There’s so much conversation these days about collaboration. More than ever, creative heads are pushing for more groupthink. Ad agencies are redesigning their creative workspaces into open floor plans to foster cross-pollination of ideas.

They are even using it as a new business sales tool, positioning themselves as highly integrated, multicultural, multinational, multi-disciplined ecosystems that produce more relevant, more inclusive ideas.

This is both true and false.

Collaboration in an initial brainstorm session can indeed inspire more insightful, more inclusive, more relevant ideas. But great ideas are almost never born this way. It’s important to know why.

Truly groundbreaking ideas are spawned in the minds of individuals. They always have been. No committee ever produced anything of real value. That doesn’t mean that collaboration doesn’t serve an important role. It’s absolutely necessary. But not at every stage of the process.

I’ve always advocated for collaboration and collective brainstorming at the beginning of a project, and then collaboration in the executional phase of a project. But unique visions happen in isolation. You might not like to hear it but it’s true.

Think of ideas as colors. Alone, the color red is vibrant, eye-catching, memorable. But mix it with blue and yellow and green and you get the color of mud. Or the color of poop.

Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. A conversation in a room full of people can help plant the seeds of great ideas. This is when true “cross pollination” happens. But the actual conception of an idea happens afterward, in individual minds. That’s because the best raw ideas are born from a singular vision.

In a perfect world, collaboration would happen at the beginning of a project to serve as an inspirational brainstorming session. Then at the end to serve as an executional operation. But in the middle there must be room for unadulterated, individual expression.

Just think of any innovation, any amazing film, any scientific discovery. Pretty much every game changing idea was born in one person’s head. Most certainly, it was brought to life and often improved with the help of other people who contributed their expertise. But the genesis occurred within the walls of one cranium.

A good example is filmmaking. The best films are born from singular vision and executed by a director who is empowered to make final decisions, despite pressure from outside forces, such as studio executives. Few directors are given such freedom. But when they are, they make movie magic.

In my 20 years working in advertising creative departments, I’ve seen many efforts by well-intentioned agency executives to create a more collaborative creative process, believing that it will generate better ideas. It feels inclusive and gives everybody a warm feeling. But it can be a recipe for mediocre, watered-down work. Ideas by committee are ideas full of compromise.

We need to stop short at disallowing creative teams (or individuals) from working in isolation. Collaboration is great. But it can be an enemy to individual expression—and outright genius—when it’s applied indiscriminately.

The best way to generate great ideas is to give creatives their own space to think and dream. And then empower them with ownership to see their vision through to the end.

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How many times has this happened to you?

The entire creative department is briefed on a new project for a big, important client. Everyone works tirelessly for weeks—concepting, arguing, re-concepting, designing, writing, honing, refining—until a polished campaign is approved by the agency executives. Then it passes through multiple layers of clients until it finally reaches the C-level client, who nonchalantly declares, ”The strategy is all wrong.”

If you’re nodding your head right now, you are not alone. I’ve personally experienced this scenario dozens of times. When it happens, I don’t even get frustrated anymore. I just chuckle. 

The question that everyone asks is, “Didn’t they sell the strategy up the chain first?” And the answer is almost always, no.

Throughout the business world, tens of millions of dollars go up in smoke every year from this common blunder. Not to mention the massive sacrifice of nights and weekends for dozens of very talented workers. 

It’s a debacle that can be so easily avoided, if only one simple principle is employed: sell the strategy up through the chain before beginning creative development.

Not only does this common blunder waste time and money, it destroys confidence in the leaders. Exasperated employees become frustrated and cynical. Which might be even more damaging than the financial injury, because erosion of trust eats at the most talented and ambitious employees like cancer. The senior executives begin to be viewed as obstructionists, hindering individual career aspirations. When that happens, they start seeking employment elsewhere. 

Why don’t highly paid planners, creative directors and account directors learn from these lessons? I wish I knew the answer. Perhaps because the ones responsible for developing the strategy and overseeing creative development aren’t the ones toiling over the work. When everything dies, they simply don’t feel the sting. Or the blame, which they usually direct upwards.

