Creative thinking is the ability to imagine beyond the ordinary, to be original, innovative, and think differently while being strategic. People who think creatively recognize commonalities, visualize metaphorically, modify and elaborate imaginatively, and envision the unlikely.

Certain behaviors promote creative thinking, such as looking for connections, observing acutely, asking questions, anticipating problems, and being open to new ideas and methodologies.

People use the words “creative” and “imaginative” interchangeably, but they do have somewhat different meaning.

Creative commercials or films can offer a twist on normal relationships or on things as we know them to be. For example, an apple may appear to be the size of a room, or when people open their mouths garbled sounds emanate instead of words or song.

Imaginative commercials or films build worlds with their own rules or creations. For instance, characters in an imagined world ordinarily fly by their own powers or might live on clouds. Some people have magic powers and can use magic wands to cast spells. Imagination builds unique environments with unique characters.

TOOLS THAT STIMULATE CREATIVE THINKING

Social media presents great opportunities to connect to people. To create meaningful connections, we now need to behave more like improv actors.

Improv

The improv rules that have gone mainstream and that can help us build stories and connect in social media are as follows¹:

1. (Shut up and) listen to what people are saying about the brand or entity, product, or service category on social media. Don’t talk at people—listen to what interests them. Then ask, How can I create a marketing response to what I hear?
2. “Yes, and …” “If…, then…” If “yes, and” sets up the engine of the brand/audience relationship, “If…, then…” should escalate as the relationship progresses, strengthening and heightening the connection and interest.
3. “Everyone is a genius. You’re working on a team, so it’s the team that has to be good.”

Brainstorming

In Your Creative Power, Alex F. Osborn, a partner at BBDO in New York, presented a technique he had been using at BBDO for years: brainstorming. The objective of Osborn’s technique was to generate possible solutions to advertising problems; behind his technique is the idea that an uninhibited atmosphere cultivates the flow of creative thinking. Traditional brainstorming is conducted by a group of people, so that one contributor’s thought builds on or triggers another’s, although it may work even better when modified for individual use, since then there is no holding back, no social inhibition. An effective idea-generating tool, brainstorming encourages creative thinking, generates ideas, and provides an opportunity for collaboration.

Framing

In his seminal work Frame Analysis (1974), sociologist Erving Goffman described a frame as a scheme of interpretation in “which the particulars of the events and activities to which we attend are organized and made sensible.” A frame, he said, helps us answer the questions, “What is it that is going on here?” and “Under what circumstances do we think things are real?”

A frame can be thought of as a conceptual structure that determines meaning—the meaning of an argument or the meaning of a situation. Take a school, for example. The frame elements of a school would include teachers, dry erase boards, erasers, books, a library, desks and chairs, and so on. Going further, a school scenario would tell us what happens in this commonly understood frame, which might include a teacher reading from a book in front of a class of children or a child writing at her desk. If a child were to instruct the teachers seated in student chairs, that scenario would break the frame—it would not fit the frame common to us. Frames offer meaning in context, and they help us understand our world and quickly assess what is going on in it.

We can use a frame to examine a brand or group, looking for insights on which to base an advertising idea.

How to Frame a Scenario

1. Determine the scenario: What happens in this frame?
2. What is the setting? What are the conditions?
3. Who are the people or groups?
4. What is their point of view around this specific experience?
5. What are their goals?
6. What are their assumptions? What are their perceptions?
7. Are there conflicts? Is there cooperation?
8. What are the outcomes?

Changing the Frame

When brainstorming to generate ideas, frames might inhibit creative thinking, since they are based on common expectations derived from shared experience. During ideation, once you identify a frame, changing a frame allows you to explore possibilities, to imagine what a brand or organization could be beyond its current personality or how it is commonly perceived. Here you set aside preconceived notions and explore alternatives. For example, if we go back to the school scenario, imagine teachers taking exams with students as proctors.

