Unique Ways

Here is another one of my musings for the world –

“In the creative industries, is your individuality the most powerful asset you can own?“

I think, yes, and it matters even to people who aren't you.

“Nobody can copy what you see and what catches your attention, everybody can buy the same software. Nobody has your background, upbringing, plus your whole life experience. Nobody can copy that” ― David Carson?

“Just be yourself, there is no one better… My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off, and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.” ― Taylor Swift?

After leaving my job last year to travel Australia, I started to question why I so heavily use self-comparison for guidance and acceptance, I often listen to things I don't fully agree with and slowly destroy my own style, ideas, beliefs and values trying to align with those of other people. But I find if my creativity or ideas come from an emotionally thoughtful place, impossible to quantify as right or wrong—they are just a different perspective.?

Creativity and individuality are generally frowned upon from our earliest school days to prepare us for a career serving the feckless same-same. Over my own career, development has largely been training to align with normalcy. I've often self-limited my own creative impetus works, doing so without any external influence telling me it’s what's wrong.?

Is it a safe bet from being burned too many times? Maybe it's a little bit of imposter-syndrome creeping in. Perhaps I want it to please everyone. But it is more likely because 'the industry I work within' online is preaching to me through examples of what's good and bad, and my inner voice is saying –?

“This is the safest and most proven way if you want to fit in, so go this way”.??

I often thought that if a few people in industry hate something I create, but the people I am targeting outside of my industry love it, then maybe I am doing it the correct way. More often than not, the 'wild', remarkable idea is rejected and changed to align with another person's vision of what they think is correct because it's worked for them before, so they feel it won’t resonate with their own vision of what the target audience wants.?

"It's too different from what our competitors are doing." — A typical client

Well, perhaps that's the point if you really do want to 'earn mind share'. Every industry seems to be affected by what Adrian Hanft calls the wind tunnel effect. Even our own.

For example, I've designed many things over my creative career that have been rejected in the conceptual stage, so for one project I set free my rejected concept into the public by producing a life size street art project. When released on the streets the fun Prin cats were loved, laughed at, and photographed by many more people than the beige event artwork our team created to appease one internal clients' vision.

If we start to listen to our gut feelings do we risk failing? Possibly! But if we continue to create stuff we aren't happy with will we ever get to evolve into creating what makes us truly happier.??

“I always ponder, do we get trained by chameleons to become chameleons ourselves?”

Thinking back to a speaker event with punk legend, DJ and film-maker (The Clash, Sex Pistols and Bob Marley) Don Letts, he spoke about everyone in today's creative world being slightly vanilla by following consumer trends and popular culture instead of inventing their own identity, movement or own unique style.?

Don Letts –?“Counter culture has been replaced with over the counter culture! ...it's really important you justify the space you occupy—otherwise, you're baggage.”

I am feeling Don’s years of creative insight and connection have led him to notice most people today don’t really challenge anything, and most creatives or artists generally keep things in the safe zone, by NEVER being wrong or failing, creatives have created their own safe new norm.

“You have to risk the possible failure of a big swing for a big success”

Creatives often look to the corporate world as a case study for our own work/s. We remove any risk by looking at the past data or experiences just like these corporations do, for example, stockholder owned businesses, mainstream fashion, supermarket chains, banks and mining all avoid risk through past data. But past data quickly becomes irrelevant when it touches the future.

It looks to me as if we as an industry are drinking cups of coffee together and patting each other softly on the back for okay creative and getting along really well, instead of creating a safe, but riskier dynamic that helps us all push us into the uncomfortable discussions and zones about more unique creative outputs for a future audience.?

Healthy conflict from people's own unique creative perspectives can open up bigger discussions.

Somewhere along the way our collective have lost the energy and chemistry of pushing people to do "more creative" work and take more risks. One may argue that it's because we mirror risk averse strategies from the corporate worlds, or maybe we look too deeply at existing data to direct our projects. But when it comes to the crunch, it's more likely that we just follow paths of the least resistance, nod to the HiPPO (highest paid person's opinion) and de-risk a feather ruffling by not questioning why it's done that way.?

I have to mention Nils Leonard – Uncommon Creative Studio in London to provide an example, as they use their staff's unique individuality in the creative advertising world.?

Uncommon’s unique British Airways campaign with a full image with a cropped off logo, only last month shifted many agencies conventions of what branded advertising can look like. For over a month they blew every other reposted advertising campaign on LinkedIn out of the water, giving British Airways millions additional free PR. I was blown away by how many agencies then took the easy path and mirrored this creative idea to try and ride Uncommon’s coat-tails.

Uncommon made this bold statement by challenging conventional advertising. By not saying "we can’t do that because it never worked before," they embrace everything about being unique which makes their work stand out, and are bold. To me looking at their work it seems they're unbothered/unswayed by industry criticism or client feedback, and still they make clean, effective and unique campaigns that make an impact, which then win awards.?

?“...people who exist just in their category very rarely have the energy to make real change.” –? Nils Leonard, Uncommon Studio

This way of thinking “unique” could help a whole culture of creative individuals find themselves, bring ideas forward without being scared of rejection, it could open up more discussions and make people enjoy working in creative industries.?

Individuality can be a massive win-win for design and advertising. If we hide less and risk more, and challenge the assumptions of what works while the brief is still hot, we can ignite the fire in our people. It's proven that happier people demonstrate increased self-expression. And over time it will produce fresher, more innovative work that an audience will hopefully love or in some cases hate viewing (for conversation).?

“Greatness is achieved in the agency of others.”?– Quoted by Prof Scott Galloway?

So together let’s try to add a touch of people's own uniqueness to our industry, remove the fear and hopefully offset the regurgitation of the corporate data mirror.?

Cam Campbell