Can creativity be templated?

Yes it can, according to a team of Israeli researchers.

In 1999, the researchers studied 200 ads that had been award winners or finalists in top advertising competitions. The researchers found that nearly nine in 10 of the ads could be classified into six templates.

Next, they studied 200 less successful ads — those that had not earned awards. The researchers found that only 2.5% of those ads could be classified into templates.

“The surprising lesson of this story: Highly creative ads are more predictable than uncreative ones,” write Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick. “It’s like Tolstoy’s quote: ‘All happy families resemble each other, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ All creative ads resemble one another, but each loser is uncreative in its own way.”

Traditionally, creative idea-generation techniques have focused on a lack of system and logic. We try to brainstorm as many different ideas as we can. We say, “there are no bad ideas.” We bring in diverse opinions through focus groups and free association.

But what if we’re wrong?

Find the patterns.

A better approach, according to the Israeli researchers, is to identify patterns in successful communications and brainstorm ways to implement those patterns.

This approach itself follows a pattern in creative thinking.

The researchers found that nearly nine in 10 of the ads could be classified into six templates.

Next time you’re developing creative campaign, use these proven templates to jump-start your ideas:

1. Pictoral analogy

This approach merges or replaces your central image with another one. An ad for the French Open Tennis Championship, for instance, featured a tennis ball shaped like a croissant.

You can see the thinking behind this ad:

What images depict tennis? What images depict France? How do I merge the two?

More than one-third of the top-rated ads in the study used this template.

2. Consequences

For this approach, point out unexpected consequences of a product attribute. A commercial for car loudspeakers, for instance, showed a bridge on the verge of collapse when the speakers of a car parked on it were turned way up.

To use this template, ask:

What’s a key feature of our product or service? How can we exaggerate the consequences of using — or failing to use — this feature?

More than 18% of the top-rated ads in the study used this template.

3. Extreme situation

This approach shows a product performing under unusual circumstances or exaggerates a product’s features to the point of absurdity. A commercial for locks, for instance, shows a woman barking at burglars to scare them away.

For this approach, you say:

You don’t have to buy our product. Alternatives for achieving the same results include [something ridiculous].

Some 12% of the top-rated ads in the study used this template.

4. Competition

For this approach, show your product or service winning in competition with something else. One ad, for instance, shows a person trying to decide whether to answer a ringing phone or finish eating the advertised cereal.

Nearly 10% of the top-rated ads in the study used this template.

5. Dimensionality alteration

A woman is arguing with her husband for canceling his life insurance. In a moment it becomes clear that the scene occurs after he has died, during a séance.

For dimensionality alteration, manipulate a product’s relationship with time, space or some other aspect of its environment.

Nearly 10% of the top-rated ads in the study used this template.

6. Interactive experiment

For this template, you invite the viewer to perform or to imagine performing an experiment that demonstrates a need or problem that your product or service can solve.

One ad, for example, included a large black square. When the audience member shakes her head over the square, she can see that she needs dandruff shampoo.

How can you demonstrate the need for your solution in action?

About 6% of the top-rated ads in the study used this template.

Can creativity be taught?

Next, the Israeli researchers took a group of novices — people with no advertising experience at all — and broke them into three teams.

1. Team One trained for two hours on how to use the six creative templates.
2. Team Two learned about classic idea-generation techniques like free-association and brainstorming.
3. Team Three received no training at all.

Those who’d learned the templates created more creative, memorable and effective ads than the other two teams.

The researchers tested the top ads with consumers. Team One’s ads were rated 50% more creative and 55% more effective at creating a positive attitude toward the products advertised.

The next day, the customers were asked to recall the ads. Team One’s ads were remembered 45% more often than Team Two’s — and twice as often as Team Three’s.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Call it thinking inside the box: The irony is that frameworks, formulas and templates like these can actually help you come up with more effective creative ideas than “free-thinking” techniques.

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Sources: Jacob Goldenberg, David Mazursky, and Sorin Solomon, “The Fundamental Templates of Quality Ads,” Marketing Science 18 (1999), 333-51

Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Random House, 2007

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Short sentences are best. But make every sentence simple and short, and your copy will read like “See Dick run” primers.

So vary the length of your sentences — for interest, for drama, for rhythm.

Fluctuating sentence lengths can help you:

1. Make a point more powerfully.

“People read long sentences quickly,” says Jacqui Banaszynski, associate managing editor at The Seattle Times. “They read short sentences more slowly. Short sentences are power points in your copy.”

Take these powerful passages from a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Daily News about the plight of Sept. 11 rescue workers. Notice how the lead’s staccato sentences hit you in the chest like machine gun fire:

A man’s life is at stake. His name is Vito Valenti. On Sept. 11 he was caught in the maelstrom and stayed at Ground Zero as a volunteer to help in the frantic rescue and recovery operation. And today he is dying.

The rest of the article moves along at a more leisurely cadence with an average sentence length of 16.5 words. But the ending returns to gunfire pace:

What power points are you making in your piece? How can you use short sentences to slow readers down and better make your point?

“Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences that were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, novelist

2. Clarify complex concepts.

Shorter sentences increase understanding. So the harder your topic is to understand, the shorter your sentences should be.

“The oldest and best advice in the business is: The tougher it is to tell, the slower and simpler you tell it.”

— Bob Levey, “hometown columnist” for the Washington Post

3. Increase credibility.

In times of crisis, make your sentences, words and paragraphs shorter and simpler. That will show your organization to be transparent, rather than covering up the facts by obfuscating.

“If a writer wants the reader to think something is the absolute truth, the writer should render it in the shortest possible sentence. Trust me.”

— Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools, paraphrasing Tom Wolfe

4. Create drama.

A series of short sentences slows the reader down, building suspense, Clark writes. They serve as cliff-hangers, propelling the reader through the copy.

Long sentences, on the other hand, can create a breathless, slow-motion, stream-of-consciousness scene. Take this beauty, from novelist Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Tinkers:

Notice how the two short sentences and medium-length sentence launch that 130-word one. The long sentence would be much less effective without the setup.

Want one more example? Check out the 250-word sentence in Clark’s “Tracking the Great Long Sentence.”

5. Convey information efficiently.

Most sentences shouldn’t turn literary cartwheels. If your sentences shout, “Look, Ma! I’m writing!” they’re probably distracting the reader from the main event — the message.

“You don’t have to go for a home run in every sentence. It will exhaust you and the reader. I always tell my students that every paragraph needs an ox-like sentence that does the work. It should be simple and short. Don’t hide or disguise what you need to say for the sake of cleverness. Just tell me what I need to know.”

— James Magnuson, novelist

6. Create rhythm.

What does your copy sound like? Create music with your writing.

“I think of writing as being musical. Punctuation is the rhythm and the words are the melody.”

— Alice Steinbach, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

The short and long of varying sentence length

So make some sentences very short, others very long. One dramatic technique is to write a longer, more complex sentence, then follow it with a one- or two-word sentence or paragraph.

Enough said.

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Sources: Arthur Browne, Beverly Weintraub and Heidi Evans, “Please Help Me Go On Living,” New York Daily News, Aug. 10, 2006. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning series

Roy Peter Clark, “Suspense … and the short sentence,” The Poynter Institute, Dec. 27, 2006

Roy Peter Clark, “Tracking the Great Long Sentence,” The Poynter Institute, Aug. 28, 2007

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