Three Techniques to Freshen Up your Idea Creation Process
By: Laura Reibenschuh
Tags: Content Creation, Brainstorming Techniques, Ideas

Have you ever thought about how other people think? How their brains work and how their thoughts look like? Well, I did. To me, it is particularly interesting to get to know how people come up with ideas. How information and creative thoughts mesh together and reveal a completely new approach to a certain topic. While in my last post I reflected on my own writing process, today I want to dig deeper into the process of idea creation and different tools that can help with that.

Coming up with an idea is similar to riding a bike or to using a smartphone. It happens automatically. We neither think about how we kick our feet into the pedals as we ride our bikes nor do we need to concentrate on how we scroll down social media streams endlessly. We’ve internalized processes like this so that they take place unconsciously. Same goes for idea creation. The biggest advantage of the automatization of repetitive tasks is that we can focus on other important tasks simultaneously. However, there’s also a positive aspect in reflecting on those processes every once in a while, not only to uncover different strategies but also optimize the process.

Live and breathe ideas

Take your breath as an example. Most people are over-breathing or chest breathing which is actually stressful to the body. And most of the times, those people don’t even notice. How are you breathing right now? Slowly and calm? Shallow and fast? Become aware of your own breath and notice its pattern. Sometimes the solution to breathing issues lies simply in becoming aware of it more often and then consciously reshape these patterns. Ok, enough of breathing patterns and back to idea creation. The same principle actually works for the creative process as well. If we learn to change the process, we might find the solution: that one brilliant idea we are all striving for.

In my third semester of my Content Strategy studies at the university of applied sciences in Graz, I chose Crossmedia Storytelling as one of my elective courses. Our lecturer Christoph Hofbauer who has worked in the creative industry for more than 15 years introduced us to the Mario Pricken’s creativity and thinking strategies for marketing, media and advertising.

The pressure of coming up with great ideas accompanies people working in the creative field constantly. Working in an online marketing agency, I can tell you a thing or two about it too. That’s why Pricken created different methods as guidelines for our brains when we get stuck or need a fresh approach to find new ideas in his book Kribbeln im Kopf. Here are my three favourite tools for idea creation out of Pricken’s tool book.

1. Combine and connect

Ask yourself how and with what you can combine what’s already there to strengthen the message. How can you link the problem and the solution in a way that the message gets clear and unique? Combine two different ideas or things that were separated before and create something new out of it.

The Schöffel “Ich bin raus” campaign is a good example on how this creative thinking process can work in practice. They combined imagery of people in nature with text that captures a completely opposite scene. However, combined it creates a story of people who quit everyday stress to get out. Simple but genius.

2. Exaggeration

What could you exaggerate to emphasize the product benefit? What could you add? Could it be bigger? Longer? Heavier? Or even smaller, lighter, more compact?

The first example that comes to my mind when thinking of this creative tool is Hornbach. They often use this exaggeration tool e.g. in their recent campaign with the slogan “It seems impossible. Until you do it.” where they show the surroundings as they were huge while the protagonist is very small. This way they really emphasize the message of the campaign.

3. Take it literally

We use idioms, figures of speech or colloquial words when we express ourselves daily. When we listen closely, those descriptions reveal hidden jokes, ridiculous images or ironic situations. That’s why taking expressions literally can sometimes lead to surprising ideas.

This campaign of the Volkstheater in Vienna shows how this technique can work in practice. They created awareness for the upcoming premier of the theater play “The Arsonists” by taking it literally and placing burnt objects in the city of Vienna as if the arsonists literally were there.

Now that I’ve introduced three of my favourite idea brainstorming techniques, I also want to know what your creative process looks like. How do you usually proceed? Have you used one of those techniques before? Or do you have other strategies for idea creation and creative thinking? I’m happy to read your thoughts on this topic.