In defence of the often maligned creative
A regular blog by Damon Stapleton, chief creative officer of DDB New Zealand
“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” – W.C. Fields
When I got into this business 20 years ago creatives and creative departments where always called the crazy ones. We were portrayed as necessary yet unpredictable. We were those long haired, leather jacket types. Apparently, we all had raucous parties, did lots of drugs and were always only seconds away from saying something inappropriate. This B Grade rock star description has stuck and has become the accepted view of Creatives. In fact, it has become something many creatives live up to because they think that is their role.
That is one description.
Recently another has emerged. It is that creatives and creative departments are an old fashioned idea. Somehow, we have gone from being the crazy ones to being old school. Now, we are all creative and everybody has ideas. Just get a banjo player in, or a juggler they are creative. Or maybe Chris from accounts. He does watercolours. I am sure he will give you loads of ideas.
Not all creativity is the same. There is this thing called relevance and experience. There are many that want to make out that we all have this innate creative ability in us. Short answer, bullshit. Especially, when you only have a couple of hours to crack a piece of work.
This is not something I am making up. It is a thread you can see through the countless articles and blogs about how advertising is changing. The fantastic AdContrarian Bob Hoffman recently spoke about this at an Irish Advertising event. This is what he said.
There’s a mantra I hear in agencies back in the States. I don’t know if you hear it here, too. But it goes like this. “We’re all creative” or “Creative ideas can come from anywhere.” In my opinion this is bullshit.
True creative talent is a rare and precious thing.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many shitty songs, and shitty TV shows, and shitty movies? I’ll tell you why. Because it is really fucking hard to do a good one.
The same is true with advertising. No one sits down to write a crappy ad. Mostly they just turn out crappy. Why? Because it’s really fucking hard to do a good one — and there are very few people who can do it.
If you really believe that we are all creative, then you have to believe that it’s just a coincidence that Shakespeare wrote dozens of brilliant plays and Donald Trump didn’t.
“Once you label me you negate me,” is a quote from Soren Kierkegaard that perfectly describes the issue. Creatives tend to be a little odd, perhaps not exactly mainstream. Somebody who might be a little awkward at a social gathering. Somebody who isn’t like you. So, because they are not always understood, they get labelled. I guess categories and definitions make things easier.
I have a very different view of creatives. Do yourself a favour. Break into a decent advertising agency around 8 o’clock at night. Walk into the creative department. I guarantee you will find teams working. Come in on weekends and you will find the same thing. Creatives try very hard and work very hard under a lot of pressure. Is that easy to replace? Great creatives care and will keep going until it’s right. They care more than anybody else. What is that worth? What would advertising look like if they stopped caring?
Maybe you think I am full of it. OK, let’s do a little experiment.
Let’s pretend you are a creative. You are staring at a blank screen early one morning when a brief is handed to you. You have been asked to do a 15 second ad for a product. This particular product has 18 variants. You need to give each variant the same amount of time and there is a logo that has to be up for 3 seconds. So 12 seconds for 18 variants. That is less than a second per variant. What the fuck do you do with that? Also, make sure it’s contemporary, award winning and fresh. Have fun with it. And it has to be done by the end of the day. And there are 5 other very diverse briefs on your desk. And, there will be 5 more tomorrow and the day after that. Easy right?
That scenario is not made up. It happened to me and I suspect it has happened to many other creatives. And that, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Perhaps, you think that is an old fashioned scenario. Maybe you think things have moved on. Advertising is different now. It is another narrative that happens in our business. The new type of work that is happening. I have been hearing about this for a while now. Apparently, there is this work that creative and digital departments can’t do. For this you need other people. The problem is I just can’t find it. Almost every piece of noteworthy work in the last 5 years has had a couple of creatives involved or a creative department behind it. Whatever their job title or description is.
A modern creative is like a swiss army knife in human form. They are useful because they do so many different things and also know how to connect the pieces together. Very few people are good at this. More importantly, creatives have the one thing that makes all the machines work. Ideas. They have the illusive beginning of things. And most importantly, they know how to make them, either on their own or collaborating with others.
What a strange situation. A silly smoke and mirrors game. Everybody goes on about old fashioned creatives and creative departments and how all these other companies are the future. Labels signifying nothing. While this is happening these new companies often hire creatives from these exact old fashioned creative departments. To be clear, these are the same people. So, yesterday you were old fashioned, today you are cutting edge.
Are they the crazy ones? No, they just see our value.
A value that has nothing to do with what somebody is called, but with what they can do.
12 Comments
If your creative department is still in the agency at 8PM or on weekends, they are not good enough.
At least we knew the difference between ‘where’ and ‘were’.
A creative department that’s in regularly on the weekend just isn’t efficient. They’re also really pissed off too. Not the most conducive environment for getting the best work out of people.
Or, more likely, account management cannot ‘manage’ client expectations.
Apologies. My error. Have asked for this to be fixed.
