Magic only happens when logic is broken.

Fernando Ribeiro
Nov 4 · Unlisted

You’ve probably heard something like this — how would you solve the problem if the brand in question was a different brand from a completely different category? Say you work on AXE: how would you solve that AXE problem if AXE was Spotify?

My hypothesis has always been that whatever is the solution you got to in your exercise, it could be applied to your reality. AXE could potentially benefit from getting into music.

Strategists are often asked to judge what feels “right” and “wrong”, to make sense of things, to be the reasonable voice in the room, the voice everyone can follow and trust. That leads us to think logically: 1 leads to 2 that leads to 3 that leads to 4 and so on. Planning by the numbers. The problem is: logical thinking many times leads to uninspired ideas. Magic only happens when logic is broken.

Lateral Thinking in practice.

Edward De Bono is the author behind the concept of “lateral thinking” — the idea that creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. How could we apply it to our work as strategists*?

While vertical thinking is driven by logical steps throughout…

1. Starts from a rational view of the problem;
2. Progresses sequentially toward a solution;
3. Goes deep on one approach once a promising direction is found;
4. Only seeks information relevant to that one approach;
5. Each step is built on previous steps.

…lateral thinking is driven by Macarena steps, sort of:

1. Starts from different and sometimes unrelated ways of examining the problem (like the example at the start of this article);
2. Make nonlinear, associative progress;
3. Keeps finding alternative approaches, even if a promising direction is found;
4. Seeks out irrelevant information that may provide inspiration, or not;
5. Progresses into directions that seem unusual.

Vertical thinking refers to the APG, Contagious, WARC and IPA. It’s proven to be “right”.

Lateral thinking refers to data no-one is looking at. It feels “wrong”.

Vertical thinking makes sense, is reassuring and familiar.

Lateral thinking is illogical, slightly worrying and always surprising.

Vertical thinking leads to work that paints creative test result charts in green.

Lateral thinking leads to work research agencies might not have the methodology to test.

It makes sense for most brands to do what they’re doing until they realise 84% of the ads they produce is irrelevant**.

Now take some of the work we consider relevant in our industry. It didn’t make sense for a price comparison brand specialised in financial services to get into choreography; it didn’t make sense for an ice cream brand to get into sensuality; it didn’t make sense for Burger King to ditch the Whopper with this Grand Effie winner idea. Until it all made perfect sense.

The premise is simple, and it’s expressed in this quote I got from Beto Fernandez, founder of Activista, when we worked together at BBH: “Creatives and strategists have the same job of getting to ideas, they just use different tools”.

Vertical thinking tends to get us to expected ideas.

Lateral thinking just seems like a more powerful set of tools. Here are some of them:

a) Start somewhere different to end somewhere different.

Where could you start your strategy that isn’t the challenge, the brand, the product, the consumer, a piece of data, or a cultural insight? Does this narrow things down, or you now have an entire universe to start from?

b) Verbalise the convention, get it out the way.

The convention usually changes per brand, category, and so on. And some others sit on top of all Marketing existence. For example, how many times have you heard in the last year that “Gen Z is all about Fluidity”? It’s obvious to assume any strategy around that will struggle to stand out, as the chances for other strategists to use that in their thinking are pretty high.

c) Find spaces in-between.

A brief about smart home devices can be interesting. A brief about the intersection between smart home devices and the messiness of home life sounds slightly more interesting. A brief about the intersection between smart home devices, the messiness of home life and single moms is next level interesting.

Many clients like when strategies sound logical. It makes them (and ourselves) look smart. But most of the times logical thinking doesn’t lead to good work. Sometimes it actually gets in the way. I once heard from a creative I worked with: “Sometimes strategists take creatives one step further from the truth by over-rationalising it”.

We all need some logic to make leaps. Vertical and lateral thinking are complementary. If every strategist is (or should be) a creative, it’s not about us having to choose between vertical and lateral thinking. Perhaps it’s about making unexpected ideas the logical path to pursue.

*Some of the content in this comes from a talk I gave with Shai Idelson at BBH back in 2017. The ending was helped by my fellow 72andSunnyer Bruno Steffen.
**Research from Ehrenberg-Bass suggests that only 40% of advertising is remembered, and only 40% of that 40% is correctly branded.

Unlisted

Fernando Ribeiro

Written by

Strategy Director at 72andSunny Amsterdam

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