Creativity in the Age of Anxiety

When fear is in the air, how do you breathe?

I gave a presentation last week in Tel Aviv titled, “Creativity in the Age of Anxiety.”

My thesis was the same conclusion Ed Catmull, founder of Pixar once articulated: “The opposite of instability isn’t stability. The opposite is creativity.”

As I shared with the audience made up of brand CMOs, marketing teams and agency folks, we are living in the VUCA world. (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.) You can read more about VUCA here.

The headwinds are extraordinary: Politics, Wars, Inflation, Media Fragmentation, Consumer Attention Challenges, Limited Resources... (The list could keep going.)

These days, it all feels like a perfect storm with a tornado by its side and an earthquake underfoot.

So what’s a brand and a marketer to do?

One option, and a popular one I might add, is to be an ostrich. Head in the sand and don’t make a move.

But a few brands are being smarter and courageous and actually taking action in this moment of extreme unease.

I walked the audience through several of these fearless brands including Hilton, CeraVe, Liquid Death, Polestar and Calvin Klein.

What these brands all have in common was despite the insanity of the world, they are insisting on the sanity of brand building and sales creation.

They are doing stuff. And selling stuff.

How?

By focusing on what they do. And doing it in a way that makes people feel something and react — be it a smile, a laugh or excitement.

One of the brands I talked about was Reiss, the London-born fashion house known for its high-quality, stylish, and contemporary clothing and accessories for men and women.

A big part of the Reiss audience is finance bros. And what the brand did to entice these lads was a hilarious co-opting of the TikTok phenomenon by Megan Boni aka @girl_on_couch

I’m sure you’ve heard the refrain:

“I'm looking for a man in finance.

Trust fund, 6'5," blue eyes.

Finance, trust fund, 6'5", blue eyes…”

This TikTok post became a viral phenomenon almost instantly and within days, legendary producer and DJ David Guetta had transformed the “mantra” into EDM gold.

Right after the Guetta collab song dropped, Reiss went on to create a pop-up dance TikTok, featuring a vested performance crew, right outside its store in Leadenhall Market, perfectly situated in the City of London financial district — Finance Bro central.

The whole initiative took about 30 days from a girl on a couch to a brand collab.

That’s moving at the speed of culture.

And that’s an example of keeping anxiety at bay with a dash of creativity.

Of course, Reiss isn’t the first brand to mine TikTok for content. Ocean Spray and the “Fleetwood Mac Skateboard Guy,” Nathan Apodaca, comes to mind. Along with Dunkin’s recent collaboration with TikTok genius @CorporateNatalie.

But in several conversations before and after the presentation it struck me that there must be a new line-item in every creative brief. Namely: “What’s going on with the brand on TikTok?” TikTok cannot be a media channel after-thought. It needs to be a strategic consideration — up-stream in the process.

All in all, the way to fight anxiety is to do stuff. Confront the fear with action. Get out of your head and get something on the page and into the world.

It’s working for brands.

Maybe it can work for you.

Image: “The Scream,” by Edvard Munch