“Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike” is a book written by Greg Hoffman, a former Chief Marketing Officer at Nike.
The book, published in 2022, offers innovative strategies and insights for success in creative leadership, drawing from Hoffman’s extensive experience crafting Nike’s singular brand and playing an instrumental role in its most successful campaigns.
The book covers five key themes, including the importance of putting emotion at the center of all creative endeavors, the value of data and analytics to drive creative decision-making, and the power of collaboration and team culture in driving success.
Go deep: The Picture within the picture
Provide depth and discovery within the image of your brand. Let there be layers of meaning. The closer the consumer gets to seeing who you are, the deeper their connection to your brand will be.
Never Play It Safe, Play to Win
Don’t ask for permission: The fastest way to suck imagination out of your brand culture is to require the team to ask for permission to use theirs. Build daydreaming into a daily habit with time that is protected.
Spark a Movement
- Movements are about making change happen, so aim for an audacious goal that inspires dreamers and motivates action.
- To lead a successful movement, you need to be relatable, inspirational, and a catalyst for action.
- Empower your consumers with the tools they need to achieve the goal and create moments that show they are part of something bigger and meaningful.
Let Authenticity Be Your Cultural Currency
- Don’t try to be cool just for the sake of being cool. Instead, focus on being authentic and true to your brand’s original mission.
- Your authenticity is your greatest asset, and it will endure even after the latest trends have faded.
- To stay true to your brand values, explore other cultural currents beyond your own and engage with your consumers in a personal way.
Take big swings
The average major league player in the Baseball Hall of Fame has a .301 career batting average, meaning they get out more than they get on base, but they are still considered all-time greats. Take the big, innovative swings. Even the missed opportunities will lead to success down the road.
Make the movie poster: What’s the movie poster for your idea? How can you tell your story within an image in an instant? Talking about an idea can only go so far. Get visual sooner to bring the team into your idea and the idea to the consumer.
Game Face for Greatness
More than a logo: Your logo may feel like just a visual signature in the beginning, but treat it like the most important part of your brand future. Commit to getting it right, and it will be able to carry the weight of your consumer’s lifelong aspirations.
Creativity Is a Team Sport
Build a creative dream team: Embrace the daydreamers. Empower the quiet voices to speak the loudest. Let diversity be the oxygen that breathes life into the creative pursuit.
Get outside yourself: Complacency is the enemy of creativity. Don’t wait for inspiration to hit you. Make a plan to go out and find it. Where can you go, what can you see, and who can you meet? Spark your imagination by bringing the outside world inside yours.
Close the Distance
- Look beyond surface-level observations and assumptions to understand the unmet needs of underserved communities.
- Have uncomfortable conversations and amplify the voices of others to reveal deeper truths within society.
- Collaborate with the community to co-create solutions that respect their needs and develop a sense of ownership and pride in the future.
- Use your product not just for transactions, but as a means to invite people into a more equitable future and a lifelong journey of growth and transformation.
Talent starts the game, chemistry wins it
Pass the ball. Create a culture where the left and right brains multiply each other. Drive radical creative collaboration between the minds, skills, and dreams of each other.
Set the scene
What movie has the consumer just walked into, and what are the scenes they are a part of? Build an immersive world for your brand and its products to play a movie that engages all senses and—more important—tells a story where the consumer is one of the characters.
Simplify without compromise
Sometimes what you don’t say is as important as what you do. Your brand identity is an exercise in addition and subtraction. Reveal what matters most and let the rest fade away.
Obsess over the last 10 percent: Make even the smallest details meet the highest standard. Each of those details, no matter how small, is an opportunity to reveal more about your brand story and say, “this is who we are.” over time, your respect for quality will be returned by the consumer’s respect for you.
The picture and the frame
Create a strong and identifiable brand frame, but don’t let that frame outshine the picture within it. Your brand’s foundation is a stage for the stories you want to tell. The stronger the frame, the more powerful the stories.
Style with Performance: Style without performance is fleeting and forgotten. Performance without style can be respected but doesn’t transcend. When performance and style multiply each other, you get brand distinction.
Embrace the Limitations
Sometimes it’s better to have less time and even less money. The pressure of time and budget restraints can be a boon to the imagination. Let the urgency generate ingenuity.
Build the arena: It’s hard to create emotion if your space is devoid of it. Whether it’s physical or digital, expecting to spark brilliance within a rigid white cube is fleeting. Make the environment as innovative as the solutions you seek to create.
Dare to be remembered
Reveal your soul
Pull back the curtain to offer a clear view of your brand values. Allow the audience to see your personality, and in turn, they will respond to your humanity.
Expand your edges
Your brand voice should never be static. It is a constantly shifting blend of characteristics, beliefs, and passions. By expressing different traits, your relatability becomes the ultimate invitation into your brand.
Listen before you lead
You’ll have plenty of ways to express yourself. Before you do, listen to who you are serving, know their environment, understand their mission, and see their challenges to fulfill their dream.
Dare to be remembered Part 2
Make people feel
We are at our best when we worry less about how people feel about us and more about how we make them feel about themselves and their ability to achieve their definition of greatness.
Embrace the gauntlet
Fight for your creativity, but invite diverse perspectives into the room along the way. To achieve a story that is indeed remembered, welcome rigor and discourse when creating it.
Win before the moment
Don’t wait until the moment of truth happens. Plan for the best outcome, and create a story that is ready when it matters most.
See what others see, find what others don’t
Empathy is what turns good brands into great ones. Use your broader vision to gain a greater understanding about the world and the people beyond your own experience. With this “Vision Advantage,” you will uncover deeper insights beyond what you see directly in front of you.
Allow spontaneity to reveal opportunity: You can’t plan your way to every creative breakthrough. Rigidity can stifle creativity. Allow the structure of your team to unleash moments of self-expression.