The As-If Frame

George Kelly, an American psychologist and author of The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955), argued that there are an infinite number of ways to construe the world, to interpret an event. In The Philosophy of “As If” (1924), German philosopher Hans Vaihinger stresses people’s reliance on “pragmatic fictions” to navigate an irrational world. (Also relevant is philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s Theory of Fictions [1932].) Since reality is not definitively given, we construct ways to understand the world, ignoring contradictions, proceeding “as if” our constructs are real. For example, scientists conduct experiments based on theories, which are not certainties.

Meaning depends on context; by changing the context, you can imagine a different meaning. Entertaining an as-if experiment allows for novel possibilities. If you were to approach a problem with an as-if frame, if you were to construe the world differently, you might gain a fresh perspective or a transformative perspective.

Seeing a situation, product, service, or behavior from a different perspective (reversal) can help stimulate ideas. You can use reversal to reframe a problem, to stimulate ideas, or to see it from a different viewpoint.

Reversal may also help you see different ways to define the problem.

• Select a topic, such as running or dieting.
• Select an aspect (elements, characteristics, components, principles) of that topic or the entire topic, and then reverse it. For example, when dieting one can eat whatever one likes. When running, one must do it lying down.
• Any level of absurdity is welcome. Consider opposite perspectives; look at a situation or activity sideways, backwards, or from outside in.

Osborn’s Checklist

In the mid-1960s, American artist Richard Serra began experimenting with nontraditional sculptural materials, including fiberglass, neon, vulcanized rubber, and lead. He combined his examination of these materials and their properties with an interest in the physical process of making sculpture. Serra enacted an action verb on a material; for example, a work could be the result of enacting “to lift” on discarded rubber. He compiled a list of verbs (“to roll,” “to crease,” “to curve”), and then enacted them on the materials he had collected in his studio.

Before Serra’s sculptural experimentations, Alex Osborn of BBDO created an inspired checklist technique as a tool to transform an existent idea or thing. Arguably, this could be the only tool you ever need to foster creative thinking. In short, Osborn’s Checklist comprised a list of action verbs:

• Adapt
• Modify
• Magnify
• Minify
• Substitute
• Rearrange
• Reverse

Mapping

A mind map is a visual representation, diagram, or presentation of the various ways words, terms, images, thoughts, or ideas can be related to one another. A useful tool in understanding relationships and organizing thoughts, it leads to idea generation. Mapping is a brainstorming and visual diagramming tool that is used to develop an idea or lead to an idea; it is also called word mapping, idea mapping, mind mapping, word clustering, and spider diagramming. It can be used to visualize, structure, and classify ideas and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making. The resulting visual map is a diagram used to represent thoughts, words, information, tasks, or images in a specific diagrammatic arrangement. There is a central key word or thought, and all other words, thoughts, or visuals stem from and are linked to that word or thought in a line from that central focal point. It has been said that mapping is a visualizing technique dating to ancient Greece.

Types of Mind Maps

Mapping is a useful tool for the writing process, design process, brainstorming process, or simply for thinking something through. You can approach mapping in two basic ways.

Automatic mapping relies heavily on the surrealist strategy of spontaneous free association, trying to avoid conscious choices and allowing associations to flow freely.

Deliberate mapping, although not totally controlled, relies more on the natural growth of associations, revealing the way your mind instinctively organizes or makes associations.

You can reorganize or revise what you have mapped based on new information, on a deeper understanding derived from the first go-round, or on something that occurred to you while mapping. You can articulate a range of connections or see links among items on the map. The resulting mind map is a tangible representation of associations that may reveal thinking or lead to an idea. You can rearrange items to create a new beginning (central word or image, or primary item), reordering subtopics (secondary items), sub-subtopics (tertiary items), and so on.

