A central part of any marketing function is creative — in brochures, web and more. But creative is best when it helps achieve the primary business objective and not just a great design. I’ve known a number of truly talented creative people — artists and designers –– each with tremendous skill to accomplish what would otherwise be the impossible for anyone else. Yet, even with such ability, creative efforts must be aligned to the business objective and the brand’s persona. At times, this can be a challenge between the business team and creative team. But the solution is not to toss out the creative, nor dial back the business team expectations. Instead, it’s a balance of where creative insights intersect with, and help to enable, achievement of business priorities, and where business priorities help to maximize the impact of creative insights. They really do work together best when taken as two parts of the same task and not as competitors or defenders of their own turf.