There’s no denying
that there’s currently a lot of gnashing of teeth about the parlous and
desperate state of creativity in advertising right now.
It’s fair to say that
there is awful lot of rubbish work being produced. And an awful lot of “meh” work and an awful lot of wallpaper
work that just goes unnoticed.
All in all, a pretty
depressing state of affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree.
There is a myriad of
reasons why this might be the case.
It’s hard to do great
work and make it see the light of day. Bloody hard.
However, it ain’t impossible.
Rummaging around in
the advertising blogosphere and speaking to mates in other agencies, I
sometimes get the sense that a sort of fatalism has crept into the business and
that some people have almost given up trying to do great work so convinced are
they that it has almost zero chance of it happening.
I appreciate that
quite often there are some substantial barriers that get in the way of great
creative work. Some might be cultural, some might be personal, some might be
financial. All could be deeply
ingrained.
It’s really easy to
lay the blame at a client’s door.
After all, they’re the ones that ultimately have to approve and pay for
the advertising.
But agencies are also
equally culpable. They’re the ones
actually doing the bloody work in the first place. It’s their responsibility to
ensure it’s as good as it possibly can be, whatever barriers might stand in the
way.
Now, there’s no magic
wand that can be picked up and waved by clients to ensure that the Holy Grail
of great creative work is found when answering every brief.
But I believe that
there are some fundamental principles that, if followed and adhered to by the
big client cheeses commissioning the work, then this will significantly
increase the prospect and likelihood of them being rewarded with great creative
work....
1.
More time.
Within reason, the more time you have to create and produce advertising, the
better that advertising will be.
The less time there is,
the greater the possibility that the advertising will be poorly conceived and
poorly executed.
Yes, everybody is under
pressure to move quicker and deliver things faster. Yes, there’s a constant
demand to turn things around at the drop of a hat.
“You need this by yesterday? No problem.”
That’s the attitude that
needs to change.
Clients need to give
agencies proper, decent time to come up with great ideas.
And agencies need to
try to buy, safeguard and protect this time if they want to do great work.
2.
Only work
with the best possible people
The better and more
talented people there are involved in the creation and approval of the
advertising, the greater the likelihood it is that good work will be the
result.
Sounds obvious,
doesn’t it? Probably because it’s true.
The quality of people
makes a massive difference to the quality of the advertising.
Not all creative
teams, planners, account handlers are created equal.
Very few agencies are
blessed with a high density of talent across the board. And even so-called
“creative” agencies can turn out absolute stinkers.
Quite often, there can
be a systemised streaming approach to who works on what. The “jewel in the crown”, shop window
accounts can often be staffed by the cream of the crop and heavy hitters,
leaving the less glamorous or smaller clients with the runts of the litter.
If I was a client, I’d
demand to know the track record of everyone working on my piece of business.
That’s a sure-fire way of finding out from the start whether great advertising
was a probability or a pipe dream.
3.
Involve as
few people as possible in the development and approval process
It’s a truism that too many cooks spoil the
broth. Quite often, they’ll end up
all pissing in the broth and suggesting individual recipes for a new broth that
nobody will ever agree on.
Streamlined teams with direct and immediate
access to key decision-makers will always produce better work than legions of
minions and middle-men scurrying back and forth trying to accommodate the world
and his wife’s point of view.
Beware of dealing with people who only have the
power to say no. For they are often the time-wasting devil.
4.
Don’t
“test” creative work with research.
Research can be a very
useful tool early in any process to help understand strategy and audiences
better.
However, put creative
work in front of the general public as research stimulus and see how quickly it
all turns to shit.
Steve Jobs famously
said customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.
And Henry Ford is
supposed to have said “If I’d have
asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me they wanted a faster
horse”.
This might be a
sweeping generalisation but I remain convinced that the same holds true of
asking people what they think about an advertising idea before it’s actually
been made.
Instinct and judgement
from advertising experts is going to beat the views of eight disinterested
people in a windowless room every time.
5.
Let the
agency creative director be the creative director.
Why keep a dog and
bark yourself?
Most clients clearly
recognise that agencies have a specialism and that they provide them with
something that they can’t do themselves, otherwise they wouldn’t hire them in
the first place.
However, there’s an
unfortunate and distressing trend for a certain breed of client to spend a
disproportionate amount of time and energy fannying around endlessly
challenging the content and detail of agency creative recommendations whilst
making half-baked creative suggestions themselves in an attempt to make the
advertising better.
I’d politely suggest
that these kind of clients should worry less about the colour of trousers that
somebody might wear in their commercial and defer to people with greater
expertise and experience who may know a thing or two and may be able to help
them.
It’s amazing what a
bit of trust and mutual respect can do for a relationship.
The clients that give
their agencies the space, freedom and encouragement to do great work are the
ones that usually get great work.
6.
Make sure
agencies are properly and fairly remunerated.
Pay peanuts and you’ll
get monkeys.
With agency profit
margins increasingly being squeezed, you can bet your bottom dollar [or bet
your only dollar if you’re a tight bastard] that agencies will find a way to
get by on doing the bare minimum rather than going above and beyond.
Cut corners on fees,
production costs, resource and it’ll end up showing in the work that comes
back.
7.
Grow some
balls.
It’s easy to say and
harder to do but clients should take more risks. Too many people are covering their arse and not sticking
their head above the parapet right now.
Sure, there’s no end
of marketing career politicians climbing up the greasy corporate ladder but
it’s often the brave, pioneering clients that don’t play it safe who end up
making a name for themselves in the long run.
8.
Focus on
quality rather than quantity.
Agencies aren’t at
their best when they’re behaving like an advertising factory, churning out multiple
routes upon multiple routes until a client happens to pick one they like.
And what clients say what
they want isn’t necessarily always what they need.
Passion, enthusiasm
and conviction goes a long way in this business. The best work often comes when
an agency believes it’s doing the right thing for a brand.
There’s an immediate
conflict of interest with that viewpoint and a defeatist, conformist approach
that offers up a basket of lots of different ideas in the hope that a client
will pick one they like.
9.
Don’t jump
on the bandwagon.
The sheer act of doing something different to everybody else in your category
will get you noticed.
Despite this rather
unspectacular observation, it’s staggering to see how much samey samey bollocks
is going on. It’s almost as if people are actually frightened of standing out
from the pack.
Having a herd
mentality rarely produces great creative work.
Don’t worry about what
everybody else is doing. Just worry about doing something that's right for you and is distinctive from your competitors.
10.
Fun not
fear.
Agencies should be
business partners with their clients, not cowering, servile, obsequious
suppliers.
Relationships
characterised by fear rarely end up consistently producing great creative work.
If your agency and the
people who work on your business feel valued and are having fun rather than
feeling stressed and shit-scared then chances are you’ll end up getting much
better work.
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These thoughts by no
means provide a universal panacea.
But they’re solid building blocks for anybody genuinely interested in
getting better creative work from their agency.
