The Power of Unexpected Creativity

Earlier this week, while working away on some slides for a presentation, I left the TV going in the background after eating dinner and watching a re-run of Seinfeld. Being "in the zone" I wasn't really paying much attention, but the music to Robert Muraine's performance combined with the laughing and "Oooooh. MY. God!" comments coming out over and over from the judges made me look up half way through his routine. I was instantly transfixed on what I was watching. As soon as it was over, I rewound it and watched it again. And again. Then I tried to find it online to share here.

What I experienced in watching Robert's performance contains a truth about building great brands.

In the previous version of the W+K Web site, Dan Wieden talked about the power of the unexpected creative insight and its ability to take people to a place they didn't think they would go and never would have gone had they followed logic and reason. In Dan's eyes, it is these insights that build some of the world's most powerful brands. They connect brands with people because they cause people to feel something emotional and that feeling was caused by unexpected creativity brought to them by a brand. You certainly can't argue with the success W+K has experienced based on this simple principle.

It's not just true or Wieden and Kennedy though. It is part of what made Cadbury's Gorilla and Sony's Balls spots so powerful. They took simple ideas grounded in the brand (Joy and Colour Like No Other) and brought them to life in unexpected ways. I think this is also why the follow-up ads fell short for many. Given the first for each brand, we now had much higher expectations and rather than surprising and delighting us with something totally different and new, just as they did the first time, the agencies and brands elected to attempt to mirror their previous successes with different executions of the same idea.

Using unexpected creativity is a powerful way to connect with people - no matter if that comes from a brand or an individual. It's something we need more of in today's world of advertising and brand building where so many things seem to have become all too familiar and formulaic.

Comments

[Adam]

Oh maaaan, daas gooood!

[Crawford]

Incredible.
Rubberband Man!!!!
Infuggincredible.

Thanks for the point and the thought.
I may be quibbling, but it seems like you're interchanging Creative Insight and Creative Execution. I don't know if you meant to, but it seems like a big reason why follow-up spots so often miss the mark; they attempt to replicate the creative execution and lost touch with the insight that was at the core.

Or maybe I just have gas.

[paul]

Adam & Crawford - Totally agree. I was amazed watching it last week and was not happy when I couldn't find it right away online to share it. I feel like he's taken bits of the art of the being a mime and combined them with his flexibility and popping. Crazy talented.

Crawford - Haha. Maybe it's the gas? Or more likely that I just didn't transition very well. You're saying in your comment much better than I did in what I was trying to with:

"... rather than surprising and delighting us with something totally different and new, just as they did the first time, the agencies and brands elected to attempt to mirror their previous successes with different executions of the same idea."

You are correct that I didn't bridge that they tried to bring the same creative insight to us through a similar creative execution very well. They should have found a new and interesting way to bring us that same creative insight. That was the power in it the first time - the new, unexpectedness and interestingness of it.

I was also trying to illustrate the power of unexpected creativity - be that an insight or an execution, and all the better when both. The problem with it when it's just the execution in many cases is that it is likely creativity for creativity's sake, which is not often a very good business decision.

Gorilla and Balls took strong creative insights and brought them to life with great unexpected creativity.

Anyway... take care of that gas and thanks for a better, cleaner communication of a bit I was missing.

[Lorenzo]

The video is no longer available.

Can you send another URL?

Regards,

L.

[paul]

Thanks for the heads-up Lorenzo.

It should be fixed now.

If they pull it down again, someone please let me know.

When will "they" get it? *sigh* Haha.