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With so much going on at the 2012 PromaxBDA Conference, it can be nice to have some recommendations of where to begin. That's why, leading up to the big event kicking off June 12, we'll be posting a series of session playlists from notable attendees. Check out playlists below from PromaxBDA Ambassador Scott Rowe, PromaxBDA Board Member Joe Earley, PromaxBDA Elite Member Bear Fisher and PromaxBDA: The Conference sponsor Chris Sloan of 2C Media.

 Joe Earley 
 President, Marketing & Communications
 Fox Broadcasting Company
 PromaxBDA Board Member

Transformative Approaches to Understanding Audience Engagement
We’re always looking for ways to take our engagement to another level – to connect directly with our fans. We push ourselves in this arena, so we’re always hungry to hear about ways to become more effective.

“Imagine: How Creativity Works”
One of the things I love about The Conference is that it gets me away from the “factory” and into a creative space where I can just let go.

Non-Traditional Adventures in Traditionally Traditional Media
As budgets get stretched even further and we’re drawn to new ways of reaching our viewers, we can’t let go of traditional media, so I’m excited to hear about ways we can be innovative in that space.

The 2012 Top 5 Media Insights You Need to Know… Or Perish
Because I don’t want to perish…

Media Leaders’ Summit
John Landgraf is one of the smartest business/creative execs I’ve ever met. I always learn something when I listen to him.

 Bear Fisher
 SVP & Creative Director
 Style Network
 PromaxBDA Elite Member

How Integrated Is Your Campaign?  
Working for a smaller brand (but growing every day!), I know our creative has to be consistent to truly be impactful and break free. I'm always looking for great examples of how brands have found unique angles to connect the dots from a spot, to a banner, to an ad.

“Imagine:  How Creativity Works”   
I read Jonah's book and had the pleasure of hearing him speak a few weeks ago. He brings such an interesting POV to our process – I can't wait to hear more from him.

Brand/Rebrand Highlights from 2011/2012: NBC Sports & Lifetime
Having gone through a billion rebrands, it's always nice to hear the troubles and triumphs others have gone through to remind you it happens to us all – and what new potential pitfalls we should be avoiding.

Media Leaders’ Summit  
If you want to get smarter, listen and learn from smart people.

 Scott Rowe
 SVP, Worldwide Communications              
 Warner Bros. Television Group
 PromaxBDA Ambassador  

The 2012 Top 5 Media Insights You Need to Know... or Perish
All these new platforms and all the media buzz around them – it's more important than ever to put them in context and understand the numbers behind the hype.

Around the World in 45 Minutes: Global Gold-Winning Work from the Past Year
One of my favorite aspects of The Conference is seeing the creative work and this looks like a great place to see what's resonating around the world.

Hello Computer! New Technologies That Will Rock Your World
Isn't there an app for this one? In all honesty, technology is moving so fast, we need to stay on top of the latest developments. It's important to get in on the ground floor.

Millennial Momentum
Not to sound too much like Paul Revere, but: the millennials are coming, the millennials are coming! We had better understand the demo that will soon dominate our business.

Transformative Approaches to Understanding Audience Engagement
It's about understanding consumer behavior. It's not just about raising awareness but how do we get them to act – tune-in, download, retweet.

 Chris Sloan
 President & Executive Creative Director
 2C Media
 Sponsor, PromaxBDA: The Conference 

State of Our Art
Ever leave the movie theater with that “ready to take on the world” feeling? Like you’ve stepped into the shoes of your favorite action hero or simply have newfound energy? That’s what “State of Our Art” does for me. It’s like the blockbuster of PromaxBDA… the takeaway that leaves you inspired and ready to lace on your creative boxing gloves. Sessions, apps and technologies come and go, but this session always leaves you pumped with the idea to go out and free your mind. A must-see for me… and a must-see for your team. In fact, can they just make this mandatory?

Drinking Improves Creativity
Cocktails + Creativity??? What’s NOT to love? The real question: what genius came up with that study? I smell Johnny Walker… or maybe Bacardi. Regardless, this one definitely piques the interest. I happen to enjoy Michael Ouweleen’s eclectic take on creativity. I actually got hooked on a radio show he once co-hosted in Atlanta called “Polite Disruption.” The way he finds his creative muses was always like Ginseng and Red Bull for me. As old school as it is, I prefer a nice Rob Roy myself.

