Creativity = Constraints

Creativity is born from constraints.

That's my belief, and when I see people complain about their Marketing budget, I like to remind them.

Some of the best creative ever made was done on a budget.

Remember these?

- Hotmail’s Free Email Signature (Late 1990s)

- Airbnb’s “Obama O’s” & “Cap’n McCain” Cereal

- Dollar Shave Club’s Viral Launch Video

- ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

When I worked at OnePlus, most of our budget was allocated to media buy and go-to market channels.

For us in the PR and Social teams, we had to make do with a lot less.

That's when brainstorming and creative ideas matter.

With the video below (link in comments) I grabbed my IKEA kitchen knife from home and scratched the screen of the upcoming 9 Pro smartphone.

The point? To prove that Corning's new Gorilla Glass 5 was basically scratch resistant.

That video racked up over 80k views.

To demonstrate the fast charging of the phone we grabbed my iPhone and shot a timelapse of both phones charging.

The OnePlus won by a mile, and the video racked up 1.3m views.

With thousands of comments.

Use constraints to your advantage.