Where does creativity come from?
This Promoter is unsure. Somewhere in the recesses of the mind, the imagination. It can be dormant, but it’s there – ready, piqued, spontaneous. Awaiting a spark, a sound, a sense, a memory, a connection. A release.

What’s the worth of creativity?
Creativity is evolution, progress, mutation, revolution, change.

This article is configured with reference to the Netflix documentary by Doug Pray, Art & Copy, an exploration of the impact of creativity within the US advertisement industry and ultimately upon society itself. It’s also relevant and inspiring for the Je Suis Personality concept.

The fundamental principal for humans is survival. In order to survive we must acquire the necessities to sustain life e.g. food, shelter etc. As mankind evolved, the system of trade was established. And trading, sales, marketing is the cornerstone of society to this day. Commercially, the global advertising business exceeded $544 billion in 2010.

Advertisements are the messages sent to the population by the vendors of the world. After WW2, advertisements were conservative, reserved, unimaginative, conformist, bland. They reflected the emotion of the populace. Depressed. In such an era, the sales of Volkswagen cars, being of German origin coupled with other Third Reich associations, plummeted. However, through the ability to look beyond negative emotions and encourage the message of practicality, Bill Burnback’s Team of advertisers (Doyle Dane Burnback) changed the perception of the ‘evil Beetle’ into the ‘small and imperfect’ car which became a GIANT success on American roads. They spoke to the populace in a way they had not been spoken to before. Empathetic of their everyday needs.

Mary Wells was a theatre school graduate who decided to shake things up a little more. She brought entertainment to the sales message. She began to bring flamboyance, and a ‘wow!’ factor to commercials. In the Wells, Rich and Greene broadcast on behalf of Braniff International Airways, she did away with the bland and declared: ‘this is the end of the plain plane… cha, cha, cha!!!!’

‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was the first video played on MTV in 1984. However, the concept of MTV as a TV channel purely focussed on playing music videos struggled to be heard. It was the advertising genius of George Lois who finally got the cable companies of the US to listen. ‘I want my MTV’ was the iconic message delivered.

A combination of empathy (emotion) with the consumer, speaking their language but with an entertaining twist (expression) is the secret to success in the advertisement world. It’s the ability to recognise ‘what’s already there’, the unseen need. One of the most ingenious US ad campaigns, (and the resultant punchline has resonated globally) was the Goodby, Silverstein and Partners commercial for milk. The problem for the advertisers was how to promote such an everyday commodity. A boring commodity in it’s stability. For years, the health benefits of milk were rolled out to the masses. And yet sales continued to fall. The marketing message for milk had become stale and sour (puns intended!). There was also strong competition from soft drinks and other beverages on the market. What was the missing truth about milk?

Ever woken, ready for the day, and discovered there’s no milk for your cereal or tea/coffee? Doh! That’s it! That’s the missing truth. The need to have milk for the morning. ‘Got Milk?’ The message is startling in it’s simplicity. ‘Brutal simplicity’. Blink and it’s gone. So powerful, it took on a life of it’s own. The power of advertisement.

And where does this tie in with Je Suis Personality?
Fundamentally, we are a creative personalisation marketing business. We are bringing something new to the marketing / ‘message’ sector. We are promoting two-way communication between the market vendors (B2B) and end-users.

Our focus is to enable the consumer to become their very own marketing beacon through expression of their personality traits and preferences for certain products. The end-user will be able to ‘speak clearly’ to our client vendors and vice versa. Our ethos is to have fun, be inspiring and promote social interaction. We will reward our end-user community with personalised promotions, fun challenges, blogs, social platform and personalised rewards concentrated at our vendor establishments.

As Lee Chow from Cliat / Day declared of himself, we ‘preach the rebellion to creative people’ in a commercial context. We are personalisation ‘subversives’! We are looking for creatives to join us. Consider this a job advertisement (like no other!). If you are interested, contact this Promoter at [email protected].

Oh, and let us know what is your favourite TV commercial and why…