TV Everywhere and Anywhere – How the Content Industry Is Building a New Mousetrap
The future is here… and it won’t necessarily be televised. Change is coming and those who ignore it do so at their own peril. We live in a disruptive age of distributors that become content creators… cord cutters. There are screens on pads, pods, phones, smart TVs, Rokus, Hulu and Boxees. [DISCLAIMER: by the time this session happens, Silicon Valley will have already outdated my list.] That which doesn’t kill us make us stronger, right? If you’re anything like me, you’ll attend this one to “be on top of it,” even if that only applies to the 50 minutes or so that your butt’s seated in that hot little chair.

The Wonder Years: What Careers in Marketing Taught Television’s Top Executives
Sure… there’s a saying in our business that few of us actually set out to go into TV marketing. Yet, everywhere you look – from management to show runners to network presidents – there are amazingly talented executives who came from the promo side. Their stories always fascinate me, but I do have some idea how this happens. As someone who’s crossed back and forth between programming and promotion myself, I see marketing’s ability to provide a valuable touch point. Where else are you so connected to sales, distribution, programming, creative, strategy? It’s truly an amazing training ground for your next move.

2012’s Greatest Brand Integrations Revealed: The Stories Behind the Best of This Year’s Sponsored Spots
First, who doesn’t love a good reveal? Especially when it involves the spots that actually broke through in spite of today’s DVR hopping, ad-skipping world of compromised budgets against big expectations. Brand integration is creating a huge growth opportunity in our industry, transforming marketing and promotion into a revenue generator, rather than a cost center. For that and the five-pound bag trick alone, this one’s a can’t miss!

By Frank Radice

As part of our ongoing guest blog series, today we feature Definition 6's article on the new era of primetime. Be sure to check back regularly for more posts from our guest bloggers as well as our own thought-provoking original content – Ed.

With upfront season in full swing, I've been thinking about primetime TV viewership and I had to ask myself -- Is 9:00 p.m. the new 10:00 p.m.?

Five years ago if a network's primetime show didn't hit a 5 demo in 18-49 viewers, it would be in deep trouble.

Today, the 10 p.m. demo, for the most part, seems to be around a 3 or lower.

Why is that?

A few things come to mind.

One: DVRs are everywhere now. It's not just a TiVo anymore. Every cable company has one, and they are quickly replacing the old set top box (and let's not forget the Roku, the Xbox, the Boxee, Apple TV and any of the other cool devices out there).

And research is also showing that tablets like the iPad are quickly becoming the second screen of choice for content consumption, while services like Aereo allow you to watch and record your favorite show in their cloud for later viewing anywhere.

Two: …and this is probably a function of the first thing…there are so many places to get content, and so much targeted content on cable and online, that the hours of material anyone can watch at any given time, is just too much to bear.

Three:…and this is just anecdotal of my colleagues in New York; hard working people are going to sleep earlier and waking up earlier (again, this may have something to do with DVRs). I mean, why not, right? Especially when you can watch "LAW" at night and catch "ORDER" in the morning on your digital device!

Another reason may be simply that the big three (or four) networks are just not programming what people want to see at 10:00 p.m.

That is the traditional home for dramas and procedurals… but the biggest numbers are now coming from the 9:00 p.m. non-scripted shows like "Dancing with the Stars" and "The Voice."

Maybe the premium cable nets, programming high-end shows through the 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. slots without commercials, are causing the erosion.  

And maybe that tiny sliver of "unplugged" viewers is starting to grow.

If everyone could create multiple revenue streams, none of this would matter much. Get paid even without the eyeball analytics (or without commercials in some cases.)

Just create great programs and let people find them wherever they are, regardless of what time they are on.

In the end, it always comes back to great content that can cause conversation (either in person or online, especially social media channels.)

So, let 9:00 p.m. be the new 10:00 p.m.

I will just go to sleep early and watch my favorite stuff somewhere else, some other time, and be happy about it.

In recent weeks there has been a better-than-average chance of coming across Jonah Lehrer on TV, radio or in print. The "Wired" contributor and scheduled speaker at PromaxBDA: The Conference 2012 has been making the rounds to promote his new book, "Imagine," a collection of essays devoted to the human brain's unique ability to, as the title suggests, "imagine what has never existed."

