I caught up with artist and arts administrator Tiyami Amum for a cup of tea recently, and we talked about this and that, as you do, except that our ‘this and that’s’ normally revolve around discussions about what it takes to sustain a micro-business in the arts industry.

The conversation drifted onto playfulness, and three things about its importance in business practice struck me during our chat:

1. As we all know, playfulness gets the creative juices flowing. It’s great for generating fresh and original ideas and approaches.
2. Tiyami and I agreed that the fun factor of playfulness is a helpful thing when it comes to sustaining wellbeing. Deriving enjoyment from your work, even if it’s hard or intense work, finding and refreshing your sense of inspiration, making your workload feel beguiling instead of a chore or a to-do list, alleviating stress while you work – these are all ways that playfulness can help sustain good mental health.
3. (This one is the really interesting thought that emerged, and I am not sure if it even plays out the way I think it might. But…) It struck me during our conversation that playfulness might help to build a narrative around an evolving brand.

During our conversation we had been talking about the challenge of developing a brand that allowed for shifts, adaptations and evolutions as a business grew and matured. The nature of creative work is such that creative people are constantly developing their process. Steering the products of the imagination from light bulb moment to tangible outcome stimulates experimentation, learning, reflectiveness, and innovation. The creative people I know are constantly curious, adding new skills and experiences to their repertoire, discovering new ways of doing things, coming up with new ideas. All businesses need to innovate, but I think creative practice is ultra-prone to shifts and growth.

So how do you develop a brand that at one and the same time marks your business’ identity out as distinctive and coherent, while allowing wriggle room for that business to change services and markets as it evolves. I wonder if you embed playfulness as a central value in your brand, and manifest this in your marketing strategy (say through content marketing?), then you are better placed to nudge your branding strategy in new directions. If you signal to your networks that you are playful – experimental, joyfully random, prone to toying with new things – then those same networks might be more inclined to travel with you as your brand changes.

What do you think?