ÜberCreativity Brings Joy
Worldwide executive director at Serviceplan, Jason Romeyko on the Joy of ÜberCreativity.
Like many of us, I’ve been feeling the intensity that has been the year 2020. The Financial Times described the symptoms of 2020 as ‘incredulity’, like WTF, a fear of scrolling down one’s social media feed worried that they would hit on some political thing or another disaster. Or this angst that you wake up with in the morning that kick starts your day before you’ve even had coffee.
With all this in mind, and people’s fears around Covid-19, and many of my friends and colleagues who are experiencing issues with the recession, I look at what communication can do at this particular time. I think the antidote to all this anguish that we’re feeling right now, is for communication to deliver joy, and when I’m talking about joy, I am talking about giving people belly laughter, or wonder in their eyes, or things that bring them together to share joy together
You see, advertising has always been the unwanted guest in people’s home. No-one invites us on to their screens. So, I feel there’s a responsibility from us as marketers to bring people joy and entertain them, particularly in these tough times. When you create joy, it has a knock-on effect – it creates more joy. Enough joy creates a culture of positivity.
So, imagine if all brands got together and tried to make people’s lives a little bit more joyful, happy and bright, then we can create a culture of positivity. With a culture of positivity, we can change society and repair the damage that’s been done this year. A culture of positivity allows reinvention, and I know many brands and companies are needing reinvention at this time and looking for a way forward. But you can’t do it with a culture of negativity. It will only work when you’re filled with joy or some kind of happiness.
Before you start doing that with your brand or your company, I think it starts with you, or me in this instance. I call that the ‘oxygen mask mentality’. When you get on airplane, they tell you that in the event of an accident to place the oxygen mask on yourself first before placing it on your child. I think it’s really important we look at ways of finding joy within our day-to-day lives. For example, we’re all careful about what we eat and getting the right vitamins, I think we really need to look at what media we let into our lives. For example, instead of binge-watching violent series after violent series, which only creates more angst, try and watch more comedy. In the old days a television channel had a programme master. These days we’re masters of our own ‘on demand’.
Think about the music you’re listening to - listen to more joyful music. My friend told me I was listening to too much break-up music. So, I changed that and started listening to more uplifting music, which changed the tone of my day. Think about putting joy into your life first, because you need that strength to get through everything else that happens in society. And then maybe you can purpose your own joy into reinventing the joy that you place into your work.
If you think about it, ÜberCreativity in its pure nature brings joy. The process where you have different disciplines working with different talents and cultures… just that collaborative process in itself is a very happy and nourishing experience. And if you think about the product of ÜberCreativity, innovation brings wonder and lights up people’s lives and makes them ask ‘how did they do that?’
So, as we move towards the new year, please have a think about the tonality of what we put into the world with our communication. And let’s look forward to spreading more joy in 2021.
