Will Ferrell + Trampire + the Alphabet Creativity game + great creative inspiration Sam Horn!

How the Alphabet Creativity Game can help you create new, cool stuff.

This morning driving to school, my son and I played the creative alphabet game to that helps you make up cool, new words or expressions.

 

Mum reads morning news on a cool radio station and the morning hosts played a funny story about comedian Will Ferrell used the creative-combination word – “Trampire” – a vampire who is a tramp. Wow, my son knew what a vampire was but it was delicate explaining what a “tramp” was!

will-ferrell-calls-kristen-stewart-a-trampire-on-conan

I later found out Trampires is the name of a Roller Derby team – but still the radio story inspired the “riffing” on creating new words with my son!

I then explained to my son the alphabet technique where you get a “core” word then work your way through the alphabet to create new words. This is a serious technique that can really boost your business – as you’ll read in a real-life case study later.

The new word he came up with through the alphabet technique?

What do you call a blood sucking pig? – A Ham-pire!

I said “great title for a horror movie – about a vampire pig!” – like Sharktopus (One of Phil Dunphy’s favourites!)

Ok, I know Ham-pire is a bit  lame – but it’s a start, it’s a fun hook to get him interested in word play! He thinks Ham-pire is super-cool!

On the weekend I encouraged my son to use his creativity to take some video/photos of dad playing in a band. Man, he’s got a great eye!

We then talked about documentaries and how a documentary about rock can be called a Rock-umentary.

We then played the creative alphabet game – adding letter to      -ocumentary

My super-swift mind 🙂 raced ahead and was dreading getting to the letter C.

I was so relieved when he came up with Clock-umentary – a video/move about Clocks.

He also came up with Shock-umentary – about lightning!

My favourite of his creations – a Block-umentary about building things from Lego!

Anyway, here’s that real-life example of how the alphabet technique can boost your business.

Creativity expert Sam Horn  (Sam is for Samantha) tells the story of a hotel bar business that was struggling – getting lost in all the competition. It offered a Happy Hour – but so did all the competition.

One of its customers would bring his dog and the business made the Happy Hour dog-friendly.

If you go through the alphabet technique you’d come up with  the  great new word they created  that differentiated their offering – it’s right near the end of the alphabet.

Yes  – they called it a YAPPY HOUR and the catchy title captured media attention and boosted the business. Corny puns can grab media attention!

I tell my son the YAPPY HOUR story to continue to encourage his creativity.

Sam Horn (in my opinion) is fantastic.

Sam has come up with all sorts of cool expressions – including  creations that were happy accidents like when her child mispronounced Serendipity and called it Serendestinty.

Sam grabbed that expression as a title for her book and her blog on the subject.

Here is a link to Sam’s SerenDestiny Blog

http://serendestiny.wordpress.com/

I love Sam’s stuff. She’s quirky AND credible and  gives valuable lessons in a fun way. I reckon she’d be a fan of Phil Dunphy’s child-like creativity.