How to Create a Mind Map

Mapping software is available that offers templates, notes, labels, cross-linking, and more. However, since the nature of the drawing process maximizes spontaneous mapping, doing it by hand offers more outcomes. Drawing your own map is likely to increase personalization and to encourage a natural flow of thoughts. A mind map can be created in the following manner:

• Position an extra-large sheet of paper in landscape position.
• Draw a primary image or write a key word, topic, or theme at the center of the page; this is your starting point.
• Starting with the central word or image, draw branches (using lines, arrows, or any other type of branch) out in all directions, making as many associations as possible. (Don’t be judgmental; just write or draw freely.)

Each subtopic should branch from the major central topic. Then, each sub-subtopic or image should branch out from the subtopic, and so on. Seek relationships, and generate branches among as many items as possible. Feel free to repeat items and/or cross-link items.

Spontaneous mapping draws upon the unconscious. Write or draw as quickly as possible, without deliberating or editing. This type of mapping promotes nonlinear thinking. Interestingly, it can be the most unforeseen item or possibility that becomes a key to idea generation. (You can always go back into the map to make adjustments later.)

Deliberate mapping utilizes long and careful thinking. As a complement, you could consider note taking—writing down some explanatory notes near the items or branches so that, later, when you reexamine the map, you can more easily recall exactly what you were thinking.

Graphic Organizer

A graphic organizer is a visual aid used to illustrate the relationships among facts or ideas, similar in purpose to a mind map. It is a visual rather than narrative way to display information, making it easier to see previously unrealized and significant connections (diagram 9-1). Usually, a graphic organizer is a segmented structural configuration with blank areas to be filled with related ideas and information, which can be written (words) or drawn (pictures).

There are differently structured organizers for different purposes (diagram 9-2), including the following:

• Spider map: used to describe a central idea and its supports (how they function, their characteristics); a thing (e.g., a product, such as shampoo); a service (such as cancer screenings or roofing); a process (such as grinding glass for lenses or learning to read); a concept (bravery); or a proposition (education should be available to every citizen).
• Series of events chain: used to delineate the consecutive steps in a process or a step-by-step method of doing something and how they lead to one another (such as how to bake bread); the stages of something (such as the cycle of a disease); a sequence of events (such as how dropping out of school leads to difficulties).
• Time line: used to represent significant events, chronology, or ages (e.g., the incarnations of Betty Crocker).
• Cycle: used to illustrate a sequence of events that are repeated to demonstrate relationships, key events in the cycle, perpetuation (e.g., growth cycles, laundry cycles, etc.).
• Continuum scale: a low-to-high scale range, used to illustrate the degrees of something (noise), degrees of value (agreement to disagreement), or ratings (popularity).
• Compare/contrast matrix: used to point out likenesses and differences between things, such as between two objects (e.g., kettle and drum), between processes (e.g., constructing a building and designing a page), between ideas, places, candidates, etc.
• Tree structure: used to illustrate the relationship of subordinate levels or categories stemming from a central element in a hierarchy (e.g., types of tools or levels of government).
• Problem and solution ladder: a top-down diagram used to represent a problem (at the top of the ladder), attempted solutions on the next rungs, and the end result (the last rung).

Attribute Listing

By focusing on the attributes of an object, person, place, character, topic or theme, product, or service, you can find a characteristic that might lead to an idea. Attribute listing is a method for analyzing and separating data through observing and identifying various qualities that might have otherwise been overlooked; basically, it is a diagrammed list of attributes. It works deconstructively, breaking down information into smaller parts that are then examined individually.

It can be useful to first break the object down into constituent parts and examine the attributes of each part. For example, if the item under examination is a laptop computer, you could break it down into the screen, keyboard, and motherboard. Or if the topic in question is a tax preparation service, you could break it down into the online operation, the brick-and-mortar storefront, the name, the staff, the environment, their proprietary preparation process, and so on.

The Process of Attribute Listing

• Select an object, person, place, character, topic or theme, product, or service for examination.
• List the physical or functional attributes (parts, characteristics, properties, qualities, or design elements) of the object under examination.
• List as many attributes as you possibly can.
• Separately list unique or unusual attributes.
• List the psychological or emotional attributes, if applicable.
  • Think about the “value” of each attribute. Ask: “What is the purpose? What is the benefit?” Consider the positive versus negative value of each attribute. (For example, a heavy glass laptop screen might prevent breakage but add overall weight to the laptop.)
  • Examine ways attributes can be modified to increase positive values or to create new values.
  • Examine for potential leads to an advertising idea.

