Issue 5: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

OPINION / IDEAS

Make it brief: the secret to great creative work

💬Sir John Hegarty

When The Rolling Stones were commissioning the cover for their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, Andy Warhol, the pop art supremo, was in the frame to create it. Mick Jagger wrote to the artist to set the work in motion. His letter contained three paragraphs (and six sentences). It went something like this.

• Par 1:
  Glad you can do the art-work.
  Here are some materials that will help.
• Par 2:
  Create whatever you want.
  But let us know how much money you’d like.
• Par 3:
  Don’t worry about how long it’ll take (even if my management team chase you).

The greatest and most enduring products, services and campaigns in history all trace their origins to a strong brief. A brief is good if it’s simple, but even better if it’s memorable. When designers were creating the Citröen 2CV, part of the brief was to build a vehicle that would allow a farmer to traverse a ploughed field with a box of eggs in the back without a single one breaking. The story might be apocryphal, but it’s supremely memorable. As with Jagger’s note, it conveys key things to its recipient. Readers understand that the car must be simple, built for agriculture, robust, as well as comfortable. Briefs like this capture the imagination – and result in brilliance.

Capturing ambition

When writing a brief, it’s vital to include ambition. When passing information and writing functionally, there’s often a temptation to be perfunctory. But for briefs to get the most out of creatives, they need to stir the imagination. That’s exactly what London department store Harrods did when it commissioned creative agency Leagas Delaney to publicise its sale. The creatives dialled up the element of ambition in the brief with the insight that a Harrods sale should surpass all others. So, the end line was born: “There is only one Harrods. There is only one sale.” This work helped position the store as being at the pinnacle of the city’s retail scene. This went far beyond what the client had asked for in the first instance.

If you’re writing a brief this week, here’s a recap. Make it simple, make it memorable, and make sure it captures the imagination of the reader. If you’re stuck, just use Jagger’s letter as a template. The brief is the cornerstone of great creative work.

Less screen, anyone?
Contributor: Matthias Oesterle / Alamy Stock Photo

BARCELONA / TECH

Mobilising for the smartphone 

The GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC) opened yesterday. The size and stature of the trade show has increased in concert with the rise of the smartphone – and attests to the device’s grip on our attention. But with a plethora of augmented and virtual reality headsets poised to enter the market in a meaningful way, is the smartphone still smart enough? Lucie Greene, founder and CEO of Light Years, a futures consultancy, thinks that a move away from screens is in the works.

“Designers are exploring ways to transcend the smartphone, or at least configure a way to move beyond the screen,” she says. “The intention is to free people up to interact with the wider world in real time. The future of mobile is about retaining all its positive capacities, but escaping the pitfalls of screen focus.” Greene cites Jony Ive as one proponent. The former Apple design chief is reportedly in talks with OpenAI to create an AI-powered successor to the smartphone. One that is likely to open up new frontiers for creativity. Now that sounds smart.

CREATIVE HACK / INSPIRATION

Creativity hack: find inspiration in everything

Contributor: Clo’e Floirat

Unplug the headphones. Discard the device. The world is your muse.

GLOBAL / HEALTH 

Sleep will make you more creative

Burning the candle at both ends used to be a boast. But now professionals are more likely to take pride in a solid eight hours. The reason for this shift in attitudes might be the reams of research that have been released in recent years. Evidence points to poor sleep being the cause of (among other things) obesity, depression and premature death. It ruins your relationships, and stunts your career. Beyond this, a raft of sleep-related evangelists is offering training that helps big companies replenish frazzled employees. Among the most recognised is Nancy H. Rothstein, who bills herself as The Sleep Ambassador. Chief among sleep’s benefits is how it restores peoples’ ability to be creative. MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers found that the moment when people drift between sleep and waking (a state known as sleep onset) the creative mind is more active than usual. The experiment also showed that when people were prompted to dream about a specific topic, they performed with more creativity when asked to perform tasks around it later. Faced with a knotty creative problem? Hit snooze.

ASIA / DEFENCE

Coiled for action 

Slither to succeed
Contributor: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo

Today US and Thai military forces will coordinate a mass manoeuvre that involves some 10,000 troops from 30 nations. Cobra Gold was launched in 1982 and is one of the world’s longest running war games. Strategically, it seems more important than ever – the US will want to solidify alliances in the region as competition with China intensifies. The operation’s snake-inspired codename tells another story: how vital comms is in modern conflict. The names given to military operations signify the overriding message generals wish to impart to the public. The late Professor Ray Eldon Hiebert, founding dean of the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland put it well, writing that: “In the end, it is no longer enough just to be strong. Now it is necessary to communicate. To win a war today, government not only has to win on the battlefield, it must also win the minds of its public.” As in branding and comms: a snappy name can turn the tide.

LONDON / ADVERTISING

Remote control

Has broadcast lost its lustre? Analysts seem to take a dim view where the fortunes of TV are concerned, citing a decline in viewing figures, ad revenue and expected layoffs. Attendees will be gathering this evening at Campaign’s TV Advertising Summit to debate the future of the box. Amidst the challenges, there’s more brightness to the picture than most people realise. TV advertising outpaces all other forms in terms of effectiveness according to research by ThinkBox. When the right medium is combined with storytelling, truth, and creativity – it’s impossible to switch the channel.

Still bright: A Panasonic Quintrix II portable color TV set
Contributor: Robert K. Chin / Alamy Stock Photo