When businesses throw curveballs, it's the creative minds that hit home runs. From a founder's craft beer campaign to a CTO's team-building escape room, we've gathered five unique stories showcasing innovative solutions to some of the strangest requests made by companies. The following are contributions from those creative minds, which we hope serve as inspiration for your own work projects!
Creative problem-solving discussed in this article:
Craft beer campaign creativity
"One summer, back when I worked in legal marketing, I received a request from the associates at the Boston office to help us do something that would get the attention of their clients AND the partners. It was a rather vague request, especially coming from attorneys. After all, this was a highly respected, global law firm with over 1,400 lawyers and a reputation for being rather “traditional.”
I led a talented content marketing and creative team that was throwing out ideas left and right, but none of them seemed to ring the bell. They spanned the usual suspects of internal campaign themes, ones we'd done countless times before, each to varying degrees of success. They just didn't feel creative enough for what this group was going for.
Then one of the Boston associates dropped me a note, “A big group of us has gotten into brewing Belgian tripel ale; we've even rented a space to do our own bottling.”
RING, RING. The bell in my head sounded, and it hit me: beer to the rescue.
We immediately went to work developing a craft beer campaign with bottle label design, a few behind-the-scenes “how it's brewed” videos, interviews, T-shirts, email, and social media marketing. We named the beer “Belgian Treble Damages,” a play on “treble damages” (a type of punitive damage that allows a court to triple the amount of compensatory damages awarded to a plaintiff) and, of course, the “triple” wordplay since it was Belgian tripel ale. Working with legalese as much as our marketing team did, this was how we got our kicks.
Batches of the brewed beer were also sent to every office and select clients. The entire project was a smashing success, and not surprisingly, the Boston associates got the attention they were seeking, including from the more “traditional” partners. It was fun, creative, and effective. Quite apropos for tripel ale, if I do say so myself."
May Pryor, Founder, Head of Strategy, CreatrSpark
Mystery product teaser campaign
A client once asked us to design a marketing campaign for a “mystery” product they wouldn't reveal until launch day. We created a teaser campaign using cryptic clues and interactive puzzles, engaging the audience's curiosity.
The mystery angle generated significant buzz, and the product reveal was a huge success, proving that creative problem-solving can turn strange requests into exciting opportunities.
Alex Stasiak, CEO & Founder, Startup House
Reverse-engineering competitor's app content
"We wanted to get into the heads of our “lighthouse” competitor app—so the six of us downloaded the app, collected hundreds of screenshots, and pasted them all into Figma.
Then, one by one, we went over the language, style, and psychological triggers at a sentence level. Mind you, this exercise wasn't exhaustive. We kept changing “lenses” and coming back to the same screenshots—first as linguists, then as behavior scientists, then as UX designers, and finally, as writers.
I used something called the “Ben Franklin Exercise,” where you reverse-engineer the prose/content you want to re-create by reading the material thoroughly and then attempting to distill its essence through memory. Finally, I went back to my creative writing books from university and discovered that even micro-content can potentially follow the seven basic plots in literature.
Once I assigned a “plot” to each of the screenshots, we made our own stories for our app. I must have written 50 short-form articles in a span of three weeks by realizing that even the tiniest content follows a human story.
The result? Air-tight research, solid structure, and discussions of a pay raise."
Brinda Gulati, Creative Writer
Cultural Immersion for Visiting Client
"A couple of years ago, I was asked to make one of our visiting clients feel at home, as she felt like an outsider in an office filled with strangers. She seemed cold on the surface, so none of us were eager to approach her. But then, my manager asked us to put ourselves in her shoes and think about what it would feel like to be in a foreign land.
That realization hit hard and prompted me to get to know her genuinely—her interests, likes, dislikes, and more. I learned that she loved traveling and learning about different cultures, their origins, and so on.
Then I took her out to shop for sarees, visit temples, taste traditional food, and even took her to some of the most packed streets in Chennai so that she could get to know the unfiltered reality. I saw her open up little by little, and by the time we returned to the office, she had a genuine smile on her face. Even today, we send each other snaps and stay in touch on Instagram and other social media platforms."
Shivasankari Bhuvaneswaran, Freelance Content Strategist
Escape Room team-building creativity
At my previous job, the company once asked me to design an escape-room experience for a team-building event. It was a unique and fun challenge, but also quite demanding. I had to think creatively to devise puzzles that were engaging yet solvable, ensuring they encouraged teamwork and collaboration. One of the trickiest parts was incorporating elements from our actual work to make it relevant and educational.
I ended up creating a series of puzzles based on common work scenarios, incorporating hidden messages in company reports, and using office supplies as tools.
It was a hit! Everyone enjoyed it, and it really helped strengthen our team's problem-solving skills and camaraderie.
Dhari Alabdulhadi, CTO and Founder, Ubuy New Zealand
Did you like these creative problem-solves? Message us or comment below. We'll happily add your suggested solutions to continue inspiring other creative minds!
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