It goes like this: you’re briefed on a new project by agency planners, but the brief is a bit vague and lacks a clear, singleminded goal. So you attempt to get clarification from your creative director. The only problem is, he’s swamped. His schedule is booked up with meetings for many days. Or perhaps he’s traveling on business. You can’t wait, so you decide to send an email in hopes of getting clarification. When he finally replies, his cryptic answers only create more questions. 

To make things worse, you know from past experiences that the executive creative director and/or chief creative officer isn’t always in agreement with your CD. So you’re left trying to guess what everyone wants. When you eventually present ideas to your CD, you discover that you’ve missed the target. So you make adjustment after adjustment until your CD is satisfied. 

Finally, you’re ready to present to the chief creative and he declares that your ideas are all wrong. The strategy, language and tone aren’t right. Now you’ve lost two weeks and are starting over, with a deadline quickly approaching. You’re suddenly in panic mode. It means working nights and weekends, jamming to develop new ideas and meet the deadline.

If this has happened to you, please know that you are not alone. This happens almost everywhere. Rarely do chief creatives exercise good leadership. Rarely do they accept responsibility for strategic blunders. Rarely do they clearly communicate their vision. It’s an epidemic.

There are many problems in corporate culture today. Despite so many ways to interact and communicate—emails, texts, instant messaging and meetings—there’s a massive failure to clearly articulate objectives and strategy. Especially between middle management and senior management. So the rest of us are forced to guess what the higher-ups want. Even then, the higher-ups often disagree among themselves.

Usually, the people held most accountable—or who receive most of the blame—are the ones at the bottom, doing the actual work. It’s a great source of frustration, bitterness and resentment.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen middle managers (CD’s, GCD’s and ECD’s) fail to get in alignment with chief executives. After many weeks of sweat and toil on a project, the chiefs execs finally review the work and declare “the strategy is all wrong” or “this isn’t what we want to say.” At which point, it becomes a do-over in panic mode.

Why don’t people at the top talk to each other? Why don’t the chief executives clearly communicate their vision? Why don’t middle managers communicate their strategy for executing that vision? Why doesn’t all that happen before conducting many weeks of creative development? Why aren’t there more frequent check-ins? Wouldn’t it make more sense to thrash at the beginning of the project, while there’s still time?

Here’s the greatest tragedy of all: Workers who are forced to play The Guessing Game lose all trust and respect for the bosses. And when that happens it’s like a flesh-eating virus. Frustration, bitterness and resentment breeds apathy, which creates high turnover.

However, wherever there’s a problem there’s an opportunity. In this world of inefficient, ineffective, spineless, poor communicators, who lack leadership, vision and refuse to accept responsibility, there’s an opportunity for you to be a stand out. A gigantic stand out. 

You can become a star performer and a catalyst for change. Someone who initiates, leads and communicates clearly. Who accepts fault for missteps. Who hates to waste money. Who respects people and their time. And who everyone wants to work with.

The greatest opportunity lies within middle management. If you are a manager (CD), you have access to the top and the bottom. You can affect the most change.

The solution is simple: Insist that creative development does not start until the strategy (and the platform) is set in stone. However long it takes. It will make a world of difference.

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Leadership

8:00 AM

Successful advertising requires that we surprise people with newness, strangeness and otherworldliness. Things that stop you, make you think, and are unforgettable. 

Ninety-nine percent of the products and services in the world are not unique. Consumers have many choices. Brands must differentiate themselves by conveying their beliefs and pitching their products in unusual and unforgettable ways. 

One of the greatest barriers to creating breakthrough advertising ideas is the tragic failure of marketing people to become well cultured.

To be ‘well cultured’ is to be informed by diverse cultural experiences. It requires immersion in art, music, fashion, architecture, technology, science, news, literature, philosophy and so on. But not strictly through textbooks or the internet. It requires frequent trips to museums, art galleries, science fairs, fashion centers, unique restaurants, trade shows and conferences. Not just near your home. These trips must be taken abroad as well. 

These are mind-expanding encounters that give you a deeper perspective about the world. They open your mind to new ideas, new tastes and flavors, new languages, new technologies, new styles, new insights—things that cannot be acquired by watching television or browsing the web from the confines of your living room or cubicle. You have to get out there.

Without diverse, cultural, immersive experiences, we have very few references from which to create surprising advertising. Familiar and everyday references simply will not cut it. It’s like having a toolbox that only contains a flathead screwdriver and a pair of pliers. You’re just not going to be able to build much of anything.

Think about it. A fashion designer cannot be successful without traveling the world and staying on top of new styles and trends, and then exploiting them. Likewise, a chef cannot create culinary masterpieces without traveling the globe and discovering ingredients used in ways he could have never imagined. Then he comes back home and opens an amazing restaurant with a menu that surprises and delights. These expeditions are critical to marketers as well.