Using Attribute Listing to Enhance Creativity

• Choose a place or thing.
• List its attributes.
• Choose one attribute and focus on it.

Think of ways (from conventional, to unable to be realized, to ridiculous) to change that attribute.

CREATIVITY THROUGH MAKING

The process of sketching or making marks allows visual thinking, allows for discovery and for staying open to possibilities during the visual-making process.

Brainstorming by Image Making

The act of creating art—painting, drawing, sculpting, photography, or any traditional or nontraditional art making—activates several parts of the brain, sharpens thinking, provokes the mind’s associative network, and increases focus to a point where creative thinking can occur. When creating art for a solid period of time, you enter into a meditative zone of active experimentation. Creating fine art frees the subconscious mind from the advertising problem and may lead to ideas.

Spontaneous Art Improvisation

One of the premises of spontaneous art is that it allows access to your subconscious and liberates you from inhibitions—you create images without concerns regarding conventions, aesthetics, composition, intention, content, and you are not governed by the constraints of an advertising assignment.

Spontaneous Art Process

Enjoy the process without concern about an end product or finishing anything. Choose any preferred art medium—traditional or nontraditional, nonrepresentational or representational, or abstract.

• Start making art.
• Keep working.
• Move from surface to surface or medium to medium, as you like.

If you are not sure which subject matter or technique to explore, choose from one of the following:

• Everyday experiences
• Environments: cities, landscapes, oceanscapes
• Emotions
• Nonrepresentational patterns, textures, etc.
• Rubbings (creating an image by rubbing, as with a soft pencil, over a textured surface placed underneath the paper)
• Collage
• Photomontage

Storyboarding

Stories are a way for people to communicate and relate. In the course of a day, each of us tells stories to connect with others, to work things out, as a way of explaining what happened or what we are thinking and feeling. Some of us may even read or tell a bedtime story, a traditional tale or legend, or a literary tale.

Storyboarding for Brainstorming

Conventionally, a storyboard is used to plot out the key scenes intended to be filmed for a motion picture, television program, animation, or commercial. A storyboard is a set of sketches arranged in sequence on panels that outline the key scenes or moments that make up a story. A storyboard format can also be used for thinking through a problem, to explore its dynamics.

Creating the Storyboard

1. Consider the brand or group and what kind of story would best help you explore ideas or explain it.
2. Choose from among conventional conflicts: person against person, person against society, person against himself or herself, person against machine, etc. Once you determine the conflict, determine the message, characters, and plot. An excellent example, and an easy one to understand, is the conflict and plot in the classic American Western film High Noon (1952), directed by Fred Zinnemann. Classic fairy tales also offer easy-to-understand conflicts and plots and are wonderful sources for learning how to tell stories; for example, examine different tale types as well as the classic tales: “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Snow White,” “Bluebeard,” and “Hansel and Gretel.”
3. Consider telling a story where the brand or group plays a pivotal role in the story, or at least where the characters are involved with the social cause or use the brand.
4. How does this story unfold over time? Make sure it is coherent.
5. Alternate route: Find an existing story and see how your brand or group fits into it; for example, use the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Storyboarding as Thinking

Use storyboarding to see how an idea could play out.

Sketch the storyboard

• On consecutive panels, sketch key scenes of the story. Simple drawings are fine; don’t fuss too much over rendering, focus on the idea and narrative element. Your goal is to think with a pencil, not to render. Use words and images, or just images.
• This kind of storyboard can have as few as four panels and as many as 20. (More than 20 might be too difficult to manage.)
• Consider how the scenes illuminate the story, the idea.
• Highlight main plot points. Make the message clear.
• Use the storyboard as a thinking tool.