"Brilliant creativity is the ultimate untrained model" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Soul beats silicon, every single time.
Think about that statement. Now consider the creative type within the advertising industry - captured best in the TV series Mad Men.
"We're going to sit at our desks and keep typing while the walls fall down around us because we're creative..." Don Draper
Every Canadian will immediately recognize the image in this video. That's the power of visual connectivity. Now watch the video - that speaks to the power of great creativity. If you are Canadian, I bet you will have tears in your eyes. If you aren't Canadian, look up Terry Fox, perhaps the biggest Canadian superhero of all time. You might also have tears in your eyes.
This is the power of great connectivity; this new advertisement for cancer research in Canada is so undeniably powerful, with such an emotional connection, that it reaches deep into your soul and powers your emotions into overdrive.
That's the power of great creativity.
Now watch this other iconic Canadian commercial that was widely shared during the last week, even though it is more than 20 years old. The video speaks deeply to the pride of every Canadian. It becomes the soundtrack to rebellion against idiocy, the background to our national pride, and the blood flowing through the veins of our national identity.
This video is another example of a great creative mindset at work. Those who craft together such powerful messages into such a small number of video frames are truly creative superheroes.
One of my good friends, Neil McOstrich, is one such genius. He came up with another one of the most iconic Canadian commercials of all time - as a nation built upon the foundational architectural soul of hockey (of which I am admittedly not a huge fan), it does all the right things - hits the emotional trigger, delivers a message, leaves a lasting memory. It too speaks to your soul.
Now read this exchange which crossed my LinkedIn feed one morning over a year ago. I kept it in my file of things, knowing I might use it one day.
The exchange is hilarious but revealing. A fellow named Allan Watson, who is a creative type received an unsolicited email from someone in the industry one day., You can see the original thread here.
Bro. I know it's hard to consider, but copywriting is going Al. Yes, you need an editor, but I can provide ten times your copy in a day than you can in a month, at half the cost. Period. Game over. It's all original content, optimized, etc. And this is not a shot at you, I had the same thing happen two years ago. Now it's even worse.
To which Alan responded:
My company, Blue Seven Content - Enhanced Law Firm Content, just ended its most successful month ever. All human written content. I'm happy you've found something that works for you, but we'll stick with what we're doing, which is using Al as a tool for ideas, along with various other tools that help enhance the content writing process.
The answer?
It's ok bro., your charging too much and will be out of business in a year.
The original message is, at this point, almost three years old. Allan is still very much in business - he only shared the post a year after receiving it as he pondered how best to share it.
The thing is - this type of message is typical of those who have fallen through any sort of technology vortex - in this case, artificial intelligence. There is often a blind belief in technology and an unwavering focus on its ultimate power over humans.
And as history has shown, over and over again, this is all just a canard, a ruse, a false promise.
Allan went on to write about this situation when he shared the image.
Please read this whole interaction that took place between some rando "marketing director" that many of you are connected with.
I waited a year because, ya know what, he could have been right. And that would have been okay.
But the way he approached me rubbed me the wrong way, and I silently said prayer to the diety (all of them) that I'd be able to say this to you ONE YEAR LATER:
F**k off.
Last year, as you can see in the screen grab, we'd wrapped up the best month ever at Blue Seven Content.
Now, we're wrapping up another record month. In the already record year we're having.
Not, as this gentleman predicted, out of business.
We're thriving.
I'm not usually petty, but for this...yeah.
Y'all want a LinkedIn that isn't all the same. You want something to talk about finally?
Let's collectively roast this post, mainly because I waited a YEAR.
And, from all of us at Blue Seven, I say a big, "Lol, bro."
LOL is often the only response worthy of these opinions that everyone is to be replaced, a casualty of the onward march of technology.
Those who possess the creative mind of a genius know that the algorithm will never replace a human.
Just watch the Terry Fox video.
An algorithm will never capture that lightning in a bottle.
Ever.
Futurist Jim Carroll has long viewed great creativity as the ultimate sign of human intelligence.