Retail

Did technology kill good old creativity?


By Shubhranshu Singh

I joined Hindustan Lever as a management trainee in the year 1999. In the last summer of the 20th century, judgement and intuition were counted as pre-requisites for brand building. Instinctive acumen and an appreciative eye for creative were the core competencies. Hiring for these competencies and then training for skills was the mantra.

How green was my valley then!

In a period of less than two decades, the enormous change that has occurred has made the world an entirely different place. Its rapidity has been such that hardly any gestation was permitted. Even a cursory glance at the number of years of existence will show us how much has happened and how fast. Snapchat is 7 years old. Twitter not yet a teenager at 12. Facebook just into it at 14. Google is 20 as is Netflix. Amazon has been around for 24 years.

With all-pervasive internet and mobile technologies the pace, scale and impact of creative stimulus has undergone a profound change. Multiple tools, humongous data sets, new combinatorial class of algorithmic assets and an always on ecosystem are expanding possibilities and automating delivery.

We should applaud this development. For the first time in history, MarTech is allowing MarComm to be something better than an intrusion. The change is here. It is of mythical proportion but not apocalyptic.

But if we are to evolve creative, some extinction is par for the course.

The consumers and audiences are our allies. They are also making sense of a new world. As marketers, we must ensure our communication creates a pattern of meaning for them, in turn building brands. The brand is the explanation, the channel and the moral of the story all put together.

Technology has allowed creativity to happen on a larger canvas. Both for craft as well as domain, the larger the universe, the more connections are possible. Manolo Blahnik may look at Goya’s painting and medieval gardens to find inspiration for shoes. Picasso’s exposure to African art made him pioneer cubism. Charles Handy married sociology, anthropology and economics to create management literature about corporate culture. Likewise technology allows more cross pollination, osmosis and synthesis.

Creativity is about permutations and combinations. Technology accelerates the process. The entirety of human knowledge is available to all.


Today each individual is a creator. It has led to a glut of imitative and inconsequential content but technology deserves huge credit for lifting the barriers that inhibit creativity. From the days of the first printing press to the studios of Hollywood every bit of content was controlled by a systemic machine. There were gatekeepers and owners. So, the creator had to be accepted by the bureaucracy that controlled the systemic machine before getting any exposure at all. Even past the gate, the content was surrendered to the system. Owned, fixed, immutable. Not to be touched or changed. The audience were powerless habitués with no rights. It made life so predictable and set. The world of ideas was crystallised, formatted, ordered, appointed and controlled by a few.

What technology has done has rid it of being prescriptive. No elite machine processes it. The very concept of meme is about free replication and enhanced growth. Therefore Vincent van Gogh, Nikola Tesla, Franz Kafka or Richard Bach would not have had to face continuous rejection in this new world. Low cost attempt, high accessibility and rapid actualisation are now the norm.

In this world, everything is in abundant supply and it is cleaning up advertising fed on years of lazy marketing. It is killing vanity, insincerity, puffery and gimmickry.

The one irreversible change has been awareness, access, and transaction, all in real time. This has meant quick seek and quick serve. Shorter and even shorter creatives are demanded. Zero second video is a reality. Floods of big creative reservoirs have changed to drip irrigation. Always on.

Never a flood. Never a drought.

There has also been a welcome revolution in continuous measurement. It allows for ruthless re-prioritisation.

Recognize that inertial, legacy minded attitudes are not an alternative. They are the highway to oblivion. Audiences will create their own media plans. Reach needs a marriage with cut through. A new suite of reskilled basics is in action. It spans art, copy, videography, editing, looping and story framing.

The summer of 1999 seems a millennium ago.

(The author is a marketer who writes on brand building. Previously EVP and head of marketing Star Sports. Views expressed are personal)





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