Open House: Archives

I led another workshop at School of Visual concepts on Wednesday, this time exclusively attended by 17 Starbucks marketers who came in from all around the country to attend (including: New York, Miami, Denver, San Diego, Indianapolis, Chicago), as well as a few from the Seattle HQ.

We were mainly talking about creative briefs, but there were some interesting discussions about how to set up great creative. And one of the themes that resonated throughout the day was about articulating key "tensions" that the creative work is then asked to reconcile. This is certainly true for the brand identity work we recently completed for Woodland Park Zoo, in which we had to create a mark that reconciles the tension between "conservation leader" (read: science-y) and "engaging experience" (read: fun). For us, the concept that reconciles that tension is wonder. And wonder is at the heart of the new identity. That sense of awe you get when you're allowed up-close access to a wild animal.

Here's another one we discussed in the workshop: the celebrated "Swagger Wagon" campaign for Toyota. The tension reconciled here, through humor, is between "embarrassing stigma" and "pure utility."

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sienna

Creative is the silver bullet that can solve what often seems to be unsolvable tensions. And a great creative brief can set that tension up, articulating it in a way that inspires killer ideas.