You may know him as Kento.
Or you may know him by his Spanish name: Pedro.
For a short while, I knew him as Hector. Before a fellow writer and marketer, Thomas Goosey, enlightened me.
In case you don’t recognise his name, he looks like this:
He’s a children’s television character that’s become a meme. He’s usually used as a GIF to express shock.
I like him. He’s funny.
But why the freaking lobster am I opening this article by talking about him?
Simple reason:
Because my discovery of Pedro’s name represents perfectly the utterly random nature of creative inspiration.
Let’s rewind slightly…
Rereading Hegarty
I’d tweeted a quote from Hegarty On Creativity.
Here’s the tweet:
The importance of listening to the world (people) around you.
In Hegarty On Creativity published by @thamesandhudson pic.twitter.com/EO80EHC8DK
— Glenn Fisher (@allgoodcopy) November 20, 2018
The extract had caught my eye while I was scanning the book. I was downstairs drinking wine, relaxing. Ruth was upstairs wrapping some Christmas presents and drawing.
Hegarty’s few lines resonated with a strong belief I have myself: that to write good copy, you’ve got to get out into the world and breathe it in.
There’s a section dedicated to the idea in my own book, The Art of the Click.
In the extract here, you can see I recommend getting out and about to observe people:
Right now, I want you to take a field trip. The trip isn’t to any particular place, but wherever you might choose to take your field trip, the only stipulation is that it is a place inhabited by lots of other people. I recommend a local café. Or the supermarket. Or one of those slightly larger, open-plan high street banks. The key thing is that you’re able to observe people. Indeed, that’s all I want you to do. For five minutes, half an hour, or as long as you’re able, just watch people and see how they act when faced with a choice.
So, I had this thought in my mind from Hegarty. And that bangs into the thought about observing people from my own book. And as I post the tweet, I happen to see a thread I’m tagged in. And in the thread is Pedro.
Or maybe it’s Kento.
Or Hector.
At this point I don’t know, so I tweet Thomas who’s posted the image.
I ask:
Who is this monkey?
Enter the monkey
Thomas says it’s Hector.
No, wait.
He checks and tells me it’s Pedro. I see by searching myself that Pedro is the Spanish translation. In Latin America he’s known as Kento.
I thank Thomas and joke that you learn something new every day and I wonder how this abstract lesson will manifest itself in my copywriting.
I take a sip of the wine I’m drinking. A nice Riesling. I carry on reading the Murakami book I’d laid down on the couch to read.
My dog Pablo is curled in a ball at my feet.
I read for a few minutes but Kento/Pedro/Hector won’t leave my head.
I think about how much I love puppets. I always imagine I would be a puppeteer if I weren’t a copywriter.
That gets me thinking about Jim Henson and in turn I remember the excellent Wilkins Coffee commercials Henson did before he was famous.
I think how it would be useful to share those adverts with you, dear reader.
And I think, why don’t I explain how that idea came into my head – that might make an interesting piece in itself as it reflects the Hegarty quote and shows how a little random nugget of inspiration from the most random of discussions can inform an entire piece of content.
And so I put down the Murakami and pick up my phone and type this into the notes app.
Having written this much, I stop.
I’ll edit in the morning and read it over to make sure it makes sense.
…night passes…
And here we are.
It does make sense. At least, I think it does. Which is why it’s now in front of you and you’re reading it.
A little moment of content creation that almost happened live in front of you, from the seed of a thought to publishing the piece.
I hope you found it interesting and it acts as a good reminder of how important it is to have your mind open to receive inspiration from anywhere.
And if you hated the article?
Well, these amazing TV adverts by the great Jim Henson should cheer you up:
P.S. To discover even more ways to open your mind up to inspiration, pick up a copy of my book – The Art of the Click – on Amazon here.