TOY Creativity and Marketing Compiled by Jaana Hiltunen
TOY Creativity and Marketing Compiled by Jaana Hiltunen 2014
Goals of Creativity and Marketing -module • Understand marketing from the viewpoint of small business • Understand the importance of creative solutions in business • Get an idea on how creativity is linked to marketing
Examples on Themes 1. Check-in round – what have I learned and achieved since we last met? 2. What is marketing and creativity? 3. Creative marketing solutions for small businesses 4. Check-out round – what did we learn and what will we do next?
Creativity in Business Settings
Stimulating Our Brains • Organize into groups of 2 -4 persons. • Each group gets a “weird object”. • Each group’s task is to invent how the object is used and create a compelling story on it. • Each group will also give one another group a few sentences that they have to use in creative way in their stories.
Dialogue on Creativity • What creativity is? – – When are you creative? What creative deeds have you done lately? How can I develop my creativity? What things prevent me from being creative? • What innovations are? – How do innovations differ from great ideas?
Ref: Koski & Tuominen - Kuinka ideat syntyvät? What is Creativity? 1 1. Creativity is about seeing new in something that everyone thinks is self-evident. 2. Creativity is about stopping to think. 3. Creativity is about listening. 4. Without creativity there isn’t openess. 5. Creativity is not mysticism but hard work. 6. Creativity demands one to focus on the same thing again and again.
Ref: Koski & Tuominen - Kuinka ideat syntyvät? What is Creativity? 2 7. Creativity and critical thinking go hand in hand. 8. One must guide creativity. 9. Creativity leads to outputs. 10. Everyone can be creative. 11. Creativity is created in social settings where people interact. 12. Everyone’s life is a “creative output”.
Quality and Quantity of Ideas The quality of ideas is fully correlated with the quantity of ideas. The more you have ideas, the more you will have innovations.
Pile of Junk “To invent something new you need imagination and pile of junk. ” Thomas Edison
Ref: Mc. Kinsey & Company - Ideasta kasvuyritykseksi Innovativeness of Business Ideas New Invention Success with features Products or services Exsisting New industry New way of operating The same as others New form have Success with design Fierce competition Exsisting New Business model
Ref: Koski - Luova hierre. Creative Persons are Multi-Polar 1. Full of energy AND desire to rest 2. Smart AND naive 3. Playful AND disciplined 4. Dreamers AND realists 5. Ekstrovert AND introvert 6. Humble AND full of pride 7. Masculine AND feminine (psychologically androgyne) 8. Conservative AND rebellious
Ref: Bennis & Biederman - Organizing Genius (adapted) Characteristics of Creative Groups 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Shared dream or goal Conflicts are resolved by linking the solutions to the shared dream The group is protected by a “guardian angel”. The group has a real or imagined “enemy”. The group sees itself as a challenger; “David vs. Goljath” The group members make personal sacrifices; freeloading is not allowed The group’s leader is good with “foreign politics”; he handles the relationships to the world outside the group 8. Group members are recruited with care. 9. The athmosphere of the group is youthful and playful; attitudes are overoptimistic and utopistic 10. The group has to produce outputs that are delivered to the outside world
Ref: Cameron - The Artist’s Way Three Activities That Increase Your Creativity 1. Writing – use free-form writing. Write down everything that comes to your mind. 2. Walking – walk and think (autotelic activity) 3. Artist’s Date – do something nice and enjoyable
Literature Flow • Watching television passively makes you lazy and supresses your creativity. • Reading books is active activity. Literature gives you ideas and sets your brain to a creative wavelength.
Ref: Koski - Luova hierre. Visiting Aliens Organization needs to: 1. Visit other places (visits to aliens) 2. Invite others to visit (visits by aliens)
Training Session: Simple Brainstorming • Orientation phase: – Use a weird question and try to find out answers for it – E. g. ”What is the benefit of an airoplane landing upside down? ” • Brainstorming phase: – Brainstorm ideas to solve a problem or create something new • Presentation phase: – Make a slideshow that has 10 to 20 pictures about your ideas – Present the slideshow by speaking 10 seconds per picture • Refining phase – Put the best ideas (e. g. 5 -10 ideas) to a ”idea pool” – Start refining the ideas
Marketing What Marketing Is and How to Do It?
Ref: Parantainen - Sissimarkkinointi The Difference Between Selling and Marketing Selling = personal interaction and delivering messages personally Marketing = multiplying the message. In other words: Marketing is saleswork that has been multiplied.
