Defining creativity for the purpose of selling OOH is the ability to generate ideas.  These thoughts are adapted from a breakthrough book A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young.

To paraphrase, we aren’t selling OOH space, we are selling ideas. Producing ideas is a very specific process based in some deep, proven psychology. It is as specific as the production of automobiles, etc. The formula is so simple to state some people don’t believe in it, and some won’t do the work required. You may want to research the science of this process.

The sociologist Pareto said the entire world is broken into “speculators” and “stockholders.” Speculators are voraciously curious about everything and preoccupied with creating new ideas. “Stockholders” are steady, conservative, routine people. This explains why some clients (speculators?) are better at marketing than their agencies (stockholders?). OOH sales reps tend to be speculators by nature.

Facts are never just facts, they are a link in a chain of knowledge. An idea is just a new combination of facts (old elements) nurtured by seeing their relationships. Coca-Cola, Velcro, microwave ovens, and Post-It Notes were all created accidentally by “speculators” seeing new combinations.

Young’s Five part process is:

1. Study every aspect of your subject in two categories, the specific, and the general. Many try to short-circuit this step. Like a kaleidoscope, review facts for many different combinations. Constantly expose yourself to new experiences: books, music, movies, travel/cultures etc. The more varied your background the better your ideas. Bernice Fitzgibbons, the legendary New York copywriter, would never write an ad for anything that she hadn’t experienced firsthand.
2. Digest the info. There is a mental digestive process that takes place. Don’t stop after an initial small idea. Make note of it and keep the process going. The mind has a second wind. The best ideas are the later ones.
3. Stop thinking about it. Ideas come after you stop straining for them. Literally sleep on it. Like Sherlock Holmes, go off to a concert in the middle of big case. Your brain will take it from there.
4. In time you will have a eureka moment that will generate an exciting idea. Flesh it out and tweak it.
5. Bring your new idea to other people to examine, critique and fine tune.