisticated and smarter today than ever. I have found myself many times kindly educating brands on how the optimization of dollars spent for an authentic content campaign is reliant on reach and no one can unlock that better than the influencer. The opportunity lies in constraint and not to judge, but to support.
So, if you want to obtain creative content at a better, faster pace than you are now, creating a culturally creative environment is important, not to mention a great way to build your team for long-term success. This will help you to create an atmosphere for your team where they feel safe to share new relevant ideas. Making this change will increase the volume of content as more ideas more frequently start executing.
Try this strategy out today and let me know how it works for you!
