You are welcome to share your thoughts on this article written by Greg Taylor, Director of Brand Provocation at Elmwood, London

Wherever you live in the world today, ‘creativity’ is often trumpeted as the way out of the economic mess, many of us find ourselves in.

The pressure is on therefore to make the most of the ‘creative’s’ who live on your doorstep or find a way attracting overseas talent into your neighbourhood. Does though where you were born or the place you live predispose your creative ability—is it a case of nature or nurture? Will this debate shed some light on why some places like Brazil and Argentina are creative hotspots on the rise whereas the West appears to have the best of its years behind itself?

Like many things the creative revolution doesn’t happen overnight…

‘Back in 1985, I sat listening to a room full of people make fun of the Argentinean entries (to Cannes Lions), which pushed me to work really hard for 20 years. In 2007, my agency won the ever Grand Prix for Argentina.’ Argentinean, Fernando Vega Olmos (now JWT Worldwide, Creative Chairman, Continental Europe and Latin America). A great story but what does it tell us?

When you dig a bit deeper you discover that not just Fernando Vega Olmos but other creative’s who come from Latin America have an ethos, a point of view on creativity that is based on optimism or what the Spanish call ‘optimista’. That no matter how big the challenge or whatever the crisis might be. Somehow it can be overcome—for them crisis represents the chance for invention or re-invention. That crisis is the mother of invention. As such crisis should be viewed as a kind of a blessing. It doesn’t matter if that crisis be an economic bumpy road, a boring product or a lack of budget they all lead to opportunity. You just need to switch your mindset and be willing to look at things differently and use crisis as a catalyst to change things for the better.

Vega Olmos himself built his creative reputation doing brilliant work for Unilever’s Axe with the likes of the ‘Chocolate man’ and ‘Bow-chikka-wow-wow’ campaigns.

Another great example of Latin American ‘optimista’ is the collaboration of Brazilian fashion designer Alexandre Herchovitch and JWT Brazil teaming up with Johnson & Johnson to create these limited edition Band-aids. Skinning your knee has never been so chic! Instead of traditionally focusing on young children the Brazilian agency looked elsewhere to help re-invent what was a boring commoditized category. By looking to appeal to young people they bravely questioned the repetition of the client’s initiatives targeted at a children’s audience and, suggesting a new product for a brand new audience, introducing Band-Aid into the world of fashion and borrowing from it innovation and attitude attributes for an outdated brand.

Let’s not forget Latina’s are also making waves! Kat Von D, tattoo artist, reality-TV star, and owner of High Voltage Tattoo, is bringing her tattoo talents and rock ‘n’ roll vibe to the makeup masses. ‘People have always asked me what I would be doing if I wasn’t a tattoo-er,’ she says. ‘The only other thing I could imagine is doing makeup!’

Von D may not be ‘doing’ makeup in the artistic sense, but boy can she create it. A Kat Von D conception inside and out (her rose tattoo stencils cover each product), her Sephora-exclusive colour collection is the perfect distillation of her personal style, passion for makeup, and creative background. Von D’s desire to embrace change is one of the reasons she reigns supreme as an A-List tattoo artist and innovative style setter. Her recognizable look—consisting of dark, smoky cat eyes and racy red lips—shows she’s a sexy, enterprising libertine who’s not afraid to speak her mind.

What all these Latin creative’s have in common is a sense that anything is possible, their heads are in a positive, optimistic place …

For South America they’re time is to come, they’re not trying to hold onto the past, which means they’re not risk adverse. So much of their creative optimista is a result of where they’re from, they’re in a countries undergoing change, they’re up for invention and re-invention. They have a fresh view on the world, it’s inspiring, uplifting and most importantly it’s infectious which is why global branding companies like Unilever and Johnson & Johnson are using creative’s from this part of the world to lead us all out of crisis!

Never one to shy away from challenging convention perhaps the final words on the need to embrace crisis should go to Einstein:

‘Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born from the dark night. It’s in crisis that inventiveness is born, as well as discoveries made and big strategies. He, who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. He who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent and is more interested in problems than in solutions . . .

There’s no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can show the very best in us.’

About the Author

Greg Taylor became founding partner in global brand design consultancy Elmwood in 1989. Now Director of Brand Provocation, Greg is the creator and facilitator of Step Change™, Elmwood’s strategic tool for moving ideas forward. Clients include ASDA, Wal-Mart, Arla Foods, BBC, COI (Defra and DfT), Cable&Wireless, Comic Relief, Debbie & Andrew’s, Durex, Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, McCain, and the Met Office.