Creativity + New Reality one day symposium - H+K London

“If you want to see where the future is heading, look to where people are having the most fun” - wise words from self proclaimed IBM Evangelist Jeremy Waites, and words that sum up our takeaway from H+Ks Creativity + New reality symposium brilliantly.

The symposium's main focus was how we, as creators, can harness the power of creativity within the new realities of the world around us.

One of those new realities being the abundance of messaging we are subjected to on a daily basis. Communication is everywhere. It’s inescapable.

As MD of H+K Matt Battersby points out:

“The human body sends 11million ‘bits’ to the brain every second.

But the human brain can only process 40 of those ‘bits.”

Therefore 10,999,960 ‘bits’ are getting lost...That’s a lot of lost ‘bits’.

One of the main concerns for advertisers or brands within this new reality is how can we avoid our messaging being one of those lost ‘bits’.

There’s no sure fire answer to this question, but I do believe that a key place to start lies within the opening quote of this blog post: “Look to where people are having the most fun”. Where are people choosing to spend their time? Where do they enjoy spending their time? Where do they want to spend their time?

This is where working with influencers comes in. And I don’t mean sticking something on an Instagram or social feed with millions of followers and hoping everyone sees your message. I mean working with influencers to create something that really connects with their audience.

Vikki Chowney, chief content strategist from H+K summed it up nicely, "It's moved from ‘can you write a post on this product’ to ‘what can we build together?’"

It is all about the quality and relationship the influencer has with their audience, and what you, as a brand, can add to that. In a very cohesive way. It’s about trust: The influencer knows their audience better than anyone, so what can you create together to connect best with them? And finally, it’s about creating/building something that the user wants to see, something that they can process and something they want to be a part of.

In a reality crammed full of messaging if you look to where people are having fun, you’re less likely to become one of 10,999,960 lost ‘bits’.

That’s exactly what we try to do here at The Distillery.

Many thanks to everyone at H+K for putting on a super informative day.
And special thanks to @jeremywaite, @mbattersby, @vikkichowney, @mskatebones , @meandorla and @social_pictures ‏ for inspiring this blog post.