Recipe for happiness:
1. Click through to full story on Campaign Brief
2. Carefully read through article to find errors or possible weak points
3. Strike early, strike hard. Pointing out hypocrisy is good; spelling errors excellent
4. Keep it short. Extraneous detail opens the door to counter attack
5. Triple check for spelling or grammatical errors
6. Feel amazing
Old School hacks aside, this was good to read on a Monday. Sometimes when you’re grinding through mountains of retail ‘Product & Price’ scripts so you can find time for the Good Brand Brief, you wonder if you’re actually using your brain and or skillz. So from an utterly self indulgent perspective, this made me feel good. Well, better. And from a slightly broader point of view, I feel like this calls out an industry trend to write off a professional discipline purely because the actual day-to-day isn’t well understood. The fact is, there are some dots big data can’t join. And as much as inspiration is useful when it hits you, most of the time it doesn’t. You have to rely on the discipline of sifting through hundreds of useless thoughts to find something actually worth looking at. And knowing what to look for is a big part of the job. Anyway, thanks Damon, much appreesh.
These comments are very shallow. To say that if creative people are working at 8 they’re not very good ignores numerous possible scenarios – all of which I’ve seen many times:
– Big Client wants amazing work very quickly for one of many reasons (competitive pressure, global killed the work, they only just got sign off on the brief, etc) and the agency’s choice is a vet the brief or let it go elsewhere with the risk of losing the account
– the team is ambitious and wants to push beyond the everyday
– Theyre as good as most other teams (countering the myth of the people who can crack things instantly – I’ve never seen it) and like most other teams they rarely get it first time
– They work at Droga or Wieden or BBH or any other top agency that is famous for long hours because they want to be the best in the world and good isn’t good enough
If you don’t think creative departments work long hours, for a range of reasons, you haven’t spent much time around them. Not good ones anyway.
Thanks Damon. Insightful post as always. I’m also keen to see the great work from these mythical non creative creatives.
It’s easier to sell the lie that ‘everyone is creative’ than to buy into the truth that great creative people cost more money.
Networks tell clients that they are getting a better deal with 4 cheap lightweights than 2 good experienced seniors.
Besides, its easier for the ECD to ‘manage’ the juniors than a peer who would probably take his jib when he’s out at the pub.
@the haters commenting above
First of all can I just get this out of the way – fuck you. Sorry, I just needed to say that.
When I first started creatives were untouchables. You could be a junior writer, go get drunk at lunchtime and yell at the suit who came back with a ‘tweak’ on the headline (which didn’t change it too much) and the suit would apologise, go back and sell it through. Now, you’re lucky to even find a suit who can sell let alone one who will even respect a creative’s opinion.
The word ‘collaborate’ has two definitions:
1. Work jointly on an activity or project.
2. Cooperate traitorously with an enemy.
Nowhere does it say ‘everyone try and do the creatives job then throw the creative under the bus when we don’t back them up in a meeting or do our job, namely check the brief is correct or sell the work in’
I actually prefer the second definition, and the pressure is always on creatives to ‘play ball’ as if they’re the ones doing something wrong and suits actually matter.
Damon’s written a beautiful article standing up for all the creatives in every agency. Creatives who aren’t political hacks artfully weaving their way through a corporatocratic soul crushing path to maybe becoming MD one day, but creatives who love doing good work and just want to get on with it.
And to tear apart his argument by saying ‘creatives who are in the office after 8 are poorly managed’ is fucking bullshit.
I stayed back regularly when I had something decent on and I still do now. Not because it’s expected, but because I want to make it good.
And even if I know it won’t be great, I still want to piss the suits off and make them sell something better than ‘that’s close enough’.
They say you can’t teach creativity – I think that’s wrong. But you definitely can’t teach passion, and that’s what separates a good creative or a good suit from anyone else in the agency.
The business nous of the people running a business has to be questioned if it relies on people regularly working for free with all this unpaid overtime. The thinking that working back equals better work needs to be adjusted. It simply means that you’re running an inefficient and unsustainable business model.
Would love to know your answer to the 15 sec brief, always inspiring to see good answers to briefs with high degree of difficulty.
Inner drive.
It’s all that ever mattered, and all that ever will.
You do the job because you’re driven to do it.
The output, and sense of pride in what you create is more important than nebulous notions of work-life balance. Or money.
You’re either driven by passion, or you’re a walking falsehood.
If you’re not willing to donate some time/heart/passion to a brief with potential…you’re a hack. Your priorities are not those of a creative person.
And as to the notion that everyone is creative?…that’s directly related to access to google. With so many of the past solutions so easily found, too many people confuse finding a reference with finding an idea.
Ideas have never existed until you have them. They’re formed by the collision of previously unconnected notions. And they don’t keep regular work hours.
Live with that. Enjoy the hunt.
And stop whingeing if it’s hard. ‘Cos it is. But so’s anything worthwhile.