FINDING THE ‘EUREKA!’ MOMENT

Undertow Media talks generating a creative corporate culture and how to the foster the Great Idea

Generating great ideas to create out-of-left-field solutions, fostering critical thinking and analysis of complex situations through to the implementation, activation and success of final strategies, requires a multitude of personalities to work together. In order to create a synergy between these personalities we need to have the right environment surrounding these minds and allow them to all do what they do best; conceive, create and build. To create a successful environment for an array of personalities, strengths and weaknesses, we must first understand where great (not just good), ideas come from.

Undertow Media, a PR agency based in Auckland, New Zealand thrives not only on the formation of great ideas and creative solutions but through the thorough and complete execution of these ideas. One of the foundational reasons for the on-going success of Undertow Media? The fostering of our internal creative corporate culture. We work constantly to maximise the occurrence of the ‘Eureka!’ moment.

Initially, this involves bringing together a team that all share one basic characteristic. Every member of Undertow Media NZ believes in the creation and execution of great ideas. We work with clients we believe in and get genuinely excited strategising and looking at our clients’ brands and products in different ways, from all angles. We have found that all people are at their most successful when they’re intrinsically motivated so that is what we look for in all team members. Think about it, no-one is driven to generate their best ideas when pushed solely by evaluation, surveillance, competition, or orders from management.

Additionally, we believe in time (as much as possible), experiences and critique.

We encourage time to think, ruminate, percolate, experience and talk. Give your mind time to think things over, draw on other experiences, interactions, and random ponderings. The thoughts that spawn ideas and concepts are the thoughts that operate in the subconscious, the ones that operate endlessly in the background. These thoughts must be fed in order to grow and eventually develop into a ‘Eureka!’ moment.

We encourage our team to get out and try new things. The goal is to never stop experiencing, as experience and interaction leads to ideas and solutions. The rule is, never get stuck in your ways. Try new things and look for the next experiential adventure, then draw on that to provide insight, ideas and streamlined activations in your industry.

We place importance on our creative corporate culture and its development. At Undertow Media, NZ, we like to disagree; we talk things through and encourage employees to challenge the status quo. We critique. We are comfortable with challenges and receptive to questioning in order to create innovative thinking. And we believe this is in part, a key to our continued success.

‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses’

– Henry Ford