Innovation, Creativity and Design
Goals and objectives are important to a successful strategy of any business. Innovation, creativity, and design are tools that enable us to build an idea or product able to generate income for an organization. Understanding which attribute is most important is difficult without first defining each one to realize how they interact with one another.
Definitions
“Creativity is the act of generating an idea and is done by an individual, not a team,” (Von Stamm, 2008). In addition to this understanding, Von Stamm further states, “Creativity alone, to come up with ideas, is not enough. In order to reap the benefits, one needs to do something with it” (p. 3). Innovation is left described as creativity plus the successful execution in the marketplace of the idea.
Govindarajan (2010) takes that definition even further by stating, “Innovation is creativity multiplied by execution. Multiplication is used rather than sum because, if either creativity or execution has a score of zero, then the capacity for innovation is zero” (para. 2). When defining innovation, one could use Von Stamm’s description or Govidarajan’s account; either way creativity clearly comes first. It is becoming clear, however, that creativity is useless without the innovation to bring the idea to life. The third attribute is design, which simply put, is the process used to execute the original idea. This basic level of understanding of the three attributes is important to the success of any individual or organization.
Attributes Applied to Objectives in Synchrony Marketing
According to "Who We Are" (2014), "We’re set apart by our ability to drive engagement, delivering deep differentiation, integration, and capabilities. From store credit cards to loyalty programs, analytics to marketing, our deep expertise builds relationships that last.” (para. 2). The relationship between consumer and product is important to understanding the following, since I work for CareCredit, a division of the newly launched Synchrony Financial from GE Capital Retail Bank.
Two of the objectives I own as the Email Marketing Leader of CareCredit’s Consumer Marketing department are to increase the level of engagement our cardholders have with the emails they receive and to reduce the number of unsubscribes. This is no easy undertaking; however, the use of the three attributes mentioned previously can assist in this monumental task.
Creativity is used to develop and form an idea. In this case, the author knows that more than 50% of all CareCredit cardholders have a smartphone, therefore it is determined that a renewed focus should be placed on mobile viewing in the early email development stages. Designing a more mobile-friendly email would increase the likelihood of mobile views, thus increasing the chances for cardholders to engage with us. Creativity is used to redesign our mobile look.
Innovation becomes a focal point as the idea is then moved forward. While all CareCredit emails have been designed with the end-user in mind, ensuring readability in the mobile space was of great importance. Plus, redesigning every email template in the CareCredit family of emails could get quite costly. Therefore it was determined that using responsive design was the best way to bring the idea to life, since it could be implemented relatively quickly. Each email was then coded for the new format by our existing email vendor on an as needed basis to spread out the cost.
Design was then used to glue the two previously discussed aspects together. Emails that draw more opens, click-throughs, and fewer unsubscribes also send more eyes to our website. More engaged cardholders learn about our product in ways that other cardholders do not, and with this knowledge comes usage. These points were used as a selling tool to gain the buy-in of the business, which enabled the author to fast track this project and gain support from Risk and Compliance. And in the end, the project led to higher open rates, which led to an increase in usage of 17%.
Conclusion
Innovation, creativity and design are important to the success of an organization, department, or even an employee. However, without the three attributes working together, the individual meanings are rendered virtually useless. Income is not generated by ideas alone, but along with a supporting marketing plan and implementation. Success is dependent upon the understanding of how innovation, creativity, and design each interact with one another.

References
Govindarajan, Vijay. (2010). Harvard Business Review Blog Network. Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/2010/08/innovation-is-not-creativity/
Von Stamm, B. (2008). Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity (2nd ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection.
Who We Are. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.synchronyfinancial.com/who-we-are.html