The Nature of Innovation
Whenever I sit down with my team to brainstorm we always start with examples of creative executions from other brands and agencies. This was always something I found a little sketchy because, after all, aren’t digital strategy teams hired to be original?
I started to question whether or not everything I had done had just been an imitation of something that had come before. It turns out that quite a few of my best ideas were based on something that came before. The twist was that, after seeing what resulted, imitation wasn’t a bad thing.
By starting with where others left off, I was able to actually become more creative. My ideas began to have their own identity. The best ones, in fact, inspired imitations themselves.
I guess standing on the shoulders of giants is a good thing, as long as your end goal is innovation.