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1-Page Summary of Leap

Creativity: No Rules, Just Right

This is a book about how to succeed in business. It’s not a rulebook, because rules limit creativity. Michael Newman joined Saatchi & Saatchi when the firm was still led by its founders and had great success with British Airways as their client. The brothers left soon after that, taking clients with them, which forced the Australian branch of the company to redefine itself. They adopted an unwavering mission statement: “To be the best agency in Australia and one of the best agencies in the world.” That goal would be achieved through client success and recognition from other companies around the world—goals that they were able to achieve over and over again along their journey. Along this path, he learned some valuable lessons like humor can help you connect better with your audience as well as humanity (putting yourself into others’ shoes) will make your message more relatable for people who are listening to you speak or reading what you’ve written down on paper.

The first thing to remember about advertising is that people hate it, don’t trust it and can spot it a mile away. Brands are stronger than any of the institutions in our world today. For example, when Ford bought Jaguar, they paid less for the brand than they did for the physical assets associated with Jaguar. People even define themselves as a market segment and get reached by brands that embody what those people value.

It’s difficult to build a brand, because people are constantly bombarded by commercials and other messages. People have learned to ignore them, because they don’t trust ads.

Research won’t help you reach the people who will buy your product. Research is based on numbers, and these people are not concerned with that sort of thing. To reach them, you need to use ideas and imagination, intuition and insight. These “i” words are the opposite of research-based communication methods. You can’t seduce someone by using statistics; it’s an emotional process. Market research would have killed off Heineken’s most successful campaign ever: “Heineken refreshes parts other beers cannot reach.” The researchers said this wasn’t memorable, didn’t promote beer in any way, lacked punch and wasn’t interesting enough for anyone to remember it or talk about it later on. However, the campaign was one of the most successful campaigns in advertising history because people loved it so much they told their friends about it all over social media!

Think of an antelope that leaps in the air instead of running away when a cheetah is chasing it. Why does it leap? It doesn’t make sense to run when you’re being chased by a cheetah, but leaping confuses the hell out of them. The ten lessons from advertising creativity are: 1) keep it simple; 2) boil it down to one word; 3) write visually; 4) sell a story and not just your product or service; 5) evangelize for ideas (preach to others about ideas); 6) be controversial (don’t take no for an answer); 7) use humor (it makes people pay attention); 8 ) don’t advertise, instead invest in brand property (build up your company’s reputation through investing time and money into things other than advertisements); 9) ideas are bigger than advertisements (ideas live on after ads have been forgotten), and 10 ) improve continuously.

Simplicity

Advertising needs to be simple and grab attention. It’s better if the audience doesn’t have time to think about what you’re saying, so don’t waste time explaining it. Just make clear your point in a few words and move on.

In the past, people used to believe that simple ideas were better than complex ones. Therefore, if there are two good answers for a problem and they’re equally effective at solving it, then the simpler one is more correct. That’s why great advertising should be simple so that everyone can understand it easily. However, trends nowadays aren’t as simple because they’ve been overused by many advertisers who want to ride on their coat tails. If you notice a trend too late and try to capitalize on it, chances are you’ll lose your audience’s attention because other advertisers will have already taken advantage of that trend. Also, don’t just follow trends blindly; instead do something different from what others are doing or make ads that don’t look like ads (e.g., use ugly actors). Be politically incorrect sometimes; court controversy even if it means getting negative feedback—that way you’ll stand out in the crowd!