Training Session: Creative Ways to Do Marketing • Invent roughly 100 ways to market your product or service in 30 minutes. • Work in groups of 2 to 3 persons.
Ref: Rope & Pyykkö – Markkinointipsykologia Markkinoijan perussääntö • Everything is sold with emotions. • The buyer needs a logical reason and explanation to justify his emotional decision.
Ref: Kulovesi - Markkinointia rakkaudella (adapted) Marketing With Love 1. Marketing is directing the attention of others. It is communicating about the life-force of the company. 2. If you don’t know in what business you are in, it is difficult to influence others. 3. Marketing is interaction. It is about telling others that we are in the game and that our customers are invited to play with us. 4. What distinguishes you in a fresh and meaningful way? 5. We need people that can give us what we really want. 6. Success stories are you best marketing tool. 7. Modern day marketing is “hi-touch”. It is about humans.
Ref: Parantainen - Sissimarkkinointi In Marketing It Really Doesn’t Matter. . . • . . . Whether your logo is blue or red. • . . . Whether your brochure is glossy or matt. • . . . Whether your company name is in Finnish or English. • . . . What your boss or colleagues think about the texts on the company webpages. • . . . Whether your spouse, children, mother-in-law or dog like your brochures. • . . . What other companies are doing.
Ref: Rope – Suuri markkinointikirja Success Recipes for Marketers • Know who your customer is and market only to them. • Make a clear difference between major and minor customers. • Reach out only to those who really are interested in your product. • Innovate ways of marketing all the time. • Big changes are done with small experiments. • Do not cheat yourself by thinking that you are someone else than you are.
Marketing Concepts • • • Advertising Brand building Communications Database marketing Sales Direct marketing Product placement Event marketing Field marketing International marketing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) • • • Marketing research Marketing strategies Public Relations (PR) Network marketing Guerilla marketing Engagement marketing Social media marketing Viral marketing. . . Etc. . .
New Wave of Marketing • • Blogs Webpages Social media Webstores E-mail Chatrooms Search engines. . . Etc. .
Training Session: Infusing Your Marketing With Experiences • What kinds of enjoyable experiences does you product offer to your customers?
Ref: TOY-materials by Kirsi Sirilä, Tavastia, Hämeenlinna Region Municipal Education and Training Consortium, Finland. Marketing Tips for Small Businesses 1. Strive to be proactive. A small marketing budget benefits you most when you plan ahead and stay in control of your activities. 2. Keep your visual specifications (e. g. colors and fonts) same in all of your communications. 3. Collect information about your customers and use this information as help to plan and do your marketing. 4. Have a solid customer register. 5. Divide your customers to groups by profitability. Create marketing programs for each group. 6. Concentrate your limited time to profitable customers and those potential customers that seem to be profitable. 7. Interview your important customers at least once per year. 8. Do not price your products solely on the basis of production costs. Take competition and the purchasing power of your customers in account as well. 9. Do not belittle yourself, products or company. Be positively proud. 10. Reward your staff for succesful customer service.
Training Session: It’s Easy! • How can make my product easy to buy?
Training Session: Elevator Speech • Create an ”elevator speech” for your company or product. • Elevator speech must be short enough to be used during a trip in a elevator – 20 seconds. • Elevator speech tells why someone should buy from you and how dealing with you benefits your clients.
Ref: Collins – From Good to Great (adapted; modified version) The Hedgehog Questions What inspires us? In What Are We Good At? What is financially reasonable?
Literature • Pick 5 to 10 good books here. • Present the books to the learners and help them choose a few of them to be read.
Assingments • Assingments to be done before the next session can be, for example: – Make a small-scale ”guerilla marketing” campaign and test how to do marketing on a shoestring budget – Review your notes and materials on ”productization”. Develop your product further. – Read at least two marketing books.
Coach’s Contact Information Name E-mail Phone number Etc.
Book References and Recommendations • Bennis & Biederman: Organizing Genius • Cameron: The Artist’s Way • Collins: From Good to Great • Koski: Luova hierre. • Koski & Tuominen: Kuinka ideat syntyvät? • Kulovesi: Markkinointia rakkaudella • Mc. Kinsey & Company: Ideasta kasvuyritykseksi • Parantainen: Sissimarkkinointi (similar book to this: Conrad – Guerilla Marketing) • Rope: Suuri markkinointikirja • Rope & Pyykkö: Markkinointipsykologia
- Slides: 35