Anyway, I could rant forever but it’s fruitless. Let’s focus on solutions. Here’s one: write the brief and develop a platform before creative development.

More specifically, follow these five steps:
  1. Write the brief (and please, make it singleminded).
  2. Get the brief approved by the top client (or final decision maker)
  3. Ask creative teams to develop platform ideas only. This is key. (A “platform” is typically a tagline, theme line or phrase, followed by a short paragraph explanation. It’s a concise statement to your audience. And it should fit on a single piece of paper.)
  4. Get the platform (or multiple platforms, if you’re indecisive) approved by the top client.
  5. Develop creative ideas from the approved platform.

Do this and you’ll provide crystal clarity to creative teams. There’ll be less flailing and more focus. Furthermore, the top client will already be primed and ready for the creative solution. 

You’ll also engender trust and respect in your employees which is incredibly important (yet rarely ever considered). But most important of all, you’ll develop the best creative ideas possible. 


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Increasingly, big companies are bringing their marketing efforts in-house. It usually starts with a small, internal design group or a new Chief Creative Officer, which evolves into a whole department full of talented creatives. Inevitably, they ask themselves, “Why do we need an ad agency?” 
I’ll tell you why.
First, let me disclose that I’ve worked in advertising agencies for most of my 20 year career. But, lest you think I’m biased, you should know that I’ve also worked as a freelancer for a number of years, often directly for in-house marketing departments. So I’ve experienced both worlds. 
For years I dealt with this question, mostly in response to clients who wanted to dictate creative ideas. Or change the ones we developed for them. It was frustrating because we were the ones with the expertise. But more importantly, we had something they couldn’t acquire: objectivity.
Expertise is one important reason why a company should have an ad agency on retainer. But since agencies can’t corner the market on talent, I’ll focus on the importance of objectivity. This is a critical attribute that is totally unobtainable by in-house marketing teams.
Every company is like a new mother who thinks their baby is the most beautiful child in the world. Even though everyone else can see it is not. If you work in-house, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to distance yourself from your brand in order to really see things objectively. 
Why am I so sure? Because, ultimately, your allegiance is to your paycheck. Which means it’s virtually impossible to take risks that will enable your brand to be surprising and innovative.
Pretty much all company men (and women) are bobbleheads. Even when they think they’re independent, analytical, contrarian thinkers, who aren’t afraid to disagree with their bosses, they eventually conform to senior management. Especially when their job is on the line.  
I know because it takes a former bobblehead to know a bobblehead. I’m a creative person by trade and we creatives are anti-conformists by nature. However, when you come home at night and look into your toddler’s eyes or kick back on your designer sofa with a fifty dollar bottle of wine, you get an eye-full of what you’re risking if you push senior management beyond their comfort zone. And so you ease up. I don’t like to admit it, but it’s true. It’s human nature.  
There are only a handful of people on the planet that are seemingly immune to the fear of getting fired or making a mistake. These people are rarely ever employed as company men. They work for themselves as entrepreneurs. Everything they do is risky. It’s a way of life. 
You might ask, since an ad agency is essentially employed by a company as well, aren’t they just as much afraid of getting fired and therefore less apt to push their clients into an uncomfortable place? Well, yes, the bad advertising agencies do whatever their clients want.
However, the good ones don’t. For this reason: their reputation is more important than the monthly retainer. In the long run, clients will come and go. But an agency’s reputation is their livelihood. That’s why the best ad agencies say the tough things. They argue with clients. They push them. They even resign accounts. All because they have integrity. 
You’re welcome to disagree with me, but you’d be wrong. Ask yourself, do you respect a “yes man”? If you can honestly answer yes, I don’t believe you.  
Nobody respects a yes man. We all value the truth, even when it hurts our ego. Because after the sting wears off we appreciate the critical comments and can make strides to improve ourselves and correct our course. That’s the power of objectivity.
When you’re an in-house company man, you’re staunchly loyal to your company. Er, um, your paycheck. So the only way to benefit from true objectivity is to retain an ad agency. If they’re good, they’ll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And that is worth much more than what you pay them.
Long live great ad agencies that have the courage to stand for something. And long live great clients that are brave and trusting. Together they can move mountains.
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