[Inside the Brand Episode] Finding your Hidden Creativity + Evoking Emotions in Advertising
Alrighty, folks! Our latest episode of “Inside the Brand | The PTP Podcast” is in the books and it was a good one indeed. We sat down with Andrew Fatato and Dave Haller, Co-Founders of Major and Co-Authors of "Handbook for Hacks." We’ve always admired these guys and their incredibly creative way of telling brand stories, so to say we learned a lot is an understatement.
Their ethos - The boring will not be forgiven - guides all of their work, and together they offered insight on tapping into your creativity when it's not an innate talent, dealing with creative imposter syndrome, and the importance of evoking emotion in advertising to grab the attention of customers.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts or watch the episode on YouTube (what, did you think we wouldn’t film it?)
Creativity is not an innate talent
“Everyone's brains are fantastic synthesis machines. They take what's existing and combine it in new ways, and that's creativity.”
Some people may naturally be a little more creative than others, but Andrew’s perspective is that creativity is not a function of innate talent. “At the end of the day, creativity is a willingness to do the work, put in the time to find that new idea, and if you decide to be creative in your work, it's making a decision to push past that first thought and find the untilled ground. And that's something that everybody can do.
Andrew notes that the reason they wrote their book “Handbook for Hacks” was not necessarily to prescribe how someone is creative, but to help them get from that blank page to the first step and take away the fear of not knowing how to start. “Once you get started and start playing around with some of the methods that we've written about, you start to realize you have it in you.”
Grabbing attention in advertising
“If I don't show you something new, then you're probably not going to pay attention to it.”
Andrew shared his advice on effective advertising, noting that the goal should be making memories and ideally helping people feel something different about your brand in a positive way. “Just go back to caveman times - the things that are new are the things that could be eating you. And the things that you've seen before and didn't eat you are probably safe. Part of that principle is the fundamental idea that if I don't show you something new, then you're probably not going to pay attention to it. Creativity as a whole is the process of creating that new thing that's going to grab those eyeballs and make you wonder what’s going on there. If we just make stuff that is familiar, it gets boring so fast and it doesn't get remembered.”
Dealing with creative imposter syndrome
“Deep down, everybody is always learning, always getting better, and everyone's ultimately a little bit of a hack.”
As Dave notes, “Creative work in general is coming from a place of humility that no one really has it figured out. We especially felt that way because we didn't go to traditional portfolio schools, so we fell into advertising accidentally. “ For anyone that may be dealing with creative imposter syndrome, they remind us that no one really has it all figured out, and they wanted to celebrate that. “It's definitely something that went from an imposter syndrome, almost crippling in the beginning of our careers, to more of our superpower. I think it's a valuable perspective to have as a creative - understanding that creatives felt just like you in the beginning of their career and still feel like that.”
Pushing past functional benefits in advertising
“If we can start to market things with that emotional benefit, it's going to be much easier to appeal to what actually makes people buy things.
Andrew and Dave discussed the “benefit ladder,” and focusing on emotional rather than functional benefits in your content. Andrew notes, “A car gets me from point A to point B, and that’s the bottom of the benefit ladder. But where you really grab people is when you evoke an emotion, making them feel something or appealing to a feeling that they want to feel. We know that all products are going to make us feel something one way or the other, so as we think about moving from that functional benefit of a car, getting us from point A to point B, to that emotional benefit of the thrill of the ultimate driving machine or off-road vehicle, or just getting your kids home from soccer practice, there's a range of these feelings that you're chasing. At the end of the day, we aren’t super logical. We want to do things that feel good and we're chasing these feelings. That’s why it becomes easier to get people's attention when you appeal to those emotions versus just the facts.”
