A few weeks ago, Newsweek published an article titled The Creativity Crisis. Essentially, the article discusses how ‘creativity scores’? in American kids are declining. Creativity scores? Basically there is a test that can gauge creativity. Creativity is defined as ‘the production of something original and useful.’?
First, who knew that sort of test existed? I know that school (middle school and high school) has changed a lot since I was there ‘?¬¶ but a creativity test? Poor kids… they are graded on everything.
I find it so interesting that something that is so subjective as creativity can be measured. But then again, it sort of happens every day in our business. Return on Investment (ROI) is something that we hear every day. Sure, that campaign is funny, clever and captures my attention. But how much? And if something captures my attention what does that mean for sales? How does / will this ‘creative’? impact my bottom line?
Campaigns or ads cannot just look pretty for pretty’s sake but they need to have a purpose, they need to resonate with the target consumer and result in some sort of measurable consumer action (i.e. awareness, consideration, purchase, loyalty, or evangelism). So a ‘creativity test’? happens on regular basis in the agency world.
I just wonder if testing kids may be taking things a bit far (but it has been going on for over 50 years now).
Second, I wonder what my score would be’?¬¶ but then I sort of don’t want to know. I think of myself as a somewhat creative person and I think that if I took a test that told me otherwise I might be a little bit devastated and I really don’t have time for an identity crisis right now.
So I asked a couple of my colleagues to share their reactions to the article ‘ we will be sharing their thoughts over the next couple of days. In the meantime ‘ what do you think?
