Extreme creativity questions often emerge when designing a client workshop that needs everyone to expand their perspectives and enter previously unimagined realms of innovative thinking.
In other cases, extreme creativity questions are practically served up as pure gifts. This is one of those examples.
An article in The Wall Street Journal about Universal’s development, promotion, and release strategy for the movie Wicked provided several great quotes and prompts to envision new extreme creativity questions. The Wicked movie, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda respectively, will be a two-part, two-year extravaganza.
One bold quote signaled the inspiration possibilities. Universal Pictures CMO Michael Moses proclaimed the wild promotion strategy goal for Wicked:
“We’re going to be just short of obnoxious.”
Whoa. “Just short of obnoxious.” That’s a rich permission for expanding creative thinking and strategizing in dramatic directions.
The article was bursting with inspiration comparable to this quote. Thanks to the WSJ, Wicked, and reporter Erich Schwartzel, here are the extreme creativity questions that I envisioned, prompted by the article.
Imagining Huge Possibilities
- Suppose our new product has all the features and benefits that everyone has been seeking but could never find. What needs to be included in it?
- What would it take for our promotion to suck up all the oxygen (attention) in our marketplace?
Expanding the Audience Experience
- What things would our audience find over-the-top obnoxious? (After you imagine truly obnoxious ideas, you can always ratchet them back a few steps.)
- What emotions, excitement, and splash could we introduce to make the experience a social event for our audiences?
- If we expected to become a worldwide movement, how would we prepare? What if we expected our brand to become a lifestyle?
Inviting Amazing Partnerships
- Who are new partners that we can invite and motivate to join in this initiative?
- Which partners have turned us down before that will want to get involved now?
- Which partners have we never considered because we couldn’t imagine approaching them?
Implementing for Game-Changing Impact
- Suppose we give this initiative ultra-premium treatment, featuring it in everything we do. What is everything we should do to make it unbelievably special?
- If this were actually a company-wide priority (and not just us saying it’s a company-wide priority that’s no more important than anything else), how would we expect everyone to be working on it daily?
- If our ideas are so huge that we need to deliver them in two parts, what huge things are in part 1? What even more huge things would be in part 2?
These questions (as with all our Brainzooming question lists) are open to editing so they best fit your situation. These early versions are straight from my imagination to the blog, shaped by how we might use them in a collaborative client workshop.
One important reminder: when you need big ideas, don’t ask people for big ideas. Instead, use extreme creativity questions. They expand the space for individuals to share a wide variety of ideas, no matter the idea’s size. And, with enough fun extreme thinking, you’ll find plenty of big possibilities among all the great ideas! - Mike Brown
