The ad man guide to firing up your creativity

You have been working like a Duracell bunny all week on five different ad campaigns. Your Art Director made your concepts look like bad expressionism. Your Creative Director is questioning your copywriting talents with phrases like “did you go out drinking last night?” and “maybe it was cool in the Eighties”. When the weekend arrives it feels like you have jumped aboard a lifeboat.

For the next forty-eight hours you want to forget work and write some fiction. Your brain is mush and your enthusiasm has done a runner. It is a tough situation. One great thing about working in advertising is that you have to hit deadlines. To hit deadlines you need to fire up your muse. Here are five foolproof techniques used in the last decade to make clients happy.

1. Put a tiger in your tank

It is easier to face a blank screen when you are tanked up on endorphins. Running provides a high. Exercise works wonders. A 2013 study published in the Journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience noted that regular exercise is associated with improved divergent and convergent thinking. These are the two components of creative thinking. Get writing fit.

2. Between love and madness lies obsession

Read something you love or are mad about obsessively. Lying in bed with a fantastic novel requires no effort. After a couple of hours you might find an overwhelming urge to emulate the author with your own words. Stephen King says the importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing. Constant reading pulls you into a mindset where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness.

3. Think different

If you normally write on a computer write on a pad. If you normally write in pen write in pencil. If you normally write at a desk write in a pub or in bed or in the bath. If you think about writing differently it becomes something new.

4. FCUK

Freud had much to say about sexuality and creativity. He is not the only one. Author Deepak Chopra says creativity is ultimately sexual. Psychologists at Newcastle University found that professional artists and poets have about twice as many sexual partners as other people. The study shows the average number of sexual partners increased as creative output went up. The more creative you are the more sexual partners you should have. Doing both things at once is not suggested unless you are in a very understanding relationship.