Adapt

July 15, 2013

Poll results: Disciplined Creativity vs. Disciplined Imagination

Recently, we polled our readership about our use of “disciplined creativity” and whether we’d be better off talking about “disciplined imagination.” If you need your memory refreshed, here’s the original post.

A debate provoked this poll. We have a strategic process that relies on the art of getting imaginative people to let creativity inspire memorable breakthroughs. At the same time, we want to reassure nervous brandholders that we impose a disciplined approach on ourselves, not permitting Kreativity to veer off into lala land*. Branding is not just art. It’s science, too.

*Unfettered creative teams will sometimes come up with award-winning campaigns that don’t actually move the needle. They win golden thingies and silver doohickeys, but the client is left wondering why the warehouse is still full. See our recent blog post on brand linkage failures.

The poll results came back.

discipline

The overwhelming answer was (wait for it…) neither of them. Many people wrote that  “disciplined” had so much negative baggage (50 Shades of Nay?) that it didn’t belong on the same playing field with “creativity” and “imagination.” BTW, people were about equally divided between those two nouns, but that’s a subject for another day.

So, what are we gonna do? Stay tuned. We’ll show you in a few days.

 

Evolve