A sprinkle of salt

Another important lesson learnt during my week at eurobest is that best practice isn’t always best practice.

There is no science to marketing, (it would certainly be easier if there was) and extraordinary work is not something that we can churn out like a machine.

There are so many sophisticated methods we use to understand people based on quantifying data, but what really motivates people is when we tap into human emotion, which cannot be quantified. There really is no strategic formula to understand what people want.

Instead, experiential marketing should be seen as

An ever-changing art that flowers on freshness and withers on imitation
– Bill Bembach, Founder, DDB

And although strategy does raise the floor when it comes to answering briefs, there is also the potential for it to lower the ceiling—too much could actually be worse for creativity than none at all. The winning work at eurobest all had one thing in common: that leap of faith.

But taking a leap of faith and embracing our intuition does not exclude the need to also be strategic.

Strategy is an essential building block for good ideas, but in order to tackle briefs effectively, we need to give ourselves space. Think about the problem, know as much about the problem as we possibly can, then go and do something else; paint, swim, sing, cook—this is when our best creative thinking can kick in.

John Clark, the planning director of Coley Porter Bell said:

Strategy is like salt. The right amount can make your dish outstanding and bring out all the flavours, but use too much and you ruin the whole dish.