Too many professionals in marketing and advertising—both ad agency execs and clients—lack culturing. They get their college degree, get a job, sit in a cubicle and remain isolated from the world for much of their careers. This results in safe, familiar, uninspired advertising that puts people to sleep.

Whenever I discuss this matter with friends and acquaintances, some of them get offended. They think I’m criticizing them for not being “cool.” But this has nothing to do with being cool. It has everything to do with absorbing culture, changing perceptions and inspiring creativity.

Years ago, my writer-partner and I created our own printed magazine that contained many pages of interestingness scraped from around the world, in an effort to inspire our clients to think outside the box. Or at least to help prepare them for the out-of-the-box creative ideas we would eventually present to them. We were disappointed to find out that only a few clients actually paged through it. And those few were somewhat offended by our attempts to expose them to fresh thinking. 

In the end, our efforts were viewed as condescending. Our plan had backfired. We were simply naive in thinking clients would get excited about having a curated source of inspiration hand-delivered to them. But this matter still persists in our industry.

A major problem is, most marketing people are under the illusion that data and metrics are the path to effective advertising. The truth is, advertising is not a science, it’s an art—despite what all the data and research companies will tell you (or sell you). People don’t make purchase decisions based on rational and analytical thinking. They make purchases based on emotions, whether for themselves or for their employers. Science has proven it and successful marketers have proven it.

We could all benefit from leaving our safe, cozy den and diving headlong into our colorful world, then bringing back those experiences to better our brands. On a regular basis. Just like early explorers who investigated the unknown and brought back amazing stories and objects that captured people’s imagination.

Please do yourself and your employer a favor and make a concerted effort to become and stay cultured. Then let those mind-expanding experiences inform your advertising efforts. It will help invigorate your brand.

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Creativity

8:16 AM

Recently, I was reminiscing about the many bad clients I’ve had over the past 20 years in advertising, recounting some of the stories of the great ads that could have been. To my surprise, my writer friend Tom blurts out, “Yeah, but there are no bad clients. Only bad agencies.” 

“Huh? Ridiculous,” I said. “I’ve got loads of examples of bad clients.” 

Like the time I was working on a luxury car brand and the writer and I were presenting print ad headlines for a new, high performance, beast-of-a-car with a 5.0 liter, 390-hp engine, targeting a strictly male audience. Our recommended headline was, “A wolf in wolf’s clothing.” We thought it was a pretty clever line and embodied the spirit of the car perfectly. The client said, “Nah, we don’t want to be associated with a wolf. They’re dangerous and it seems negative. We want something positive. And something that conveys sophisticated luxury.” We were stunned by his response. 

“But...” we said, “this car is practically made from testosterone. And what guy wouldn’t want to be associated with a wolf? We’re confident that car enthusiasts will find it amusing and memorable.” We debated back and forth but he didn’t budge. We were unable to convince him to reconsider.

I’d had many experiences like this and was thoroughly convinced that there were definitely “bad clients” in the world—who just didn’t get it. I even added that most clients were bad clients. 

But my friend Tom had a different point of view and it really made me stop and reconsider why I blamed failed attempts at great advertising on bad clients.  

His reasoning was this: All clients are difficult. Nothing great comes easy. The notion of an easy client who just approves everything is an illusion.

He had worked at Wieden & Kennedy in Portland and discovered that the clients there were just as difficult as any other place he had worked. The key difference was, Wieden had a culture of pushing for great work. Creative was king. If a client refused to approve something great, the creatives would re-concept and bring back something different but equally great. They never brought a “safe” option. 

So his experience had taught him that it’s not the client’s fault. It’s the agency’s fault every time. 

Then he asked, “Why did you sell safe work to your ‘bad’ clients?” My answer revealed the real truth. “Well...” I said, “whenever I refused to give a client the safe work they wanted, I was considered ‘difficult’ and failing to ‘service’ my client, which would prompt a complaint to my superiors.” 

“Then what would happen?” he asked. “I’d be pressured, or directly ordered, to comply with the client’s demands,” I said.

“There you have it,” he concluded. “A bad agency! They didn’t support you in your effort to sell great work. At Wieden, it doesn’t work like that. As a creative, you’ll never be reprimanded for refusing to present safe work. Even if the client threatens to fire the agency, they will back you up 100%.”

“Okay, bad work is the fault of bad agencies,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t mean the clients are not bad. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say, there are no easy clients.” 

In the end, I was forced to acknowledge that we cannot blame clients for producing bad work. And Tom’s assertion that, “There are no bad clients”—as outrageous as it sounds—points us to the real problem: fearful ad agency executives who are more concerned about making money than building a reputation, and therefore don’t support creatives in pushing for great work. 

