“Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.”
Dorothy Parker
Second in the series of creative thinking techniques blogs.
“We have no budget…”
If I only had a pound for every time I heard that…
Being creative doesn’t need a big budget, or sometimes any budget.
What it does take is a little effort and the right tools to help.
This second creative thinking technique involves distorting the problem – blowing it up out of all proportion or minimising it and looking at solutions, then working these back into your original problem.
Let’s look at a quick worked example;
You are in charge of promoting a new product the company is launching and have been tasked with developing a marketing / communication plan. You have been given a £10,000 budget and are not sure how best to use it so want to generate some initial ideas.
So, lets distort the problem:
Imaging you had a million people to communicate to with your £10,000 budget – what would you do?
Or what if you only had one person to communicate to, and could spend all the budget just on them.
With a million people to target, you would almost certainly need to think about low cost, mass media solutions;
TV / Radio Adverts – what could you do to stand out and get the product noticed – Could one well placed / targeted advert reach the masses and create a lasting, memorable impact?
Viral marketing campaign – how could you get people talking about and more importantly sharing information about the product on Facebook / Twitter / Linkedin etc. Think Compare the Meerkat…
Could you print a promotional flyer with an exclusive money off deal for a newspaper – and get your flyer in as a free insert?
What if you could spend £10,000 marketing to just one person?
Could you produce a very expensive corporate gift / hand out that grabs their attention?
What about inviting your influential buyer as a guest at a high profile event like a sports match or film premiere – quite literally rolling out some red carpet treatment.
Then, relating these ideas back to your problem:
Could your final plan combine some effective low cost mass marketing with a top end solution? Such as a mass market social media campaign, kicked off by announcing you are attending a top class event with a sporting celebrity as the brand ambassador. Encouraging sharing of this on social media by running a competition for people who share a link to the product on social media. In return, 6 lucky winners get to join you at the event…
Contact us if you would like some help making your business more creative and innovative.
Campbell Urquhart
Managing Director
www.whitecubeconsulting.com
