Let’s be honest.
There’s only one nemesis that any creative mind needs to be saved from. It’s called the existential itch. This itch can attack at any point. Sometimes for days, months or even in phases. It’s known to have side-effects of overthinking, leading to questions like-why are you doing what you’re doing, does it matter to anybody?
The worst is when this itch spreads like wildfire, influencing your colleagues, your feeds and worst.. your thoughts.
Hand on heart, I have this itch every year and somehow working on purpose driven campaigns has been the lifeline that I needed. With every project I’ve found that not only does it give the right kick to funk induced creative mind, but it also kept my skills sharp.
Here’s how:
Let’s answer the first existential question, why we do what we do. Purpose led campaigns give you just that – a great purpose.
These are problems that our way bigger than our own, just because of the sheer scale at which it affects people. When you understand that, it really humbles you.
This was our north star, where after four years we finally got to The Missing Chapter. The sheer number of 23 million girls dropping out of school was purpose enough to solve for.
Read more: The making of P&G’s Cannes Lions Grand Prix-winner ‘The Missing Chapter’
Then you’re not doing it for a great line, or an appraisal or even an award. You’re doing it just for the number of lives you could actually effect.
No great idea ever comes from glass walled boardrooms. In our day to day of solving for a billion, we forget the most basic insight. That we’re human too.
Empathy is the only skill that a creative needs to keep sharpening. When you truly feel for something, the mind doesn’t stop thinking about it.
True story, zoom call number XVII with PepsiCo’s agronomists shooting down our ideas, Our CCO Raj pleaded to the client saying, “Look at our fancy sneakers. They’re clean. They need some mud.”
That led to a year long journey across farms in India, and it opened up Pandora’s box of problems to solve for.
The first two initiatives to be born from there where Biochar and Smart Farm, where we worked with the farmers and innovated technologies to help them fight climate adversities and form new sustainable agricultural practices.
We’re already working on our next project, to enable access to the female farmers of India, who make up almost 75 percent of the farming population in the country.
Daily rounds of feedback and rejections are demotivators. It kills the creativity. But here’s what we need to remember- we’re privileged enough to work in an industry where brands (some) have the budgets and the power to do good. So, it’s okay to use this platform and do a little good. I mean, it feels good to be Robin Hood.
They’re actually extremely powerful mediums that reach more than a billion people everyday. This drove us to create, The Water Sustainability Score, a first of its kind report card that tells you how water positive a brand truly is. Adopting this score by any brand acts as a commitment from organisations to bring transparency and accountability in their efficient use of this precious commodity.
One simple act from a brand, a big step towards conserving water.
Executing any sustainability initiative isn’t easy. You’re collaborating with many partners, trying to cut through a lot of red-tape, treading waters that you might not know anything about and nothing goes according to plan. Know that there will be roadblocks, it’s inevitable.
But it definitely teaches you how to deal with landmines every day and be agile to find solutions. When your purpose is strong, you’ll always find a way to make it happen.
So when you feel stuck, I mean super-duper stuck and nothing really seems to inspire, remember, that the world has enough problems. We don’t need to be creating our own, we just have to pick one. We’re amazing at solving everybody else’s problem over our own, and it’s a great place to start.
The creative mind thrives in hope, it needs to see the silver linings, needs to craft beauty and it needs to know that there are still solutions to create. So open your mind to sustainability campaigns. You’ll create the hope that we need.
Ayshwarya Sharma is brand strategy partner at Leo Burnett India. She was also Storyboard18’s YoungGun (Class of 2023). Views expressed are personal.