Revisiting the story of Bob Dylan's writing of the song "Like A Rolling Stone," Lehrer discovers the great folkster had to hit a creative wall and temporarily leave music behind before he could pump out one of modern pop's most influential singles. Touring the 3M factory, he finds out that one of the world's most innovative product design companies allows its employees to devote 15% of each day to their own personal projects. Analyzing Shakespeare and the amazingly creative era in which he wrote his greatest works, Lehrer finds that some of the Bard's greatest plays were made possible by his unregulated penchant for thievery in a time before rampant copyright laws.

The common thread of inspiration connects these disparate stories, from the myriad ways it can come about to how we can achieve more of it, to why it exists at all.

"The human imagination has no clear precursors," Lehrer writes. "There is no ingenuity module that got enlarged in the human cortex, or even a proto-creative impulse evident in other primates. Monkeys don't paint; chimps don't write poems; and it's the rare animal (like the New Caledonian crow) that exhibits rudimentary signs of problem solving. The birth of creativity, in other words, arrived like any insight: out of nowhere."

As Lehrer skillfully mixing fascinating anecdotes with hard data from some of the world's finest scientists, we learn important problem-solving techniques like relaxation – rather than beating on a problem for hours, trying to eke the solution out with coffee and fierce concentration, oftentimes the better approach is to relax the brain via a warm shower, or even a vacation. 

To prove that outsiders new to a field can sometimes have the best ideas, Lehrer tells us about individuals like Don Lee, a dazzlingly innovative mixologist (read: bartender) who came to his craft untrained and therefore had the audacity to try drink elements like bacon fat, and in so doing, got himself in the pages of "Gourmet" magazine. The point is, even if one isn't new to their field, a fresh perspective is crucial, and there are numerous ways to go about attaining one.

PromaxBDA members will be delighted by Lehrer's profile of Milton Glaser, the branding visionary whose career has proven that the art of refining inspiration is as important as the inspiration itself (maybe more so). And by his tour of superstar ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, where new hires seem to come from almost every conceivable field except advertising and where everything from the company's vast, open design aesthetic to its biannual staff pub crawls illustrates the "importance of incorporating a little weirdness into the creative process."

"Imagine" is, in the end, a call to arms, an urging to take more creative risks in our personal lives, to nurture a more creative culture in society at large, to weaken oppressive intellectual property laws. 

To, as Lehrer concludes, "make it easy to become a genius."

By Justin W. Sanders

With intellectual properties under its belt such as "Deal or No Deal," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Wipeout" and of course, "Big Brother," Endemol is an undisputed powerhouse in the global independent television production industry.

As director of digital media at Endemol, Baba Uppal leads the charge of a dominant traditional TV production company's advance into the non-traditional, uncharted waters of new and cutting-edge platforms. His duties include licensing Endemol's IP to game creators and other digital developers, investing in new digital entertainment properties and nurturing relationships with second screen initiatives that have the potential to increase the company's TV interactivity.

In the wake of PromaxBDA's recent Game Marketing Summit, we thought we'd get Uppal's thoughts on the gamification of Endemol products and those ever-fickle digital revenue streams.

JUSTIN W. SANDERS: PromaxBDA just wrapped up our Game Marketing Summit, so naturally we're curious how gaming fits into your company’s digital strategy. Do you see social and online games licensed from Endemol’s shows as more of a revenue opportunity or a marketing opportunity? Or is it equal?
BABA UPPAL: Good question -- the goal for my group is revenue. So most initiatives out of my group will have to have a revenue stream attached, or the possibility of revenue for us to be interested. More promotional/marketing efforts generally are the responsibility of the networks who buy our shows. That said, if there's a really compelling promotional opportunity that we're really into, we might consider one on a one-off basis.

SANDERS: So if a game gets developed based on "Wipeout," for instance, your No. 1 goal is to profit off that game, as opposed to using it as a promotional tool?
UPPAL: Yes, a big brand like that we'll always look to exploit for ancillary revenue, and we are. We work with game developers/studios who bid on the rights and then we work with them to flush out creative, make sure it's on brand and they develop, market the games etc.

