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Creativity is the fuel that successful marketers run on, without it you are just another run-of-the-mill marketer with boring ideas and dull concepts. Therefore it is paramount that you do everything you can do exercise your creativity and keep it alive.

“If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

This is a powerful quote and one that carries a lot of meaning. By studying, digesting and analysing the past greats of marketing such David Ogilvy, Mary Kay Ash, Andre Citroen and so on, you see what made them so great, giving you food for thought and hopefully the motivation to be as ambitious and influential as them.

Don’t just look at their marketing and advertising campaigns, many of these marketers have published books stating their thoughts on how to capture people’s attention, the psychology of advertising and basically the philosophy behind their work that drove them and their companies to great heights.

The uneducated might look at some of the most impressive advertising campaigns from recent times with awe, but if you look back into the last hundred years you’ll see those modern marvels echo the past with terrifying similarity. It is not copying or imitating, it is simply applying the successful methods of yesterday to today.

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”

We’ve all been in a place in our lives where we work way too much, we don’t give ourselves enough rest and sooner rather than later we find ourselves completely exhausted, both mentally and physically, completely run into the ground. The sense of burn-out is horrible and it can make you fall out of love with marketing.

It’s why you should frequently give yourself ample time to rest, where you completely switch off from the rat race world of marketing. That could mean taking the weekend off or taking days off every now and then, where all you do is relax and completely forget about your job, your current project and all the itching anxieties that come with it.

For some it is harder than others, if you struggle then hide your phone, stowaway your laptop and isolate yourself from anything that pulls you back into work-mode. Reset your thoughts, do something so far removed from your job that the thought of working never crosses your mind.

It might seem counter-productive to take a rest instead of working more, but this will allow your mind to relax and your creativity to repair itself. If you’ve ever been willing yourself to think up a great, fresh idea it will never come. But how many times have you thought of a brilliant idea from something completely unrelated and when you’re not even trying to think of a new idea? Sometimes that’s just how things work out.

“All Culture is Creativity.”

Marketing is the art of connecting with people on a personal and emotional level, well at least that is what successful marketing does. So it makes perfect sense to draw inspiration and creativity from the very things that’s sole purpose is to connect with people and evoke feelings from them, without any end goal of a sale or an exchange.

Immerse yourself in as many books, pieces of arts, pieces of literature and films as possible. This serves two purposes, on the one hand it is a fantastic way of getting your creative juices flowing, feeding off something that inspires you and makes you feel something. It is always easier to work off something you personally believe in, rather than going off a random, blunt concept.

And on the other hand if you see something that makes you instantly think “That is it. That is the marketing campaign.” you can mimic it, adjust it and transform it into a fully fledged campaign of your own. You can either place obvious emphasis on the fact it’s a borrowed idea or you can complete copy it as if it to pay homage to it.

“Sometimes a change in scenery is good.”

This is the toughest piece of advice and the one with the most implications but a job in marketing requires you to have constant energy, motivation and creativity. If you’re in a role or company that stifles you and works against your creative process, then you are highly likely to be unhappy and also to be under performing too.

Sometimes you just have to realise that the correct answer is the most difficult one, that changing your place of work or the role you work in is only way to get your mojo back. You might find working at a small start-up will help you to realise your potential whereas working for a corporate powerhouse might suffocate and contract your imagination.

Or the complete reverse could be true, you could be at a company where you’re a big fish in a small pond and you can clearly get a higher level job in a much larger company. Don’t ever get comfortable in a job, as soon as you cease to feel pressure you have outgrown your role, you need to challenge yourself and step up.