Algorithmization of creativity: the creation of interesting advertising without creativity

Anticipating resentment at the use of the word “creative,” I hasten to note that in the context of this article it is difficult to use a synonym. Fair.
The main idea is that you can algorithmize absolutely any brain process . I took the advertisement as an example to prove it because:

1. Each person can understand and appreciate interesting advertising;
2. Advertising is strongly tied to creativity and innovative thinking, which usually seems to be chaotic and poorly amenable to algorithmization;
3. I just love advertising a lot. And algorithms.

Before starting, it would be unfair not to mention that there are still some tricks in the algorithm. He who understands them - benefits to karma. So.

Perform any task, in fact, comes down to finding answers to “What? How? Why?". We remember from high school: Dano, Decision, Proof. Yeah

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What?

To get started, you always need to thoroughly understand the subject. For example, the auto industry: to create an engine, you need to know what an engine is, how it interacts with other parts of the car - you need to give a detailed answer to the question “what are we dealing with, what is it?”. Otherwise, this is not a car, but a piece of iron (although, say, the domestic auto industry is not at all confused).

In our task it is necessary to understand how advertising in general becomes creative. Since “creativity” is a property, this property should have certain prerequisites, the reasons for its occurrence.

How does advertising become creative?

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There is definitely a difference between these two examples. We need to formulate it to move on.

Creative advertising makes you laugh, shows something from an unexpected side, hints about the merits of its product - in short, it plays with our imagination, with our feelings and does it with the help of images. That is, we can say that creative advertising creates an image, and this image is fresh and unusual.

This allows you to detail the task: once you need to create an image, then there must be tools for this (as always, when you need to create something, there are tools for it).

How to create an image?

Tools for creating an image (they are the same paths) should be known from the school literature course. Just in case, let's refresh our memory:

• Hyperbole - exaggeration of the properties of the object.
• Lithoth, as opposed to hyperbola, understates the properties of an object.
• Comparison - the comparison of an object with another based on one common property.
• Metonymy is such a way of speaking about an object, in which not the object itself is called, but its attribute or other object that is closely associated with it. For example, by showing diapers in a pacifying advertisement to sleeping parents, we speak in a metonic way about the high quality of the diapers.
  Metonymy is not a direct tool for creating an image, but, nevertheless, it is the most important path in advertising. As a rule, when an advertiser’s degree of creativity is assessed, it is his ability to use metonymy that is meant.

That's all.

Any creative advertising consists only of these tropes and their combinations.


Hyperbole, exaggeration of knife sharpness


Comparison of objects based on the property "protection"


Hyperbole + metonymy

What property do you need to work with?

In advertising, this property is a unique selling proposition (UTP), something that distinguishes a product on the market and distinguishes it from competitors. The following requirements are imposed on this property:

1. It should not be a complex, a combination of properties, but a single and indivisible property. As a rule, the more indivisible it is, the greater the effect is the advertising campaign, because the simpler the information, the faster and better it is perceived. Suppose, in the framework of the advertising company of a car, to mistakenly position it as “comfortable”, it is much better to break up the “comfortable” property into its components and promote one of them. Here you can argue: “Branding!”, But in this article we consider only the issue of creating a creative advertising concept within one advertising company, and not the brand as a whole.
2. In addition to indivisibility, UTP should be as abstract as possible. The more abstract it is, the more material that can be used in the work.
   Suppose you advertise an SUV and UTP - throughput, and you think: “Ok, this is a good offer.” However, if you say not “permeability”, but “the ability to overcome obstacles”, then the range of images suitable for use will expand significantly: for example, a grasshopper or mountaineer is difficult to characterize as “permeability”, but “ability to overcome obstacles” is easy.
   There is a small trick that allows you to check the appropriate level of abstractness of the UTP: if you can find your property in the first three or four objects you see, then the proposal is formulated in a rather abstract way.

This algorithm assumes that you have UTP already. If not, then on this topic is to read the material in the network, the benefit of it is enough in abundance.
So, it is clear what creative advertising is and what needs to be done to create it: using tropes to influence the indivisible, abstractly formulated unique selling proposition of the advertised product.

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How?