SANDERS: But surely promotion is a nice side benefit of such a product, yes? So when designing or commissioning or licensing an Endemol property out for profit, don’t you also have to consider how that ensuing product will promote the brand?
UPPAL: Yes of course. And when we do these deals we do them in concert with the network that's airing the show. So for "Wipeout," we work with ABC to identify the right partner and make sure the right elements of the show are being promoted through the game experience... the game should have new stunts that will air in the next season to coincide with timing of the new season launch, etc. So yes, we do consider promotion, and the fact that ABC, the network in the "Wipeout" example, is involved means that promotional considerations are always top of mind, but alongside revenue!!

SANDERS: Is there an effort on Endemol’s end to communicate some sort of quality control to the licensee so that the brand being gamified doesn’t get mistreated?
UPPAL: Big time. We have weekly calls with the developers/licensees to make sure they're on brand, not straying too far unless it makes sense, etc. We're very protective of the brand because it's being exploited globally and in a territory as important as the US. We can't afford to have big misses. Not all games work and make a ton of money, but they have to be supported properly.

SANDERS: And now for the question everyone's worried about (or at least should be): Besides selling units to traditional consoles, what are the revenue streams available to video or computer games nowadays? Or, to put it bluntly, how can video games make money nowadays?
UPPAL: Mobile gaming is a huge growing market right now. Social games were burgeoning over the past few years and people still make a lot of money in that category but Mobile is definitely charging forward. In both of these categories, the "freemium" model has prevailed. Basically the games are free to play, and somewhere between 3 to 5% of your total user base will spend real dollars in the game for one of a variety of reasons, [including to] speed up the game [and] buy exclusive items/virtual goods through in-app purchases (IAPs).

This is the dominant model on mobile these days. And with hundreds of thousands of apps in the app store, it's very very competitive, and very difficult for developers to put out games that cost even $.99. It [still] happens and [is] probably easier with a bigger brand but you're competing with so many free apps... makes it really tough. Also, running ads in your games can be a meaningful way to generate additional revenue for users who will never spend money in your game. Some combination of freemium and ads is how we're operating with our current projects these days.

At this year's Pecha Kucha session, six agency creatives let attendees in on the creative projects they wish they'd thought of. With a time allotment of only 6:40 per presenter and no video, animation or music allowed, the presenters could only share slides of the the projects they most envy, but we've got the videos you weren't able to see! Below are the links to the promos, campaigns and creative that inspired some of the top execs in our industry.

Lisa Riznikove, Co-President/Head of Games, The Ant Farm
Rob Troy, Co-President/Executive Creative Director, The Ant Farm

BIGGER NUTS

CALM - CAR PARK

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT 

TCK TCK TCK: ADAPTATION

MS AUSTRALIA - SABOTEUR

PEACE FOR DOGS

FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION: RESPECT

THE BANK JOB

ISN’T IT TIME SOMEONE YELLED CUT?

WHERE WILL 100,000 CONDOMS END UP?

BOOBSTAGRAM

BOYFRIEND WENT VEGAN - PETA

R4V3N : NEVER NOT WINNING

SMART EBALL AT THE INTERNATIONAL MOTOR SHOW FRANKFURT

RICKY GERVAIS ON COMEDY - BBC IPLAYER (GLOBAL)

PUSH BUTTON TO ADD DRAMA - TNT

BIG NOSES - BGH

KENNY POWERS - K-SWISS CEO

TAKE THE ULTIMATE PLUNGE - WONDERBRA

VALENTINE SERENADE - HEINEKEN

 

Jason Elm, EVP, Group Creative Director, Deutsch 

ABC OUTDOOR

MILLER HIGH LIFE MAN 

BUDWEISER PROHIBITION

AMERICAN ROM

AUCKLAND COUNCIL GREEN BAGS

GRAND RAPIDS LIP DUB

ROUND UP YOUR MATES FOR A GUINNESS

GOT MILK? AARON BURR

FREDDO “MOURNING” PRINT AD

LEGO “TAJ MAHAL” PRINT AD

HOT WHEELS “LOOP” OUTDOOR

THE LONELY ISLAND “DICK IN A BOX”

JELL-O PUDDING FACE

TARGET “COLOR CHANGES EVERYTHING”

AMERICAN PICKERS ON HISTORY CHANNEL

GUISEPPE PENONE’S TREES

NIKE “WRITE THE FUTURE” 

JOURNEY THE GAME

DEAD ISLAND TRAILER 

PLAYSTATION “DOUBLE LIFE”

 