Very simply, when our work isn’t great, we can only blame ourselves.

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Clients

9:06 AM

There’s a major shift happening in ad agency creative departments. Projects that were typically assigned to a team of two creatives are being assigned to a group of people—perhaps five, ten or even twenty people—that sit in a room and create ideas together as one unit.

This is considered to be a more collaborative approach to creating big ideas. In my view, this approach is born from good intentions, but it presents serious problems. As mentioned in an earlier post, collaboration is valuable, but not as a replacement for the traditional teaming of one art director and one writer to generate ideas.

The reason becomes very apparent when raw ideas begin to take form. In a group, minor differences of opinion become giant disagreements. Everyone seems to have a different view of how to craft an idea. And when there are more than two people, it can get really ugly. At which point, the only way forward is to split up or compromise.

Our individual creative vision—that magical property that makes each of us so unique and interesting—gets lost when we’re forced to collaborate in larger groups. It’s when too many cooks spoil the pot.

But there’s an additional downside: lack of ownership.

If you own a project then you are responsible for the outcome, which means your personal reputation is on the line. This creates an unparalleled sense of commitment and zeal, which are two things absolutely necessary to withstand the forces of mediocrity and carry your idea to the end zone. It also inspires a higher level of craftsmanship.

In the traditional arrangement of two creatives—one art director and one writer—there’s a kind of beauty. They brainstorm ideas together, but ultimately each person is responsible for their role. Even though they butt heads once in a while, they work it out. Typically, whichever person is less determined about a certain point of difference eventually concedes to the other. Sometimes it’s the art director and sometimes it’s the writer. In a good relationship, they give and take. Most of the time the outcome is good.

Contrarily, in the group scenario, it’s often unclear who will execute what. Or how. Usually what happens is this: the A-type people get bossy, arguments ensue, people take sides and stalemates occur. Eventually, they break up into smaller groups or pair off, then compete with each other instead of working together. I wish it weren’t so, but it’s just human nature. 

Additionally, when you put people with different disciplines into the same room and ask them to create ideas together, they don’t easily mesh. Everyone begins to think and communicate in a way that reflects their individual skill sets. Almost as if everyone is speaking a different language. 

Even worse, people quickly gravitate to their computers and start comping who knows what. The graphic designers start finding pretty pictures and setting type. The web designers start scrolling through FWA for inspiration and building parallax test pages. Art directors start scribbling ad concepts. Writers start typing headlines and writing manifestos. Others do their thing, whatever it is. But nobody works toward a central idea because they never came to agreement. 

The truth is, locking a bunch of people in a room together and expecting great ideas to happen, is just plain naive.

A better way is to assign a team—an art director and a writer—to each project. Their sense of ownership and empowerment will compel them to create better ideas. If they underperform and disappoint, then fire them. This will help maintain a really high standard in your creative department, where every team is an all-star team.

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If you absolutely must have a large group of people participate in an important brand effort or a new business pitch, read on.

1. Ask everyone in your creative department to dream up platform ideas only. A platform is basically a tagline or campaign theme line, followed by a short paragraph rationale. Each platform fits on a single sheet of paper. Text only, no pictures.
2. Get the best platform(s) approved all the way to the top decision maker, such as the CMO and/or CEO.
3. Brief the creative department on the chosen platform(s) and organize an initial brainstorming session with everyone together (collaboration at its best). This session will inspire a lot of deep thinking. Encourage everyone to participate and say anything. No idea is bad at this point. Write them on large pads of paper and pin them to a wall. (It’s been discovered that playing a round of Pictionary first will get people in the right frame of mind, so they feel comfortable blurting out anything without embarrassment.)
4. Break into small groups (preferably pairs of two people; three at most) and concept ideas using the brainstorming session wall for inspiration. Provide as much time as necessary. 
5. Arrange another group meeting with everyone in attendance and ask each team to present their ideas to the ECD in the room. (Do not create approval layers prior to the ECD reviewing the work. It filters out potential diamonds.)
6. Choose the best ideas and then assign CD’s to manage and refine them (or just keep it flat and allow everyone to present directly to the ECD).

I’ve experienced many different creative development processes and this is best way to utilize a lot of people on one creative project or pitch. It avoids ego clashes, personality clashes, unnecessary layers, compromises and frustration. Everyone gets their say. Everyone gets their spotlight. Everyone is happy. And, of course, the ideas are better.

That said, my favorite approach to creative development is to assign one team of highly talented creatives to every project and let them own it. There’s a reason why it has worked well for 40-plus years.

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Creativity

7:32 AM