What paths to use first? Of course, if you simply apply, for example, a hyperbole to a USP or compare an object with another, it would be difficult to call it creative advertising (from our definition, remember that it is not enough to create an image, it is important that this image be new, unusual).

Unusual - one that is not obvious and one that has not yet been. To find it, you need to describe:

• Properties of the advertised product, which interact with the USP. For example, in order to understand that a person has been running fast and fast, it is not necessary to directly see this, you can understand it also by his shortness of breath and breathing that is lost, that is, by the properties associated with running.
• The next thing to describe is the objects that interact with the advertised. Moreover, it is important to understand that objects interact with each other by their properties. For example, people interact with the “speed” property of a car with their “safety” property.

We must say about our property, without naming it explicitly - we must use metonymy.

Terms of use of metonymy

Since you need to describe a lot of objects and properties, it is best to do this in the form of a diagram.



All properties can interact with each other in only four ways: to strengthen, weaken, activate and deactivate.

For example, the “speed” property of a car, while increasing, also enhances its “fuel consumption” property. And, conversely, weakens the property of "security" in humans. Or, in general, activates the ability to fly.

To build the most complete list of property and object relationships, you can use the following rule: an absolutely any property has at least two links for each mode of interaction (by increasing, any property necessarily strengthens, weakens, activates or deactivates another property of its own and another object) . Thus, the starting set is always at least 16 links (8 links between its properties and 8 links with other objects).

The most important property of metonymy and the most important thing to be understood in it is the cyclical nature of its application . Having built the connection of a car with the property “safety” in people, according to the same scheme, metonymy can be reapplied, but already to the property “safety”, to see how it is related to other properties of people and what other objects interact with people through their property “safety” . Such cyclic application of metonymy allows you to create a complete and interesting image.

After the starting scheme has been built around the USP, you can finally begin to apply trails (hyperbola, litotes or comparisons) and observe the effect caused (using the described methods of interaction of properties). Then you need to focus on any effect, re-apply the metonymy, again observe the effect and so on. At this stage, using a hyperbola or a lithote, it is already possible to find certain solutions on the second or third round of metonymy.

However, we have not yet considered the last, richest trope — a comparison.

Terms of Comparison

In advertising, the following types of comparisons can be distinguished:

1. Comparison with an object that is a direct competitor to the advertised (“unnamed powder” - “advertised powder”).
2. With an object whose advertised property is much more pronounced (vehicle speed and bullets).
3. With an object whose advertised property is much less pronounced (the speed of the car and the cochlea).

Regardless of the type , there are the following methods of using comparisons:

1. Replacing the advertised object compared.
2. Replacing the compared object advertised.

Suppose, comparing other powders with advertised ones, we can ask: “What if there is no our powder, but only those that exist now? What effect will this have on the properties of our powder and on other objects? What properties will strengthen or weaken? ”And vice versa:“ What will happen if all the powders become like ours? ”.

It is important to understand that the comparison method is not at all related to its appearance.

An example of using the algorithm

Suppose our advertised object is a car, and our USP is speed, overcoming the maximum distance in the shortest time. First we use metonymy: we build connections of speed with other properties of the car (fuel consumption, driver safety, tire erasure, etc.) and fix the nature of the interaction (fuel consumption + / +, driver safety + / -, etc.).

Next, we build the connection of the car with other objects through its speed: pedestrians, road surface, etc. Bearing in mind that there is at least one property of each character of interaction of properties, let us think with what object through a property “speed” a car can begin to interact with a multiple increase in speed? The first thing that comes to mind is the Formula 1 Championship and the “participation” championship property, + / on communication.

Next we have to decide which paths to use. There are no rules about what paths and in what order to use after metonymy, act on intuition, because in any case, you can always go back and start from another path.

We will begin with a comparison, a type of “comparison with an object that is a direct competitor”, the method “replacement of an advertised object with a comparable one” (we will place the remaining cars, which, according to UTP, have lower speed, in place of our car).

