Imagination Without Boundaries: Edelman's CCO On Creativity in Everyday Moments

Inspiration is a curious thing—it can strike at any time, from anywhere. For me, it’s not confined to traditional realms of creativity or innovation. I find it in the everyday, observations on human behaviour some might overlook. My brain finds connections between random things and spots patterns. I’ve always loved comedy that points out those connections and similarities you’ve never spotted before, that sort of material really makes me laugh. When I was a young kid, the fabulous word plays and daft sketches from the Two Ronnies had me in stiches. I’ve a massive volume of their scripts.

A Career Across Sectors

Throughout my career, spanning multiple sectors, I’ve embraced the idea that inspiration is everywhere, and it continues to drive me. From traditional brand advertising and digital product design to customer engagement, behavioural science and earned media, I’ve worked across a wide range of industry sectors proving, I like to think, that creativity is a very transferable skill. Each area I’ve worked in presents unique challenges, problems to solve, and that’s where I find my energy—seeing problems as opportunities to think differently and innovate.

Taking Energy from Everything

I absorb ideas from everything around me. It doesn’t have to be a book or a film. I don’t need to go to a gallery. I have favourite authors, artists and directors of course but inspiration can just as easily come from a conversation overheard on a bus. Like a Magpie collects shiny objects, that’s the way I collect ideas.

People Who Inspire Me

Two people, in particular, have shaped my approach to creativity:

Margaret Heffernan: Entrepreneur, CEO and currently Professor of Practice at Bath Uni, Heffernan is one of my heroes. She has written six influential books, including Willful Blindness and Uncharted. Her TED Talks have garnered over 12 million views. I love her outspoken views on ‘efficiency’ and best practice being the enemy of creativity, the huge burden that bureaucracy places on successful and inspiring leadership and her bravery in refusing to accept the status quo.

David Droga: Droga opened my eyes to the limitless potential of creativity providing you get the base thinking, the strategy, right in the first place. He virtually invented ‘integrated’ campaigns, with media agnostic ideas that flowed across platforms, when he took over at Saatchi in the 90’s, taking creativity outside the boxes of TV and print. Many of my favourite pieces of work that inspired me in my early career have come from the Droga stable; Sarah Silverman and The Great Schlep, Marc Ecko and the UNICEF Tap Project. I realise now that his ideas were rooted in culture and therefore drove conversation, they didn’t rely on paid media, in the same way that other campaigns of the same period did. Droga is one of the early proponents of ‘Earned’. I once persuaded David to come in to talk to the creative dept at OgilvyOne. Nobody believed he’d come but come he did – and stayed for over 2 hours. Droga is a legend.

Emma De La Fosse is the CCO of Edelman UK