Chris Ford, Chief Creative Officer, Draftfcb West

HALO 3 – BELIEVE

NEIL FRENCH – BECK’S BEER

NIKE – FROZEN MOMENT

E-TRADE – MONKEY

LEVI'S WALLS

BMW FILMS – POWER KEG

PIZZA COMBOS  - IF YOUR MOM WAS A MAN

SATURN – SHEET METAL

FRENCH POWER - THE WIND

REEBOK – TERRY TATE, OFFICE LINEBACKER

LAND ROVER – SWORDS

CREST – SMILE

KSWISS – BLADES

CHIPOTOLE – BACK TO THE START

TOYOTA – SWAGGER WAGON

THE GUARDIAN  - THREE LITLE PIGS

SKITTLES – CAT

KAYAK – SURGEON

MAD MEN – THE CAROUSEL SPEECH

 

Will Jeffery, Managing Director, Maverick

WHOPPER FREAKOUT BY HENRY ALEX RUBIN - SMUGGLER

THE HOBBIT

INFINITY GAP INSTALLATION

BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RISES - POSTER

PSYCHO SHOWER SCENE - ALFRED HITCHCOCK

MALEVICH - BLACK SQUARE

CLOVERFIELD TRAILER

JJ ABRAMS TED LECTURE

 

PJ Pereira, Chief Creative Officer & Co-Founder, Pereira & O’Dell

Videos not yet available. View presentation HERE.

 

Jason Norcross, Partner and Creative Director, 72andSunny
Bryan Smith, Strategy Director, 72andSunny

Videos not yet available. View presentation HERE.

By Justin W. Sanders

Neil Howe, founding partner and president of LifeCourse Associates, is the author of "Millennials," the highest selling book on the millennial generation ever written, not to mention several other works on this group of people below the age of 30. For Game Marketing Summit attendees looking to learn about the behavior and habits of the coveted youth demographic, he was the one to catch.

Today's on-stage GMS interview with Howe, conducted by TwitchTV chief commercial office Jonathan Simpson-Bint, had little to with the nitty-gritty business of game marketing, but then that's kind of Howe's point. "Why study generations?" he asked near the beginning of the session. "Because it allows you to make non-linear predictions."

We should not be asking ourselves how technology is shaping the generation of millennials, but asking how millennials are shaping technology. This was another major point Howe made. So the question is, how are millennials shaping the development of video games and, ultimately, video game marketing?

"Millennials are achievement-oriented and demand constant reassurance and feedback," Howe said. "In 1984, Big Brother put a camera in your room. This was our greatest fear. Millennials are putting their own cameras in their rooms."

"Millennials are extraordinarily effective as teams," he continued. And, "There is no culture gap between millennials and their parents. They listen to the same music, watch the same movies, etc. For Gen-X youth, this would have been unheard of."

So what to make of a generation that works together well, expects enormous amounts of feedback and validation, and (gasp!) seems to get along well with their families?

Again, such specifics were not the point of today's session. The point was to provide an overview of these young'uns and their view of the world. That Howe provided admirably well. From here, we can surmise that connectivity, gaming-related rewards and storylines involving groups working together towards a common goal are probably more important in the gaming industry than ever before.

Some other tidbits from the Neil Howe interview:

*Gen Xers are the little kids of the consciousness revolution. Millennials have no memory of the consciousness revolution.

*Millennials move towards big brands. For Xers, if it was too popular, they didn't like it.

*For a lot of millenialls, their parents have grown up playing video games as well.

*Millennials prefer themes of good vs. evil, young people triumphing together to make the world a better place.

*Millennials want more and more from a single story.

*The greatest fear for millennials is being left behind at the train station while all their peers move on without them.

*Gen-Xers who call millennials spoiled are envious; they were never taken care of but millennials demand the perfect employer that gives them everything they want.

*Generations who come to power in times of great change remain incredibly powerful in the culture, into old age.

*There is no culture gap between millennials and their parents. They listen to the same music, watch the same movies, etc. For Gen-X youth, this would have been unheard of.

By Justin W. Sanders

Few people are as charismatic and quotable as AOL digital prophet David Shing.

With his wild hairdo, fast-talking personality and hilarious slides, Shing just got finished lighting up the house at his Game Marketing Summit marketing keynote: "Changing the Communication Game: Recalibrating Digital Conversations."

