The Paradox of Creative Limitations

In 1987, the gaming video designer Hideo Kojima was working on a game called Metal Gear. The game was supposed to be an action game with quick gunplay, shooting and multiple enemies on screen. But there was a problem. The hardware couldn’t process all the elements on the screen. In a moment of both desperation and inspiration, Kojima decided to work within those limitations and pivot towards a stealth-based game. In one fell swoop, history was made; 27 games and 37 years later, that game teaches us a very simple lesson – constraints can enhance creativity.

• The Creative Paradox: We can carry this lesson forward to advertising, where the general wisdom is often to unleash the creative teams to get the most out of them, yet it seems counterintuitive to limit a team in order to get the most out of them. However, there are several reasons why constraints can enhance creativity.

• Types of Creative Constraints: There are two types of creative constraints. The first are the external constraints over which an agency has no control, such as timelines, budgets, industry limitations etc. The second are the internal constraints, such as the brief, the strategy and the creative guardrails. These are modular and vary from clientto agency.

• Benefits of Creative Constraints: Limitations allow for clarity of mind. The creative mind is like a messy kitchen, with flames ablaze, ingredients aplenty and recipes omitted. When you have a limited number of ingredients, it is a lot easier to figure out whether you will end up making an omelette or oatmeal cookies. In fact, some of the greatest advertising campaigns have emerged from environments of extreme constraints. For example, Volkswagen’s ‘Think Small’ in the sixties. When Volkswagen approached DDB for this project, there were constraints galore to manoeuvre. Firstly, selling a German car company to Americans who had fought not one but two world wars against Germany. Secondly, this was a market dominated by large flashy vehicles, with the diminutive beetle looking dead on arrival. Instead of wallowing in the constraints, DDB got to work. Rather than being defensive and finding ways to ingratiate the Beetle with the American public, they took an alternative route. They embraced the differences of the Beetle, and the ‘Think Small’ campaign was born. They bucked the advertising trends of the day by making the product small, the copy non-existent, and poking fun at themselves. Without those constraints, we would not have the greatest advertising campaign in history, so maybe we should show some restraint in judging our constraints.

• Time Constraints: In the words of Samuel Johnson, “Nothing so concentrates the mind as the sight of gallows.” In the same way, nothing hurries the creative mind more than an impending deadline. It forces one to choose what is important and ignore what is unnecessary. With limited resources or time, there is little room for waste, and this kind of pressure can lead to a more focused and efficient creative process, where only the best ideas are developed and executed.

• Budget Constraints: Budget constraints allow for thinking outside the box. Often, by trying to find the most bombastic ideas, we ignore the simpler and more effective ones. A smaller budget forces us to focus on simple things that stay within the budget, while on the other hand, a large budget allows for lavish productions and extensive media buys. A smaller budget forces us to think strategically and encourages us to find creative ways to get the most bang for the customer’s buck. A good example is the Dollar Shave Club – a home order razor delivery start-up that completely disrupted the razor market with a simple but low-budget campaign. The campaign was driven by creativity as much as by necessity, as the company did not have the financial marketing muscle to flex against the biggest razor companies. So, they did the next best thing, and they went with a simple, low-budget but high on humour approach that was made to go viral on the internet. Thanks to its fun messaging, the idea captured minds and customers. Their success is an important lesson for us that budget constraints can inspire, not inhibit us.

• Regulatory Constraints: Anything from tobacco products to pharmaceuticals come with a host of regulatory limitations that need to be dealt with to create an effective campaign. But as we have seen before, limitations carry unlimited potential for creativity. One example was Viagra. Due to regulatory restrictions, Viagra was not allowed to directly communicate its effects. To overcome this, the agency pivoted towards a more different approach, which focused on the emotional and social benefits of the drug. It used clever, suggestive images to convey the message without having to break the industry rules. In Pakistan, the Josh campaign followed a similar route. They overcame the media constraints by focusing on digital media. They also bucked industry trends in Pakistan by adopting a cheeky and humourous approach and presented their product as a hero.

• Digital Constraints: Digital advertising offers many opportunities but equally many challenges, such as shrinking attention spans, content saturation, limited time, limited space, ad blocks and, of course, the dreaded skip button. As shorter formats become more common because of social media apps like TikTok and Instagram, content has to be reduced and repackaged. Brands had to develop personalities and downsell the upsell, so to speak. In a content-first environment, you don’t need the sell approach; the key is to accumulate likes. A good example is the Duolingo account, with its slightly unhinged bird becoming a personification for the brand’s zany sense of humour. The same applies to Liquid Death, the sparkling water brand.

• Embrace the Constraints, Lose the Restraint: Remember that constraints are your friends. Like a parent who scolds you, they force you to release your unlimited potential; to adapt and find new ways to say the same old things. They stop you, so you can go further. They set boundaries, so you can break them.

It’s a paradox, but isn’t life just the same?

Tamoor Mir is ECD,The D’Hamidi Partnership.www.linkedin.com/in/tamoormir/