Microsoft launched a store. The store looks nice. In fact it even looks cool. People are talking about their store. Sounds like everything is a big win. All the requirements have been met.

But wait…they left out creative and original, and ended up creating a store that looks like they, like everyone else, wants to be just like Apple. The new commercial should be “Hi I’m a PC…and I want to be a Mac.”

The lesson: Don’t discount creativity and originality. Embrace creativity in your efforts to be effective.

Want to see creative + effective? Check out an unboxing of an Apple employee T-shirt.

Eames designed some of the most beautiful, even by today’s standards, creations and this clip brings a number of bits of wisdom that we can bring to design.

The design based on attitude. They don’t try to fit to a certain fashion or trend. In a day when every church marketing piece has to have grunge, or copy pop culture it’s a good reminder that the best design, the best marketing, has a personality and is packed full of its own attitude. Their work is remarkable because they dug down deep and found the remarkable in their own creativity. Certainly they had artistic influences all around them (you should too…on purpose) but their work carried a uniqueness only found when you determine to find the personality in a piece of work.

Timing was on their terms. Now this only works when you truly want something remarkable, but they weren’t put into time restraints. Production wasn’t the goal, creating something so beautiful that it forced people to pause was. Sunday is coming and we most certainly have deadlines, but maybe we would be better off adjusting our process to give room for creativity than adjusting our creativity to fit our process. It’s essential if we truly want excellence.

They created thier own market. All of what they did and how they did it resulted in not just remarkable furniture but also in creating a market uniquely theirs. The people that made up this market would settle for nothing less than unique well thought out design with intent and purpose. You couldn’t create something to take its place. Sure, you could buy a lounge chair today…but it would never hold up to an Eames loung chair. Just being the church will draw a crowd. Sometimes we need to remember to stop serving a market and simple be the church.

We’ve worked with churches and put sermon branding on race cars, sent people out to scrape the ice off of people’s cars, and even taped people’s mouth shut…but is there such a thing as going to far? Are we pushing the envelope to communicate more effectively or for the simple effect of shock and awe?

What about that billboard, it’s funny and I’d laugh as I drove by, but is it too much?

Or how about a shot glass with a church logo on it, is that going to far and giving a green light to the activity?

What about XXXchurch? They’ve made a big splash in porn but can they go too far?

What do you think? How much is too much in bringing originality to the church? Is there such a thing? Can you go too far to reach people?

The challenge is trying to step out of my understanding of Christmas, remembering that for many it’s about family, vacation and Christmas presents. How do you tell the story of a selfless life during such a, sometimes, selfish time?

What if you forgot the Christmas story? What if you didn’t give your standard Christmas message of good tidings, etc. etc. What if you setup a new series, give them something that causes them to want to come back. Or what if you didn’t talk about Jesus? What if you talked about Joseph?

Is there are better way to keep the tradition of Christmas and introducing a hook that will bring them back?

One of the churches we work with approached us to develop the marketing for their 2007 marriage conference. The brief from them was that they wanted to call it ‘Seasons’ and picture happy couples who had found the joy of marriage. Same old thing. Boring. The same people would have showed up and experience the same thing they experienced last year. But how do change something like a marriage conference? How can we possibly find a new way to talk about marriage.

We started with the format. Instead of 2 days of listening to speakers talk about the wide theme of marriage, we introduced workshops. We’ll have general sessions on both days, but then we will break out into content specific sessions in a much more hands on setting. Then we decided that on the first night instead of preaching to everyone we’d start with a short session and then break out into groups for fellowship and games…all under the new theme.

Yes we ditched “Season” but not the idea of joy within marriage. After talking with them about what they wanted people to take home with them, that though marriage can be very difficult you can find joy in it, we came up with a twist on the fairy tale marriage and titled it “Happily After All”.

We then developed a whole storybook theme, even the brochure looks like a storybook, and the wheels started turning. It was fun to watch this take off. With this fresh perspective people really started to dig in. A breakfast will be served by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, now instead of “How to communicate with your spouse” we have “A House of Bricks“.

By changing the game a bit you’ll not only attract more people, but you will energize all those involved. What do you do year after year that needs a change? What are some ways you’ve mixed it up?

Originality. Google does it differently and with excellence. They set the pace…Yahoo follows.

How about with your church marketing? Are you setting the pace or are you rehashing old concepts, copying the hottest TV show? Or is there originality in the way you communicate? As we’ll talk about you’re marketing whether you call it marketing or not. The question is how are you doing it? Be original and it will raise your value.

Commitment is essential to excellence within the church. Lack of commitment is why postcards are sent out that say nothing and have no impact. Lack of commitment is why blogs like Church Marketing Sucks exists. Not because they aren’t committed to the ministry, but because they aren’t committed to communication. Why didn’t people show up to your last great outreach, because you weren’t committed to communicating with relevance, impact and originality.

I hope that together we can change that. I look forward to the journey, and hope you’ll join me for the ride!