He covered such a vast amount of information, trends, topics and stats in such a small amount of time, it would be impossible to squeeze all of them into a single post, but here are some choice quotes/paraphrases from the talk to engage and inspire you:

 

"We've moved away from the information age and into the social age."

"The challenge with likes is, you can like 10 things about me without liking the whole. You're really looking for shares."

"Email still works. We spend on average 4.5 hours per day in our inboxes."

"In the future we'll defriend, unfollow and clean up our social graph. Nice dialog is very, very important."

"Liking in exchange for discounts is dangerous. Sharing for discounts is more important -- the crowd drives demand for cost to go down."

"Behind every brand should be a human voice."

"It's not about the number of people you have in your network, it's about the number of people who are affecting change."

"Google+ has 66 million people on it and counting. Circles are amazing. If you are able to sponsor a circle there is amazing value in that."

"I love good ol' fashioned communities. They still work. In the future they will be even more powerful."

"If you market to kids, Moshi Monsters are where it's at. 50 million kids registered."

"On LinkedIn you can have real B2B conversations that are authentic."

"Cause marketing: 90 percent of people need to know what your brand is doing to make an impact. How can you tap into people's needs states?"

"We're going to move away from big cities and back into neighborhoods."

"Forget about swiping. It's all about gestures .The tip of your finger is not where it happens anymore."

"Social is not a thing you go to it's a thing you do."

"In the future we will pay for things that cancel out noise and chaos."

"The three primary colors you need for a successful digital campaign: Technology, Content, Distribution."

"Have a budget for innovation that is like a lab."

"Give your customers the tools to remix your brand. Create love. Make them VIPs. Embrace platforms and co-create. Let people take ownership."

"Attention, my friends, is the new currency."

 

By Justin W. Sanders

PromaxBDA's Game Marketing Summit is happening!

Our first session, "Redefining the Super Hero Genre: The Campaign that made 'Batman: Arkham City' a Mass Market Hit," brought Warner Bros. SVP of worldwide marketing Russell Arons and core games marketing VP Matthew Geyer to the stage, along with Trailer Park director of video games Brian Setzer. The trio traded off to explain how the marketing push behind the massively successful "Arkham City" cast the iconic super hero in a new light -- literally.

Arons and Geyer had some interesting tidbits about bringing the campaign to the masses, including a hilarious trailer tie-in with Wal-Mart, but it was Setzer's analysis of the creative re-interpretation of the hero that really seemed to really strike a chord.

Setzer's breakdown of Trailer Park's exploration of Batman's 70-year history as they tried to discover a new angle on the character included a reel of cool vintage clips. He brought the crowd into the company's brainstorming room as they went through dozens of ideas on how to convey Batman in a way that would appeal to people beyond the core group of super hero and comic book fans.

Using sophisticated models of Batman, the Trailer Park team started posing the character in different action modes, executing cool punches and kicks. The breakthrough came when they started trying to think of Batman as not just an iconic super hero but an iconic personality, period. Perusing classic black and whites of other iconic American characters such as Madonna and Marlon Brando the team realized that when you pare an image down to its simplest, starkest modes, its true essence shines through. They set out to apply this effect to Batman.

"We bathed the model in light, snapped a picture and new we had something," Setzer said. We and millions of other "Arkham City" fans are inclined to agree:

By John Harne

As part of our guest blog series, today we introduce part 2 of Definition 6's three-part article on the art of ideation. Be sure to check back regularly for more posts from our guest bloggers as well as our own thought-provoking original content – Ed.

In my last article regarding ideation, I suggested that conflict, not harmony, made for better team ideation results. But before strapping up your armor to participate in a heated ideation session, there are some critical points of preparation that are needed and the first one is an ideation brief or briefing that will help kick start the team into their critical thinking.

