The brainstorm is one of the most important elements to a knock out campaign. But how do you get the creative juices flowing?

• Audience – always know who they are. My mother used to shout at me for judging people and stereotyping, but now it’s time to embrace it. Picture the audience, I mean physically draw them. What do they like? What do they read?

• Chill-ax – clear the mind of useless junk! Who can be creative when they’re envisaging an endless amount of emails creeping into their inbox or deciding where to go for lunch? Try to get rid of these distractions.

• Questions – force them out of people – chair the meeting, write everything down and question everyone. You never know what’s lurking in the depths of your HR manager’s mind – they could be a creative genius!

• One last thing to bear in mind is people bounce off each other.

And if all else fails, if your team is void of fun ideas and keeps contributing ‘research stories’ – a fail safe is just to suggest to get some flesh out. As a good friend once said, life’s short, play naked!