Should creativity be left to the creatives?
Are the best ideas still born out of creative departments? Does using a traditional workflow process stifle creativity? Or can a good idea come from anywhere? Mumbrella’s Abigail Dawson asks adland if creativity is better left to the creatives.
The Australian advertising industry is constantly churning out award-winning campaigns, including the likes of ANZ’s #holdtight, TAC’s Meet Graham, Snickers’ Hungerithm and Cochlear’s unconventional hearing test.
But where do these ideas come from: complex research, data and insight, or simply a bright idea?
In today’s evolving advertising industry, are the best ideas still born out of creative departments, or is it a whole team effort?
Should creativity be left to the creatives? The industry’s senior strategists and creatives share their thoughts.
Everyone has ideas. But it takes a creative mind to ignite your interest. To create ads that sell. Who knows what makes a creative mind. Fate? Genetics? Education? Upbringing? Planetary alignment? Take your pick.
The thing is art directors and copywriters have lost the ability to grab attention in today’s world. I’m not even sure if creative skillsets and departments are even relevant anymore. Could be wrong, but then again, 87% of people second screen and 30% of people ad block.
Clearly they’re not making things people want.
20 years ago there used to be a creative side to account service as well, the ability to sell a creative idea to a client, be behind it 100% and make a client feel comfortable that it’s the 100% right decision to go forward with, to take chances, stand out from the crowd, be brave!
These days a majority of Account Service couldn’t sell a bottle of chilled water in the desert and bow down immediately to a clients creative knockback like a starving puppy having a Schmacko waved in front of it.
Oh I agree. But there’s no doubt in my mind that TV ads and 30 second film scripts are not brave either. Nor is a ‘big idea’.
Saying that TV and 30 second scripts are not brave is a cop out, digital lead campaign are not brave either.
As for big ideas they appear every day in most agencies across the country and just don’t materialise at the pointy end.
If you’re missing your big idea don’t dump on the poor writers and art directors, the responsibility for this falls entirely on creative leadership, lack of it, or complete inexperience in driving the department. We have so many creative directors in this business now it’s beyond a joke, sort of like every second person has CEO in their title on LinkedIn. It takes just one decent award and you’re instantly uptitled to CD.
Creative Directors used to be charismatic leaders, they were the hub of an agency, the people eveyone in the agency went to for advice. There was only one, even in agencies that had big staff numbers, it was their ship and they took the helm. Nothing happened in the agency without their knowledge and sign off.
To name a couple such as Peter Carey, Bani McSpedden and Gary Murphy, they were bloody tough (some would use more colourful descriptives) but they were driven for their product, and I saw all 3 get into their cars more than once, drive to the client and didn’t return until it was accepted because the Account Director returned not being able to sell it. They didn’t leave ideas in the too hard basket, or dismiss them into the client won’t accept this so we won’t waste time because I need to fill in my departments time sheets with billable hours. This tenacity doesn’t exist today, billable time sheets in creative departments didn’t exist back then either.
Where’s your big idea? Probably in a sketchbook sitting in your creative department being strangled by billable hours and a Creative Director who doesn’t want the end of month hassle being told that his department isn’t profitable and needs to get rid of someone.
When account service people are happy to let creative people have the same relationship and access to all the client information that they have and when planners are happy to let creatives have an opinion of their strategy or when digital creatives can recognize a big idea and execute it consistently across the various channels and platforms then maybe creatives will be more receptive to everyone wanting to have a say in what they have dedicated a lifetime doing.
Of course everyone can have an idea, but the creative role demands idea after idea weekly, daily, hourly. That’s the discipline that most others can’t deliver to along with the biggest challenge – accepting rejection time and time again and moving on.
Wellison D’Assuncao’s reference to Damon Stapleton’s article is bang on.
How is old school creative disciplines doing anything these days to grab attention?
That’s the point @laughable, old school creative disciplines aren’t being utilised which is why there is so much wallpaper and wastage in the industry.
Grabbing consumer attention is just the start of the selling process and one which has seemingly become the sole domain of media buyers and HTML Back End Developers with their moving looping graphics.
Making sure you find the most compelling, relevant, single minded message and delivering it in a way that keeps them engaged long enough to warm to your brand (you’re kidding yourself if you think people genuinely ‘like’ brands unless the brand is offering something for free on their social page) is ‘the discipline’, which in today’s clutter is more important than ever.
A clever advertising man called Bill Bernbach (you may have heard of him) once said “Getting a product known isn’t the answer. Getting it WANTED is the answer.”
If you still think creative work is just about grabbing attention I’d suggest a career in media buying or Flash animation.
‘Real-time collaboration’ translated: anybody can change work at any time. That’s why creativity is dead. The vision always moves…
Great question.
1. I think it was George Orwell who said ‘We’re all creative, it’s just that some of us are more creative than others’. Just like any other skill set within the human condition.
2. A great culture and processes should be able to suck up and harness and use every droplet of creativity within an organisation no matter who its from.
3. The balancing act many agencies face is how to be both massively and genuinely collaborative (an idea can (and does) come from anywhere) and then switch to ‘this is the right thing to do / we’ve got this’.
Should accountancy be left to accountants? Should engineering be left to engineers? Should brain surgery be left to brain surgeons?