The Creativity Myth

In the advertising industry, creativity is promoted, celebrated, studied and sought-after as one of the most important tools we have at our disposal. If you think back to a campaign you remember from years ago, or imagine a brand that sticks out to you—what do they have in common? The likely answer is that they presented themselves and their products in a creative way.

Our clients come to us, hungry for creativity. They want new, bold, exciting. Our clients crave a unique way to show the world why their brand is the best out there. But, why come to BatesMeron? Surely it must be because we’re so brilliantly creative that no one else would ever be able to do the same things we do, right?

In college, I had someone close to me tell me “You’re not creative, you just do creative things.”

First, that’s nonsense, what is being creative if not doing creative things? Secondly, every single person—you read that right—is creative. I have never met a single person who wasn’t creative in some way.

Accounting is like solving puzzles. Customer service requires major mental flexibility. Figuring out what to have for dinner is no easy task—especially when you have to please multiple stakeholders. Even packing groceries into your cart is an artistic game of Tetris.

You may not know color theory or understand the hero’s journey, but you are absolutely a creative person.

Our work isn’t special because we’re mystical, creative beings, that’s just part of the picture. The work we create is amazing because we have trained and dedicated our professional lives to our craft—and our strategy. We’ve gone rounds and rounds experimenting, tweaking and polishing so creativity isn’t “just creative,” it’s strategic.

In fact, that’s the second half of the creativity myth. Yes, anyone can be creative.

Anyone can write a catchy headline. Published work shows time and effort, not quality.
Anyone can design a beautiful logo. Caricatures and doodles are just as powerful as Renaissance art.

We experience this a lot in our industry. Potential clients often need reassurance that BatesMeron is the answer to their creative needs. They may not see the value in hiring an agency when anyone could do our job.

A headline can be quippy and a logo can be beautiful—but if it lacks strategy and meaning, it will get lost in the crowd just as quickly as if it looked like every other brand on the market.

Yes, of course. Everyone is creative. And we are proud to be experts in branding, marketing and advertising creativity. We write headlines, taglines and brand positioning documentation 5 days a week. We illustrate and design gorgeous logos, brand elements, posters, icons and more for 8 hours a day. We live and breathe brand strategy, advertising trends and marketing best practices.

At the end of the day, the most important part of creativity is collaboration. We lean heavily on our clients’ expertise in their industry and learn from the problem solving they do daily. We find our best work is when we have a true creative partnership.

So, no more claiming “I’m not creative.” We know you are! Jump on in the creativity pool, the water’s brisk and energizing. We’ll bring the pool floaties.

Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? Let us know. We’d love to work with you and show off all this creativity I’ve been talking about.