An interview with Reinis Traidas, Creative Director & Head of Content of Magic Agency (Latvia).
What is the biggest challenge in your work today, what keeps you up at night?
The biggest challenge is to resist the easy way – to not offer the client what I know they will agree to buy without much doubt or discussion, but to challenge them to push forward and try to be more brave. This is always difficult – both to challenge myself and then to challenge the client. It often doesn’t work out.
How do you generate creative ideas? Please share a tip.
I almost always start with an empty page (or a document). I try to break down what it is I am actually doing or what it is that I want to say. Sometimes we know what to say, but don’t know how to say it. Other times it is the other way around. I start with short, very simple and not very creative headlines and subheadlines to try and capture the essence of what the idea needs to be. Very often this simple thought process takes you where you need to go to start building around a very simple idea or a simple insight. Starting with notes from the brief (or client’s wishes) can also often help direct you. For me, having some sort of order or structure to the idea workflow works best. I start with what we know, what the product is, what it’s main strengths are and then go from there.
Please recommend a book, website or podcast about marketing/advertising/creativity.
This is probably real mainstream and old by now, but I somehow always get back to 2018’s “How not to Plan: 66 Ways to Screw it up” to give me some guidance when I’m stuck. It also gives great arguments that you can use when discussing plans with clients. As for the web, I’m a big fan of Modern Love by NY Times (both podcast and blog section). The theme there is not creativity, not directly, but different insights about relationships between people these days. And interesting insights are often key to all kinds of creativity.
The interview was conducted by Hando Sinisalu.
EXTRA INFORMATION
- Adwards creative competition win gives you points for Baltic Agency of the Year ranking! (read more about ranking)
- Winning any prize at BalticBest and become part of shortlist gives you more points for Baltic Agency of the Year ranking!
BalticBest 2023
You can find rules HERE.
Submission deadline: 09.08.2023
Shortlist published: 18.08.2023
Live judging and awards announced: 23.08.2023
