The American poet and social activist Langston Hughes once wrote: “A dream deferred dries up like a raisin in the sun.” This is definitely the case within many marketing departments, its files are full of raisins.
But the sad thing is that most creative ideas floating around didn’t vanish because they’re bad – they vanished because there was no straight path from “interesting” to “let’s make it real.”
Think about all the half‑edited tests in your shared drive. The notebook of concepts on the nightstand. The “let’s try this someday” comment that never survives the action notes from a meeting.
Meanwhile, marketing teams are asked to move faster, prove what works, and show results on tighter timelines.
So, more marketers are now borrowing from product teams and start treating creativity like R&D. Instead of guessing what an audience will respond to, they run small, intentional experiments to see which ideas deserve investment.
