The Creative Omission Guide provides eight campaign tactics that use removal, subtraction or incompleteness to create emotional pull, behavioural focus, or cultural reappraisal. Whether you’re making a political point or dramatising a benefit, this guide shows you how to say more by showing less.
What’s Inside
- 8 omission-based tactics including symbolic absence, waste removal and audience completion
- Campaigns from NHS Blood & Transplant, LiveOnNY, Cadbury, Corona, EDEKA, KitKat and more
- GPT-ready prompts to help you think in gaps, glitches and what’s gone missing
- A cheat sheet for reframing briefs and unlocking tension through creative subtraction
Sneak Peek: Symbolic Absence
Brief: Highlight the need for organ donation in New York.
LiveOnNY’s “I [No Heart] NY” removed the heart from the iconic I ❤️ NY symbol. The message was instantly emotional: without organ donors, that love—literally—goes missing. It took a familiar cultural object and made the absence the statement. Other brands used symbolic omission to similar effect:
- NHS Blood & Transplant’s “Missing Type” removed the letters A, B and O from signage and brands to spotlight blood shortages.
- Clinton Foundation’s “Not There Yet” erased prominent women from visuals to expose media underrepresentation.
- #BlackedOutHistory removed dominant historical narratives to highlight the lack of Black history in education.
Each one created impact by subtracting what we normally take for granted.
