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Permalink Reply by Gunnar Branson on February 4, 2011 at 12:03am

I've looked at this discussion starter a couple of times and have avoiding commenting - in great part because I don't quite have an answer for it.  Perhaps this question is so difficult because it sets up a false choice of one or the other.  Is there such a thing as great creative without great strategy?  If one removes the more subjective modes of analyzing creative - such as, it is entertaining, it has wit, it is beautiful - and replace it with the more objective screen of - it persuades people - then it is almost impossible to tell how creative and strategy are different.

Strategy, as I understand it, is the ability to lay out what you want, then what you have to do to accomplish it.  When I was an "artist", that was how I created. First, I had a vision about what I wanted people to feel, think or do - then I figured out how to do that with the tools of an artist.  That may have included high quality language, images and design - but the strategic objective sometimes called for rougher, less refined, less tasteful or less appealing "creative".  

(biographical note: I actually was a starving artist at one point in my career.  I wrote six plays which were produced in various low budget venues mostly in Chicago.  Eventually, I decided to "sell out" and go into business, where I discovered that strategic work was strikingly similar to art.)

Does the creative, then, serve the strategy?  I'm not entirely sure.  The act of creating a goal, a vision, and an effective path to accomplish it all require the skills of a a true creative, of someone who can imagine what isn't there now, who can read the psychological desires of customers and shift their behaviors accordingly.

Great creative is great strategy...and great strategy is creative.  They are two parts of one whole.

To be clear, I don't mean to suggest that beautiful design, expert editing, or polished production is, in of itself, creative...instead, they are simply tools and colors available in a creative leader's palatte.  Nor do I believe that an advertisement is the creative or the strategy - it is only one part.

So - as a recovering playwright, my view is that it is ALL creative - not just the pretty pictures, funny bits, or witty language...and that is is ALL Strategy - not just the research, planning, data analysis, innovation and product development.

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