Welcome to the New Creative Sensibility
Posted December 23, 2009 by Conor Brady, COO, Organic Inc. for Ad Age
This just in: Creative is no longer larger than life. This is a bold statement coming from a life-long designer and creative director and the chief creative officer of a major digital agency.
The truth is that the battered economy, the ascent of technology, the need for marketing intelligence and, overall, the ability to better connect with customers on their terms have conspired to end “big creative’s” chokehold on the advertising agency. Don’t get me wrong, the Big Idea is still critical but in this new era ideas come from a myriad of sources, not least technology, and the days of creative for creative’s sake — the “trust me, I know what I am doing” attitude — is done.
What we are seeing now is a new era of creative, one that I like to call the age of creative sensibility. Adhering to a creative sensibility means the creative director isn’t the only creative voice within the agency. Creative directors may hold the status as the leader of ideas but their outlook on the process has evolved as they begin to embrace collaboration.
Collaboration
The willingness to collaborate not only with their colleagues outside their discipline but also with other agency partners and clients is not a quality that most would associate with the creative director of yesteryear. What we are seeing today is the emergence of a new breed who acknowledge that great ideas come from everywhere — a member of the agency’s technology team, the person manning the phones at the front desk or your partner agency. And it increasingly takes a whole team of often unrelated folks to get it done.
Take a Bank of America campaign called “Morris on Campus” that we worked on at Organic. The financial-awareness campaign was designed to educate and empower students to take control of their finances and bank with confidence in the new academic year. A critical component to the success was the team’s ability to successfully collaborate with our Omnicom partners, each of which brought with them a very specific specialty to the table that was essential to the campaign’s success.
Analytics
Perhaps just a surprising as the creative director’s embrace of collaboration is the admission of measurement’s role in driving campaign success. For years, the creative team and measurement gurus drew on opposite sides of the white board. Now the smart creative director, one who doesn’t hide from marketing intelligence behind their big ideas, is embracing strategy and craving analytics and research capable of providing a deeper understanding of the consumer.
What many are finding out is that knowing how consumers prefer to be marketed to before forming a campaign is far more effective than simply cramming what you think is cool down their throats. They are also discovering that the customers themselves can serve as the catalyst of inspiration which in turn results in a winning campaign capable of propelling the brand towards its goals.
AKQA provides a tremendous example of this with its Eco:Drive campaign designed to link drivers with in-car diagnostics in order to improve fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. The effort represents a tremendous example of analytics (i.e. driving data) serving as the genesis of a campaign (rather than in a more reactionary role where it is measuring its performance, post launch) and can then “fuel” a winning creative effort that “drives” meaningful results.
OK to be wrong
Creative directors that embrace collaboration and intelligence will find that the end result to this mindset shift are campaigns that are in-line with the wants and needs of the customers. However, in the event of a misfire, a key third component of the creative sensibility becomes essential: It’s OK to be wrong.
There is a sense of knowing when to admit you’re wrong, and when to embrace the mistakes of the past in driving the creative of the future. The reality is that most campaigns are in a constant beta mode and it’s safe to expect some bumps in the road. The key is to admit defeat, quickly make the needed adjustments and steer the campaign towards success.
The age of creative sensibility marks a dramatic shift from the “big agency” practices of the past and the ideas presented above are really just the tip of the iceberg. In future columns I look forward to expanding these themes and laying out the full creative sensibility doctrine. What you will come to find is that we are in the midst of a massive philosophy change in the advertising industry and success is only possible if the creative director is ready to embrace it.
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I wish more people shared this perspective, We would then be able to create better, more effective work without fear and uncertaintly.
Collaboration is great. Artists and creatives would do best to acknowledge that the client is always in the room. That’s the reality, but just because it’s the truth, does it make this situation ideal? When creatives had the “trust me, I know what I am doing” attitude, that wasn’t wrong. It’s good to trust some people, especially when their area of expertise is not your own. Clients who insist on controlling every aspect of creative might not have the most enlightened approach. Creatives who indulge the “trust me, I’m paying you” attitude are asking for creative that looks as though it was designed by committee. Collaboration is GREAT, but maybe it depends on who’s on the team. Sometimes the person with the best idea isn’t the loudest person sitting at the conference room table. Sometimes, that person is not at the table at all.
Ok, ok, ok…I’ll be super frank. Everyone’s a ‘creative.’ I agree 100%. You can collaborate. You just gotta make something, guys. You actually have to BE creative. You might be smart, but everyone at the table’s smart. And they bring more than mere smarts – they bring skills.
Thing is, people can’t just talk about ‘facilitating conversations’ and bullshit like that. That’s why nobody wants to ‘collaborate’ with those types. Because it’s more like, the creatives will do all the work while the others ‘facilitate’ the conversation. What does that even mean?
Yes, creative teams have been collaborating forever…with talented directors, photographers, illustrators, other creative teams, programmers, user-experience designers, even great clients. And they usually love it. They just can’t stand collaborating with people who don’t make anything with their hands and instead sit around and talk and criticize or theorize as if they did. That boils a ‘creative’s’ blood and it always will.
Sorry, but that’ll never change. No matter how technology changes.
Everything changes. Proof is how the strength of past times is now like a sinking boat. Ways that used to be right on the “New Age of [put here yours]” aren’t anymore relevant and thus it seems to be natural.
There’s no blame in being human -whenever the time is right- so whatever left over the table won’t end up in nothing more than vane words. Millions spent. Another kitten dies. Listen well. Creativity is just the excuse.
Change happens and most of the time is good.
Note to Tim.
While I agree that collaboration and discussion are not the same as actually bringing something tangible to the table everything tangible had to be an idea first. As humans, that usually manifests in the form of a conversation. Einstein only invented a handful of things (an absorption refrigerator, for example) but people liked to collaborate with him because he expanded their thinking. Perhaps it is the present company you are keeping that forms your feelings.
In that vein, I think you might consider expanding your definition of what it means to “make something”.
- Technologist “make” the concepts you create come to life on the web, a phone an outdoor sign in Times Square. In the best cases, they are bringing new capabilities to the table to be used in ways you never thought possible. Remember that Facebook thing that did not exist until 2004?
- Strategy and Analytics bring insights and can tell you where your message and imagery worked and where it did not. They “make” all of this from truckloads of raw data. A task, like sausage making, that you would not want to witness.
- Regarding “facilitating the conversation”, take a look at Jordan Miller. She is the community manager for U by Kotex. She is fully empowered, by the brand, to engage in conversations with consumers both on the brand site and in the places they are already having conversations (that’s right, she gets to have one-on-one conversations.) She is “creating” clarity and loyalty everyday and imagine the insights and ideas she actually bring from being fully immersed in the brand everyday.
- Even the lowly account person helps “make” the story that persuades your client to open their wallet and pay for the program.
- I am sure you have heard of a media people. They have been known to create a few ideas, too.
In short, these ARE hard skills and are things that “people make with their hands.” There are a lot more things than pretty pictures and nice words that go into a marketing campaign. I think more appreciation (or is it empathy?) for that would result in a little less blood boiling.
I once heard “You can’t possibly understand the creative mindset”. It was an odd thing to say given the (unknown to the speaker) recipient’s rich artistic background. Reach beyond the limited corporate titles we give each other and you may find you’ve been working with someone you never really knew.