The roots of advertising run deep. We’ve come a long way since William Caxton printed what would be described as Britain’s first advert in 1477.How grand it would be if advertising was still so simple. Nowadays, we have a bit more to contend with on the marketplace than ol’ Caxton. While this makes for a more exciting day at the office, it requires a lot more effort to stand out in the ad world. Do you have a Purple Cow? Creativity can be defined as “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something”. In advertising, it is what brings meaning to brand messaging. Imagine you and your family are driving to a hill station and you notice beautiful cows along the highway, beautiful picturesque story book looking cows for dozens of kilometers. But then within twenty mins, you and your family start ignoring the cows, the new cows are just like the old cows, and what once was amazing is now common. Worse than common. It is boring. Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they’re still boring. A Purple Cow, though. Now that would be interesting. (For a while.) The essence of the Purple Cow is that it must be “remarkable”. Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible, like a brown cow. Why is creativity so important The world around us has changed forever, the covid-19 pandemic has customers demanding experiences from brands that are more personal, more relevant and more engaging that ever before. The first reason that creativity is important in advertising is that it drives originality. Being able to see the big picture is important in many areas of life, let alone advertising. The goal of creating ads is not to prove who’s more clever or witty. Nor to prove who can come up with the phrase with the best play on words. David Ogilvy is often dubbed as the father of modern advertising, in his book he says , he hated when his employees referred to themselves as “creative.” Creative work is nothing if it isn’t approaching new ideas, angles, and perspectives that can give new life and meaning to the ordinary and trite. Inspiration and creativity are no doubt are an integral part of advertising , but the truth is, often we don’t feel “creative” because we haven’t gotten into the groove of creating yet. “ Your role is to sell, don’t let anything distract you from the sole purpose of advertising ” wrote David Ogilvy. Ogilvy praised the virtues of creativity; if an ad didn’t sell, it was because it wasn’t creative. His years of experience taught him that people were not going to buy a product if the ad was boring; only interest and curiosity would entice people to buy. Creative equals personalization Think about walking into Starbucks or your local coffee shop , approaching the counter about to order your drink. Now, instead of proceeding to order, the person at the counter says “same as usual?”. This is personalization. Not only do you save time and energy, but you were remembered and a connection was made. The same can be said about Creative Advertising; if the message comes across in a personalized and creative way, consumers engage more. For experiences to be better and to prove return on investment, advertisements need to be imagined. Therefore, it’s important to look at personalization not just as the tool to deliver, but also to understand. And just like your coffee shop experience, advertising becomes a lot more convenient for the customer . Conclusion One of the best things about creativity is it feeds off itself, driving more innovation within advertising department, and often with the business overall. If you do your work with your full heart, then respecting your audience should come as a given, really. But just in case it wasn’t clear, and just because David Ogilvy phrases the advice in an awesomely humorous way, let’s make it totally obvious: “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”