Unlock your creativity (but please don't use a key)

In life, creativity is essential.

I realise that's a pretty broad statement, but so often it gets forgotten in the midst of all the other demands on our attention and time from one day to the next.

And that's even more true when it comes to thinking even more broadly in terms of one generation to the next.

Which is why I think it's so important that everyone – and I mean everyone – should listen to what Ken Robinson has to say here about the role of creativity in the education of our children. In his view, schools kill creativity: we systematically erase it from the future generation's skill set in the interests of preparing them for a world that has long since passed. We have evolved, but our education system has not.

This became painfully clear to me when I came across this ad for MGSM (Macquarie Graduate School of Management) in the paper earlier this week.

Now I should say that you have to be careful what you say these days given the universal access that the Internet provides – as Hill & Knowlton found out to their dismay this week when their GM criticised Telstra-owned Sensis on Twitter without considering what their client Telstra might have to say on the matter.

As it happens, I've actually completed strategy-related work for MGSM in the past, and I truly believe they are a great business with an outstanding product.

Which only makes this ad all the more underwhelming. Is this really the best that one of the top MBA schools has to offer?

An image of a key.

In the shape of the letter M. You know, as in MGSM.

With a headline that says Unlock your potential.

And don't even get me started on its design aesthetics – or lack thereof.

Call me demanding, but that's as bad an example of a cliché as you'll find. And when you're a prospective applicant, considering which graduate school to give your top dollar (thousands, not hundreds!), it's perfectly reasonable to set the highest standards. Afterall, they expect nothing less from you.

MGSM is not your average graduate school. But you wouldn't know that from reading this ad. Even for MGSM, it seems that creativity and education are not the most comfortable bedfellows.

But as luck would have it, just as soon as I had finished reading the paper, I picked up a magazine and found this ad for the Australian Institute of Architects.

Now there's an organisation – with a comparable (although not identical) role in terms of its educational remit – that doesn't just have a clear point of view on its purpose in this world, but also the ability to communicate it in a creative and compelling way.

And here's another one for good measure.

This is an organisation that is inspired and unparalleled not only in what it does, but also in how it does it – and that has to be one of the most exciting type treatments you'll ever see. Scroll back up to the MGSM example and the difference in impact is astonishing. Judging from this advertising, who on earth would want to have an MBA when you could be an architect?

And it's not enough simply to say that architecture is naturally more creative than commerce. Creativity is as much nurture as it is nature.

Here's an example from Dixons, an online electrical retailer in the UK, that demonstrates exactly that point. They may well be at the bottom of the pile, but that doesn't stop them coming up with one of the most imaginative taglines you'll ever read.

Dixons.co.uk. The last place you want to go.

In a world where the competition is as daunting as John Lewis and Selfridges, any brand that chooses their words so well is most certainly a brand that I want to talk to.

And here's another one.

All that's left to say is that creativity is king. And if you believe Ken Robinson, whom I mentioned right at the start, we need to start investing in the creativity of the next generation, now. Or they might just end up in MGSM's marketing department.