Why great creativity needs better systems
Working Theories with the founder of Slice Social Consultancy, Michael Corcoran.
Tell us who you are.
I’m Michael Corcoran, the guy who did the Ryanair thingy on social media, and now is milking every bit of its legacy to try to build my own small shop called Slice, with Beth Thomas doing their best to make brands better on social media.
Why, so I can make enough money to buy a small farm, open a guest house, a petting farm, and a coffee shop, and do something that resembles hard work. I live in Kildare, in Ireland.
What’s a working theory you hold right now about the industry, culture, or creativity?
Social Media has created a supply/demand gap for REALLY great creative talent. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for some of you, readers. There simply is not enough top creative talent to meet the demand. If they are not already hired by the brands that can afford them, they are doing their own thing as a founder or as a creator. I believe everyone has a little creative flair in them, but there are humans out there whose brains are just wired in such a crafty way.
However, I do believe there are more creatively talented people out there working in social media, but they are not living up to their potential. My theory is that the lack of brand/creative systems and an understanding of how creative distribution works holds more people back from great work.
There are two routes: find the best creative talent and nurture them, or build the systems/structures that let good creatives do great work. Either way, you also need to make sharper decisions about distribution — because creativity that doesn’t travel doesn’t count.
In the absence of strategy and creative systems, we have people chasing trends, focusing on content that lifts the category rather than making themselves memorable. Sure, it can get impressions, BUT does it make an impression? This is a trap most fall into right now.
It’s why you see so much copycat content. So many hot takes. So much echo chamber.
It’s why social media professionals pile into every industry event going (and there are too many of those, too), hunting for inspiration — and then bring nothing back to the generic one-liners. Either they don’t know how to translate it, or they can’t execute it. So they copy. That screams to me the absence of a system that can build a brand in today’s world, where social media plays such a huge role.
The timeless truths have not changed. How brands are built tactically has changed from the same message and format at high frequency to the same message, lots of formats, high frequency, as Tom Roach calls it, ‘lots of littles’ or as Eugene Healey coined it, ‘brand as a mosaic’.
Imagine if brands evolved their creative system, old guidelines, DBA’s, which were built for static consumption, to a system built for creative fragmentation, but in each isolated piece of content, the essence of the brand could be seen, heard, felt, and teams were so disciplined at doing one thing really and getting comfortable and creative with repetition, it’s the creation of a system that can give brands a shot of from being good to great. THEN, if you understand the distribution that works in your favour, you’ve got game.
What’s a belief or assumption in your field that you think is overdue for a rethink?
Content Pillars that are normally strapped onto social media ‘strategy’ have caused more problems than they help with, as brands are not being effective on social media. Brands have a social strategy issue, as that’s NOT strategy, to start, but let’s park that for now. When social media strategy became a thing, whoever constructed it in a way where a few pages of a brand guidelines book and content pillars or buckets were created, and now we have a social strategy, bon appetite.
They currently force teams to make more content that is a problem; we have an abundance on social media. This creates a mish-mash of content in today’s feeds that will get you reach, and people may consume it, BUT is it really driving consideration for you or consideration to do the thing, make the thing, or buy the thing?
Do I think this type of content is still needed? Yes, especially with the growth of social search, BUT if you are not the category leader and your metrics for brand and consideration are struggling, this is not the thing. Imagine if you’re a supermarket making recipe content, and you create a recipe video for key lime pie, mmmmm. You stop, love it, and now want to make key lime pie. So you head to the shops, the supermarket that made the recipe content is 20km away, but you go to the supermarket 10km away. Which supermarket do you go to buy the ingredients from?
You just made me want key lime pie, and it worked, but I didn’t buy from you, nor did you give me a reason or emotional win to travel more and choose you. This happens across so many categories by so many brands, and it is not just them; this type of content is in abundance, made by creators and wannabe sister creators with 18 followers.
I think we most need scrap content pillars, in favour of an ecosystem. Start with an idea, GROUND-BREAKING. We need to take that idea and create many, many different iterations of the same idea that, in essence, compound over different times humans see the content compound and build a brand or be more memorable or drive emotional decisions to want to choose you.
What’s your favourite dumb thing you’ve seen on the internet recently?
Steven Barlett clip from a recent podcast. “A couple of glasses ruined 3 days of his life.” eaten poorly, couldn’t go to the gym, and then podcasted really badly. Optimisation culture has gone too far!!! The most creative humans come from weird, wild, and unstructured situations. You know, get cultured.
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What are your absolute go-to cultural resources?
People watching is one of the most underrated observations in a saturated world of media. Airports, cafes, supermarkets, and my kids. Right now, I approach social media feeds, podcasts, and the media with caution, so much of it is manufactured culture. The best way to understand human behavior is to watch humans behave or misbehave.
What part of your practice do people most often misunderstand?
Strategy, really, I mean, really, the majority of people don’t understand it. I didn’t until 6 years ago.
Who do you admire in your space, and why?
Zoe Scaman - people like us are making the now make sense. Zoe is miles ahead in her curiosity and bravery, and she does not give one fuck what people think. She’s a Baller
Huda Kattan - she is incredible creative and serious businesswoman who keeps her culture and values close, even at the cost of business
Kneecap - unapologetic and insanely creative people who make me proud to be Irish
Death to Stock - a weird and wonderful place for stim on culture
Led By Donkeys - poetic, creative, and brave
There he is 💅