Sun Tzu ended “The Art of War” with a chapter on intelligence and counter-intelligence, but when one is looking for a new idea that is where to start. Prepare your team with a brief of the situation including the core elements needed to create a solution to the client’s problem. There are numerous versions of briefs around the web that can provide direction to help you create an effective one. A good brief is critical to the success of the project. By defining a client’s needs clearly, the team can avoid distraction and deliver real results. Equally important is answering the why, when and how: why are they being asked to solve it, how will the ideas be used and when will the ideas be implemented. An example might be “how would you get young adults or late teens to consume more hot coffee via social media in 2012?” The team might be derailed if they argue the benefits or detriments of coffee as an appropriate beverage for teens or get too carried away by weighing factors like caffeine versus antioxidants that are relevant, but don’t address the solution. To do a good brief, you have to give the team enough understanding of objective, directing them on the task and allowing enough ambiguity for exploration. The result should be solutions based upon their collective thinking related to the customers, the culture, where the product would be consumed or purchased, economic considerations, the product itself, new uses for the product, past accepted uses and practices, past successful or failed campaigns for getting more people to drink coffee via social media and how all these factors influence each other. If you have prior research, personas or previous campaigns, the briefing is the time to make sure everyone has access to the material.

Sun Tzu’s ideas require time to implement. Creative ideas require time as well. In fact, studies have shown that our best thinking is done when we are relaxed and not directly focused on the problem and that requires time, hours, even days. So once your team is briefed, turn them loose and give them a minimum of a day to come up with their solutions. Attempting to hammer out a solution by keeping the team together is the least effective technique I know to get genuinely new solutions. When teams tackle problems together it is very easy to get into a virtual loop and follow it, just as people who are lost tend to walk in circles. With regard to relaxation, I have seen brainstorming consultants fill a room with little toys in an attempt to relax their corporate teams but the reality is they are still confined and tasked with a deadline in a room where any sense of fun or play is merely contrived. Dismiss the team and actually give them the hours to do it their own way. It is not mere coincidence that companies like Google and Nike have everything from table tennis to warm showers on their corporate campuses. So instead of focusing really hard on the problem, engaging in another activity or merely relaxing can be more productive then being together until ideas are forced.

Relaxation is the real key to productive ideation. The simple act of walking can trigger ideation. Einstein once said: “The legs are the wheels of creativity” and “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” He knew how important relaxation was to his thinking. So for your next brainstorming session, have your team go do something relaxing or engaging that is not directly focused on the task. Encourage everyone on your team to keep notes of ideas that might be forming if they can, when they can, but without rules. I recommend the use of moleskin style notebooks or even notes on the smartphone to keep track of ideas. Work in a style that is individualistic to you and you cannot go wrong.

In my last part of this blog series on creativity I will address the presentation of ideas and the techniques to using criticism and conflict to sharpen the final output of brainstorming or ideation.

By Justin W. Sanders

The LA edition of the 2012 Nickelodeon Upfront went down last Tuesday at the Hollywood Avalon as president Cyma Zarghami led the packed room through a series of announcements and special live appearances from the likes of Keke Palmer, "X Factor" star Rachel Crow, Scott Baio and many more.

The network has been the No. 1 cable network for 17 years, according to Zarghani, and is making some interesting moves to hold on to that position. There was the expected avalanche of new kids programming, including more than 300 original animation episodes coming for "SpongeBob SquarePants," a pretty bad-ass-looking update of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and other shows. But for this jaded old reporter, the most interesting new developments were what Nick is doing to bring more adults into the viewership fold.

Beefing up the Nick at Night lineup, Scott Baio discussed his new sitcom, currently titled "Daddy's Home," in which he'll play a star actor who leaves his job playing a popular dad character on TV to be a real-life stay-at-home dad. Nickelodeon has already ordered 20 episodes of the multi-camera sitcom, betting that Baio's former success on shows like "Charles In Charge" and "Happy Days" (and maybe, just a little, the "Scott Baio is Single/Pregnant..." franchise) will bolster ratings for the new series. 

Further enhancing the Nick At Night lineup, the network is bringing actor, writer, artist and all-around cool guy James Franco in for a multi-episode arc on its daily scripted series "Hollywood Heights." Franco will play a "passionate, intense, eccentric movie mogul who lives life to the fullest, often outrageously" on the new show, which follows a mousy girl who gets turned into a pop sensation after winning a songwriting contest. Outrageous or no, we're betting he won't saw his own arm off this time around.

In yet another move directed at grown-ups, the network is strengthening its NickMom programming block with a heavy emphasis on comedy. Among many upcoming original shows, new addition "NickMom Night Out" proves that stand-up comedy's popularity has spread virtually everywhere, as a cast of female comedians including Judy Gold and Cory Kahaney bring mothers into the world of comedy clubs. 

"Funny is money," said Zarghami, "no matter where you get it." Only time will tell if her statement is true...