In design school, I spent many nights seeking inspiration by pouring through biology books, wandering kitchenware stores or exploring empty playgrounds. As a student, I might have been looking for a novel concept for an identity system or a new look for a cookie box. My odd explorations were part of a five-step innovation method I’ve used for many problem-solving projects as a marketer, consultant and analyst.
Biological evolution uses essentially the same process to deliver its inventive abundance, and biomimicry is increasingly a source of inspiration for designers. Although it took millions of years for nature to come up with an eye or a bacterial flagellar motor, it won’t take long for marketers to come up with brilliant solutions. Here is the creative process in a nutshell.
“While the universality of the creative process has been noticed, it has not been noticed universally.”
— Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, “Sparks of Genius”
Step 1: Define the problem
Contrary to a common misconception, a blank sheet of paper is a poor place to start innovating. In nature, things start to change when something pressures a system. Creativity likes a problem to grind against.
Select an objective specific enough to guide the process toward something useful, but loose enough to allow for the unexpected.
This problem is too loose:
- “Develop a campaign no one else is doing and half our current customers will respond to.”
This problem is too tight:
- “Develop a campaign that will achieve the following 10 objectives.”
This would work better:
- “Develop a campaign that leverages customer insights, will result in 25% of the audience associating us with X and sets the stage for next spring’s product launch.”
The risk of skipping this step: Without a well-defined problem, you will spin and never produce anything of value.
Dig deeper: How to make the time to solve marketing problems
Step 2: Spew out the common
Your first brilliant idea (along with your second and third) will be much like everyone else’s. People with the same culture have similar “first thoughts” swimming in their heads. Look around, and you will see evidence of “me too” everywhere.
Nature is lazy. It tries to solve new problems with existing capabilities. Only when that strategy fails will a new solution emerge. In this second step, you admit that your first ideas aren’t original. Don’t act on these because you will unlikely be innovative, even if you don’t realize it.
In design school, we were instructed to spew out our common ideas first — 10 ideas, 20. Act quickly. Sketch them. Write them on a whiteboard. Ask AI to pull common ideas from the internet. Get them out of your head. Do not fall in love with them.
This spewing process causes you to run out of “brilliant” ideas and creates mental emptiness. Your inner critic may now panic and make you want to return and seize one of your first ideas. Don’t let this happen! The real magic is about to begin.
The risk of skipping this step: You will produce boring things. This is by far the most common problem causing lack of creativity. Some people are too arrogant to question their initial ideas. Others are too impatient or mistrustful to spend the time to be innovative.
Step 3: Explore broadly
In this step, you generate even more ideas. This time, instead of repeating the common, you’ll explore the novel.
To get fresh results, you must converse with the world. This was this spark I was seeking in those empty playgrounds, walking around with my mind’s eye open. Give AI unusual prompts and see what it comes up with. Observing, abstracting, analogizing and forming patterns are skills you use to generate more ideas.
Your customer’s world is a great place to walk around with your eyes open. It’s especially essential for innovative customer journeys. Creativity flourishes where diverse perspectives converge.
An energy company took a busload of its best people from different functions and drove along its supply chain, visiting an oil rig, pipeline, refinery and service station. The people would take notes and photos and talk, all to come up with great ideas. Nature’s innovation thrives in a “nutrient-rich” environment.
When you get any idea (and I mean any — no editing yet), write it down. Great ideas get sculpted from lesser ideas. Nature is amazingly fecund in trying out options for the next phase of evolution. It tries all sorts of variety.
In design school, we were often required to produce 40 ideas. Marketers might not have the time, energy or funding to explore as much. Maybe try for six or seven ideas that emerge from your imagination late in the game. The key is to get past the common and into the unexpected.
The risk of skipping this step: If you don’t explore widely to gather enough creative inspiration, you’ll get dull ideas.
Dig deeper: How to find innovative ideas to fuel your marketing decisions
Step 4: Filter
By now, you will have a collection of possibilities, but most of them might be worthless. As it is in nature, most new ideas are accidental garbage and fail grandly. But there is a pony in that pile of stuff, and it couldn’t have got there without Steps 1 to 3.
Step 4 is the analytical part of the process. Your inner critic can now dig through the pile — this is one of its favorite jobs. Your goal is to discover which ideas best meet your objectives. In nature, this is analogous to the natural selection phase.
Filtering ideas by conducting research (e.g., polls, surveys, focus groups, A/B testing). Use analytical models that rate ideas against objective criteria. For high-stakes innovation objectives such as a new marketing strategy, invest in a lot of research and testing.
The risk of skipping this step: Lack of filtering and testing could result in something novel but weird.
Step 5: Develop
Once you narrow the field to the best ideas, test variations before finalizing. Here, you might take bits from ideas you left behind and add them to your chosen innovation. This might take the form of giving five different treatments to the same concept. The best development is done iteratively and as close to the real world as possible so you can get accurate feedback.
The risk of skipping this step: Not developing means you risk getting it 80% of the way to great.
From variation to selection: The key to breakout marketing strategies
Nature knows adaptive innovation is the key to thriving in a constantly changing world. Thoughtful, creative problem-solving enables marketers to break from the humdrum and develop solutions that will sing.
Dig deeper: How to use decision intelligence to tackle complex business challenges
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