Why do you ask!? Alright, you got me - the headline’s a bit bolshie. Atlas, my 5-year-old boy, still pees on the bathroom floor and wears his clothes inside out, but they say “write about what you know”, so hear me out.

Everyone’s banging on about AI right now. Many fear its impact on creativity. For what it’s worth, I’m an advocate for some of its applications. It’s probably worth some conversation, but you could also just ignore the noise and build cool stuff people care about instead. If it all ends with Skynet taking over then we’re screwed anyway.

While the debate rages on, the fact is that AI in its current form is still built on rules. Data-driven, pattern-bound rules.

Kids? They don’t give a shit about rules.

Over the weekend, I watched Atlas and my eight-year-old daughter, Freya, play with Lego. Lego is all about creative freedom. No rules. You can build whatever you want. But as I watched them play, it occurred to me that there is actually one rule: all the pieces have to be Lego, or they simply don’t click.

However, my little darlings said a polite f-that (we’re a Queen’s English household, so that’s just meant to capture the essence of their spirit!). After building a giant house-slash-garden-thing, they grabbed Beyblades, soft toys, and Minecraft blocks to throw in the mix. Then, Atlas popped the head off a My Little Pony and stuck it on a Spider-Man Lego figure’s body, declaring “Spony-Man!” had entered the fray.

One rule. Broken. A new character born. He immediately captured mine and Freya’s attention as we laughed at what his creative imagination had conjured up.

What does this have to do with marketing, I hear you ask? There are parallels, believe me.

While most brands play it safe, following the rules, sticking to category norms, benchmarking their benchmarks, others don’t! They challenge convention and disrupt categories. How? They experiment, they take risks, they fail fast, and they reap the rewards - attention, awareness, consideration, conversion - put simply, they get people watching, listening, thinking and talking by creating stuff people give a shit about. So much so that they’ll buy a product because of it.

Let’s prove it:

• Burger King - Despite having a meaty cash reserve to flamegrill, in a bid to reach gamers, they sponsored fourth-tier Stevenage FC IRL so they would show up on their jerseys in FIFA 20. Then they rewarded players for using the team in the game. A Whopper of a campaign. Love a pun. I’ll show myself out…
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• Dollar Shave Club - With a budget of just $4,500 USD, they took the shaving industry by storm, creating a very different kind of advert that their audience loved. They poked fun at other brands’ products and their celebrity endorsement strategy, all while landing their USPs.
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• Zappos - Google were giving away cupcakes in exchange for sharing pictures on a new platform. Zappos jumped on the opportunity and parked a low-budget vending machine (literally a person in a cardboard box) right next to them. The “vending machine” accepted Google’s cupcakes as payment, rewarding people with shoes, bags and watches.
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• Skoda - Once upon a time, they made an ad featuring their Fabia model built out of cake with a tagline “Full of lovely stuff”. Why? Because who doesn’t love cake! Five-year-olds bloody well do.

What unifies these examples is that they all broke the rules.

So, when it comes to creative marketing, why don’t more brands and marketers just play?

If we run with this childlike train of thought, the answer is pretty simple: it’s because we grow up and lose touch with our inner five-year-old.

So, how do we break free and start thinking like like one again within a marketing context? Start by knowing what rules kill creativity. Then. Start. Breaking. Them.
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Rule #1 - “Don’t alienate anyone!” – Avoid taking a stance on things that really matter in the lives of your customers. Don’t build a deeper relationship with them. Don’t lead culture.

Rule #2 - “Has legal and [insert ten stakeholders] seen this?” – Take a truly disruptive idea, sanitise and dilute it to the point that it won’t connect on a deeper emotional level.

Rule #3 - “What’s the ROI?” – Focus on short-term sales campaigns with immediately visible results. Don’t experiment with formats or emerging platforms. Avoid long-term brand building at all costs.

Rule #4 - "What are our competitors doing?" - Be a sheep, get in line and wait for a wolf to eat you.

Rule #5 - "We get it!" – Only create things you understand. Never ask your audience what they think and feel. Your CEO is in tune with Gen Z, right? Right!?

Ok, so I’m being facetious! Let’s come back to Atlas. What can brands learn from him to embody category-leading brand behaviours?

He breaks the rules. In fact, he’s not even aware of what they are. Don’t do stuff because it’s all you’ve ever done, or it’s what everyone else does. Do stuff that awakens something in you, and trust your gut. Do it because disruptive campaigns are proven to work.

He makes up games as he goes. Experiment. Dig into culture, try making something that means something, remix it, and react to your audience’s response. Experiment again.

He fails and tries again. Be willing to take a risk and make a mess. Then go again.

He improvises with whatever’s at hand. Sometimes the tightest budgets produce the most outstanding work. Get scrappy.

He knows what makes his sister laugh and will do whatever it takes to get a giggle. You are not your audience, but you need to bloody well get to know them so you can do stuff they will love. Make them giggle if you can… or feel any emotion other than pure boredom.

So next time, you’re about to kick off a new campaign, maybe you should start by thinking like a five-year-old, because sometimes, throwing out the rulebook is the smartest, most creative move you can make. Meanwhile, your competitors are probably still debating the impact of AI.

If you made it this far, well done. We’re offering a free ‘Think Like a Five-Year-Old’ workshop for the first five people who email us with their best stick man selfie drawing attached, but who am I to make up the rules... This 1-hour workshop will be facilitated by our experienced master of play, Atlas. Wearing your clothes inside out is mandatory. Peeing on the floor is not.