Best Blogs for the Creative

POSTED BY: Bradley Daves on 01/05/16 Creative Retail

Hey!? What’s the big idea?

We’re only five days into the New Year and I have been asked that three times. Twice in a work situation.

I believe 2016 is going to be the year of The Big Idea for retail marketers. Think about it. CX is king. The seen-it-all shopper has never asked for more. And technology has moved from the computer center to the store floor. It is the perfect storm.

In the eye of that storm will be The Big Idea, crashing through waves of customer ennui, breaking over the rocks of we’ve-never-done-that-before and settling into a shimmering tide pool that coolly reflects the many facets of the shopper. (Sorry for the overflow of aqua metaphors. I vacationed at the beach.)

Data, analysis, insight; each is a critical driver of the idea-building process. But it will be what we do with information – how we harness technology and psychology to make something happen to and for and with the shopper – that will make our concepts powerful and meaningful and effective.

Makers of The Big Idea must be fearless. Also determined, observant, curious and adaptive. And timely.

You’ve got to regularly refill the creative mind, feeding it with new images, concepts, trends and personalities. This is the raw material of The Big Idea.

Where to get that material? Here are my ten favorite creativity/lifestyle blogs that I will be visiting for inspiration in 2016:

Confessions of a Design Geek

Fresh takes on home and lifestyle design

AdFreak

Unbelievable marketing ideas; did they really do that?

Cool Hunting

A curated collection of what’s next in design and lifestyle

The Verge

Where science, art, technology and culture intersect

Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Literature, humor and the next hot author

TEDtalks