Skip to content Creativity in marketing isn’t just about flashy ads or viral TikToks. It is a disciplined process of evaluating what’s broken, separating idea generation from judgment, and aligning every wild idea with a boring business goal.
The Harvard Division of Continuing Education breaks down how to move from “random acts of marketing” to a strategic creative engine.
Before you brainstorm a single idea, you must ruthlessly evaluate your current reality. You can’t fix a house if you don’t know where the leaks are.
The SWOT Check: Run a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) specifically on your marketing channels.
The Digital Reality Check: Look at the hard data. Are leads dropping on LinkedIn? Is the bounce rate soaring on your homepage? Are negative reviews climbing?
The Goal: Use these pain points as the specific “prompts” for your creative sessions. Don’t just “brainstorm ideas”; brainstorm solutions to these specific problems.
The biggest mistake teams make is trying to have ideas and judge them at the same time. This kills creativity instantly. You need to separate the process into two distinct phases:
The Goal: Quantity, not quality. Stretch the imagination.
The Rule: No judgment allowed. If someone suggests “launch a product into space,” write it down.
The Outcome: A messy, massive list of potential angles, new target audiences, or unexpected social media plays.
The Goal: Analysis and decision-making.
The Rule: Now you put on the “business hat.” Which of these wild ideas actually solves the problems found in the audit? Which ones align with the budget?
The Outcome: A shortlist of actionable, creative strategies that are actually feasible.
Every year, start with a “blank piece of paper.”
The Method: Instead of just rolling over last year’s plan with a +10% budget increase, pretend you are starting from scratch.
The Question: “If we were building this marketing strategy today, knowing what we know now, would we still do it this way?”
The Result: This forces you to justify every legacy tactic and often reveals that the “safe” choice is actually the risky one.
Creative marketing is not a talent; it is a system. By separating the "dreaming" from the "deciding," organizations can solve difficult problems in new ways without losing sight of the bottom line.
Article: How to Implement Creative Marketing Strategies at Your Organization
Publisher: Harvard Division of Continuing Education (Professional & Executive Development)
Key Expert: Anne Manning (Founding Partner of Drumcircle)
