Issue 118: From Myopia to Magic

Turning creativity from chance into certainty: Nick Kendall on making magic repeatable.

When I was a child, I looked through a glass darkly… well, definitely myopically.

When I was just 21, all I thought about was how to make an ad… my ad. I did not care for what or to what effect!

Gradually, my horizon broadened to wanting to make a campaign.

When I was 25, I made ‘Why take Liberty’s’. I still love the image of Eddie Kidd’s Levi jacket lined with Liberty print.

As I grew, so did my ambition. I wanted to lead the creation of such a campaign; lead through thinking, that is.

‘The Cream of Manchester' for Boddingtons, and ‘Dedicated to Pleasure’ for Haagen Dazs, are testimonies to the power of my hubris.

Later, I went on to develop big Brand Ideas. Ideas that would travel across media, across time, across cultures, across communications, and even into innovation and internal culture. ‘Keep Walking’ for Johnnie Walker still strides around the world.

Finally, as I was given the chance to prove myself as Head of Planning, my horizons broadened further still to understand how to inspire others to do the creating.

In retrospect, I learned to see not myopically, but ‘generously’.
I realised the biggest triumph of my alma mater, BBH (where I worked as a planner for 28 years), was to turn ‘intelligence into magic’ again and again and again. Year after year. One generation after another. Across global offices.

This secret sauce is the true legacy of Messrs Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty.

They built a culture of creativity. They built an operating system for magic. They built a factory of ideas.

It is the lessons learned from this that we draw on now at The Business of Creativity to offer our creative transformation consultancy.

The process is three simple steps:

• • Step One. Help clients define their creative philosophy. BBH’s was rooted in ‘when the world zigs, zag’. What is yours?

     

  • Step Two. Help clients build the processes that bring that philosophy to life (not constrain it).

    How you develop your ‘intelligence’, how it shapes the brief, and how ideas are briefed, developed and signed off.

     

  • Step Three. Help clients build a culture that sustains it. How you create the behaviours and practices that make the philosophy real. How you recruit and develop the right talent. How you reward the people who live it and lead it.

And, of course, then measure it. Bake it into how you behave.

More and more businesses are striving not just for efficiency, but for growth. CEOs are seeing that creativity is a core capability to drive that growth. This is even more true in an AI world.

Those businesses are looking to create not just one-off moonshots of brilliance, but the consistent harnessing of the power of creativity.

It’s nice to do one-offs. It’s lovely to do a campaign. It’s great to do an idea that inspires everything you do.

But today it’s an imperative to do it consistently - to build a culture of creativity for growth.

We would love to help businesses on that journey.

Nick Kendall is a leading brand planner and former Head of Strategy at BBH. He created the IPA Excellence Diploma, is an IPA President’s Medal recipient, and an Advisor at The Business of Creativity.