interview with Arif Haq

What do you understand by creativity?

For my work in professional creativity there are two categories of creativity. Applied and Operational. Applied is the most obvious and practical type of creativity we think of like wonderful copywriting and beautiful design. It is the world of Creative Directors, Art Directors, D&AD awards and excellent creative ‘taste’. Operational creativity is more behaviourial and linked to an artistic way of thinking; being honest, self aware, and willing to fail many times to discover what really works. You will find this behaviour in all sorts of people who are not always thought of as ‘creative’. For example senior business leaders like General Managers make critical long term decisions with very imperfect information- what is more creative than that? Over the past decade I’ve trained people and advised on both types of creativity – they’re equally as fascinating. 

What common mistakes do you see brands make when trying to implement creativity at scale?

Trying to do the sexy ‘inspirational’ stuff while ignoring the boring administrative stuff. Implementing creativity with cool case studies, provocative external speakers, and inspiring leadership speeches all have its place – and in a small team maybe that’s enough.

But what you need to SCALE creativity in large organisations is the boring stuff; What is our shared language for creativity? How do we run creative decision-making meetings? What is the process that codifies our creative way of working? What is our specific criteria for ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ ideas?

Language, meetings, process, codification, way of working, criteria – I  mean this stuff sounds boring to most people. But not me – because it’s this stuff that does all the heavy lifting when it comes to scaling (this is exactly why the Heineken Creative Ladder was so successful, and why it’s now being used by ABInbev, Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo). Because of this I say my mission is to make creativity more boring, by which I mean repeatable, predictable and therefore scaleable. If a team doesn’t have these boring systemic things in place to be able to repeat creative excellence over and over again, yes they might achieve greatness sometimes, in some pockets of excellence, dependent on some exceptional individuals, but it won’t be consistently scaled across the business. There’s a brilliant quote from the sci-fi writer Octavia E. Butler about the importance of boringness which I use at the start of one of my D&AD Masterclasses, “Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.”

My passion is to make creativity boring – so please don’t come to my talk if you’re looking for Inspiration. Only if you want to be Boring.

What mindset must an advertiser have in order to have really good campaigns developed by an agency?

Stop talking about ‘creative partnership’ – it’s not a partnership. One of you is literally paying the other one so it’s clear where the power lies. Why do I say this? Because talking about partnership allows the client not to admit they have the greater power and therefore their greater responsibility in the relationship. The greater power and responsibility to ensure an environment of psychological safety, to motivate and nurture creative talent, to write good briefs, to give their creative teams enough time to do their best work, to deliver great quality feedback with empathy for the creative soul. Some clients of course really get this stuff, but there are just as many whose behaviours suggest they don’t really respect their creative teams, and/or the creative process itself.

Can you calculate the ROI of creativity?     

I mean OK – that’s a BIG question! I’ve got a few answers to this so bear with me

The answer that gets other people to answer the question
In terms of getting the calculators out I’ll leave it to the brilliant work of advertising effectiveness nerds like Les Binet, Peter Field, Tom Roach and Dr Grace Kite. Check them all out please.

The answer that reverses the question
Let’s ask it another way - What about the cost of NOT being creative? Peter Field and Adam Morgan recently did some research in their ‘Cost of Dull’ study that calculated £10m as the average cost of advertising campaign that wasn’t creative, fresh or exciting.

The answer with an example
The best case study to show the raw commercial power of a single creative idea to create value out of ‘thin air’ is Diamond Shreddies from Canada in 2008. It led to a market share increase of 18% - which for an existing megabrand is unheard of - but what I love most is that the idea falls precisely at that fine line between stupid and clever.

The answer that goes against everything I’ve just said
When it comes to commercial creativity there is a solid case for not being too creative. The industrial designer Raymond Loewy called it the MAYA Principle: Most Advanced Yet Acceptable which sought to give the public the most advanced design, but not more advanced than what they were able to accept and embrace. I think of it like Familiar Surprises- the strongest brands are the strongest because they manage to be familiar/consistent and surprising at the same time. Reminds me of a quote from the Nike planner Russel Davis who said something to Contagious magazine like “Every Nike Football brief was basically do the same thing as last year, but do it differently”. Being too creative/surprising all the time means you will never stand for anything – you have to be consistent. (I guess we’re back to the importance of being Boring again?!).

How can a creative agency still differentiate itself in 2024?

I mean shit. It’s tough. The last decade of agency consolidation by the holding companies suggests that creative agency brands don’t have any differentiation in the minds of clients or the companies that own them – but there’s hope. I think. Do these help?

Your homepage should never have a picture or film on it. Put a graph or a chart on it instead. They already know you’re creative. Show them that you can link your creativity to data, metrics and numbers.

Listen to others that have done it. In general I think that hearing from successful people about how they got successful is over-rated. Most of those ‘How I made my fortune’ stories are heavily post-rationalised. That said it is worth listening to people who have built agency differentiation in the modern age because it’s so bloody rare. Nils Leonard at Uncommon recently did an ‘Uncommon Thinking Masterclass’ for Broke Ad School (check it out free on YouTube) where he said something that stuck with me, “We are asking permission from people less ambitious than us to make the stuff of our dreams come true. Don’t wait for someone else to have a good idea or give you permission to make. Later means never.” A large part of Uncommon’s differentiation/fame is their willingness to find the money to just go and make stuff. He also talks about commoditisation, “If all you’re selling is time, deliverables, and content, then don’t be angry when no one comes to you for creativity.” Realistically is there another way of charging other than by hours? I’m not sure – but it feels like we need to solve that first.

Have a Point of View – One thing I try and do in all my workshops is time for a Silent Solo exercise – basically no talking, just individual thinking. This is also my biggest single tip for anyone looking to transform the effectiveness of their ‘brainstorms’ (uuugeghh that horrible word – but you know what I mean). This is important because I want to know what YOU think, not what the rest of the group thinks. So - What does your agency think? What is its take on the world? When I was a client I don’t ever remember being involved in a pitch where the agency with the best idea won – it was always the agency with the most interesting or sympathetic point of view that got it. Without a point of view, what’s the point of YOU?

Never ask a client to be ‘brave’. I mean honestly fuck off – firefighters and medical teams in warzones get to be brave, not bloody marketers. Why should the client be brave anyway? It’s their job they are risking, not yours. I tell brand managers never to be embarrassed about asking the agency for the logic behind the magic. It’s the agency’s job to ‘explain the joke’ if the client doesn’t get it. When that is done brilliantly, ‘risk’ is reframed as ‘opportunity’; to the point that the most creative, disruptive idea doesn’t seem risky anymore, but simply just the most obvious and logical solution to the challenge.