Further we must observe the effect according to the scheme we have constructed: direct competitors have lower speed, then we can say that our speed has decreased. Remember, the connection speed with fuel consumption was + / +, so now fuel consumption has become less (because the speed has decreased). It seems to be nothing promising, so we continue to sort through the connections that we managed to fix, and we reach the championship. With decreasing speed, the "participation" property is turned off. In other words, if our car looked like all the others, then the “participation” property would be non-activated. It is reasonable that the championship can not exist without participants, so we can say that if our car was not so fast, then Formula 1 would not exist. This seems like a good concept, we will develop it.

Again we apply metonymy, but now to the property “participation of cars” at the object “Formula 1 Championship”. With what other properties and how does it interact? For example, “tribunes fullness”, + / +. Accordingly, if the "participation of cars" is low, then the "fullness of the stands", too. But this is similar to the final decision. Showing empty stands, caption: “This is how Formula 1 would look if the world did not have McLaren”.

All that we have done is simply focused on one of the properties in the starting scheme, but you can focus on any other and develop the idea along your own path.

An abstract formulation was not needed in this case, but we might want to use a different kind of comparison, and then, if we operate with the “speed” property, we would be limited in the choice of images. However, as soon as we abstractly formulated “speed” as “overcoming the maximum distance in minimum time,” we received a much wider range of images for work, one of which could be a teleport. For example.

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Why?

It would seem that at this stage you can finish: the tools are given, instructions are attached to them, I don’t want to invent them. But we, of course, want to be the best, right? Therefore, we will do a little more of what is required of us: we will try to simulate the work of each of our ideas in real life in order to prove the viability of our idea, answer the question “why will it work?”. To do this, we need to trace the entire path of movement of the idea from its formation to the achievement of the final result.


Diagram of the movement of ideas from the formation to the final result

The idea as if sends an impulse, which is transformed, passing through various objects (circles). How strong the initial idea will be will affect how the final result will be. Each stage of transformation, marked in red in the figure, has at least three characteristics that must be described:

1. The moment of occurrence.
2. Duration
3. What is implemented.

For example, for the stage of movement of an idea from the image of the product to the perception of the consumer, we must answer the following questions: when the consumer comes into contact with the image of the product, how long does it last and with what advertising media is implemented.

In addition, you need to describe each of the circles as applied specifically to the product: what the consumer is in your case, what is an instance of the advertised object, and what is the final result by which the success of the advertising company will be judged (this may be net profit, or increase in awareness , or the number of calls, etc.).

After these moments will be formalized, chase each of your ideas on this scheme. This will allow:

1. Rethink some ideas that may not be closely related to the product to avoid creativity for the sake of creativity (although it is permissible if you make advertising to participate in the festival).
2. More clearly see the whole picture, which can provide new material for building relationships.
3. It is argued to defend their concept in front of the leadership or the customer.

I recommend doing the scheme run the next day after the formation of the final decision pool, in order to refresh my head and more soberly assess the result.

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Total

Ultimately, we get the following algorithm for developing creative advertising:

1. Formulate USP, check it for atomicity and sufficient abstractness;
2. Apply metonymy to a property, fix the nature of its interaction with other properties and objects.
3. Use arbitrary trails on an arbitrary site, to observe the effect.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until a satisfactory solution is found. Or until you get bored.
5. Having formed the final list of ideas, drive each one through the cycle of movement of the idea.

Of course, it is not always the case that a good solution comes right away; no need to be upset if, after a couple of minutes of working on an idea, a sense of stalemate appears. Feel free to discard this decision and go back a step, because before you a huge number of options and tools for the study of each of them. It is a pity that this works a bit more difficult with girls.

With all this, dear habrazhitel, this algorithm should not serve as a panacea.

If you are already an expert in the field of advertising, you do not need to literally follow each item, perhaps in some places you decide to do differently and this is excellent, because the algorithm should only stimulate the imagination, give ground for further independent reflection.

If you are only going to get acquainted with the world of advertising, then the algorithm will help you get comfortable and not “sink” the first time, but in the future you need to take steps for further self-improvement.

For quite a long time I tried to find something similar in Russian and Western literature, and all I could find was TRIZ. If you are aware of such an algorithm, please write to the PM, it will be very interesting for me to see how other people have solved (or not) some problems.

I call in the comments the results of work on this algorithm.

By the way, I conduct seminars on this algorithm, where I submit the material in much more detail, answer questions and drink tea. If anyone is interested - write.

My site .