Answers for Adam: Is creativity still the answer for ad agencies?
This week Adam Ferrier asks whether ad agencies should be embracing startup culture more, or continuing to focus single-mindedly on creativity.
“The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists”. Banksy (apparently?!)
The above quote is around ten years old and I wonder if it’s still relevant. I’m getting the sense that the new breed of creative folk who want to make a buck are not entering advertising – but rather being seduced by the technology fuelled ‘start-up’ culture. For example is it cooler to attend the Cannes Lions or tweet about the latest gadget unveiled at SXSW?
The only reason I worry is that many creative types in our industry appear to be slow on the uptake on the three pools of learning that the ‘start-up’ culture embraces along with ‘creativity’, namely i) an understanding of the behavioural sciences, ii) a deeper understanding of data, and iii) an even deeper understanding of technology. The start up culture doesn’t scream ‘creativity is the answer – now what was the question?’.
Great question, Adam.
1) Banksy’s work reminds me of the doodlings junior creatives when they learn how to to a swapsie. His Kylie CD hijack was funny, but for the most part his work is facile rather than pithy.
2) When I talk behavioural sciences or data with creative types, their eyes glaze over. They misunderstand that these should support creative, not replace it. Despite my occasional dig at your musings, you represent the next stage of the creative type. A smart headline doesn’t really cut it anymore.
3) Creativity will always be a part of this game. But when one unnamed ECD throws a brief at a team and says ‘gimme some augmented reality’, I wonder whether he’s choosing the most appropriate angle for the brief or setting himself up for the annual Cannes junket. For the most part, creativity is taken to mean the surface of things. A smart account exec can pull more creativity out of brief than any typeface or photographic style will, but if he’s working at the wrong agency then he will be labelled a nuisance wannebee.
If we can’t maintain creativity and leverage it in the face of behavioural science knowledge and advanced marketing tools via the major online ventures, then we render ourselves just as useless as a bromide machine.
Biggest problem moving forward is creative accountability. If you combine behavioural with data, you get very accurate predictives. Your creative better be good if you’re going up against that.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. How to address this has to be based on the context in which your agency is working (wish I could say that with less managemnt speak).
A thoroughly divided silo organisation where people are specialists in one area has some advantages (just like a divided labour economy) but usually has more conflict and communication problems.
A flexible workplace with multi-skilled workers is great at adapting – but runs the risk of becoming a “jack of all trades, master of none” organisation.
Some people are good at everything– they’re expensive and hard to keep.
Some people acknowledge their weakness and constantly educate themselves to be better and are great to have around, some people don’t. Its bloody hard to identify which is which during recruitment.
The question of what each organisation needs and desires is dependent on a lot of variables, the reputation they want to build, the clients they have – the work they are doing ect. It’s a good question but the answer depends entirely on the local context.
Adam I think you know where I sit on this. However I’d argue against the point in Pool ii – Yes these guys are big on data, but I don’t think they derive the kinds of insights from it that the great direct marketing agencies do.
People at tech start ups aren’t generally tweeting what they’ve learned at SX.
Love from Silicon Valley!
@Andrew. There must be an inversely proportional relationship between amount of marketing twitter one puts out and the actual value of the ‘knowledge’ imparted. If its important, I prefer to save it for my clients. I think its called my value-add.
@Adam, maybe we are losing some people to the tech sector, but most of the creatives I met at the start of their careers didn’t have enough business nous. Entrepreneurship and creativity are a rare mix at that early stage, maybe later in their career some have built up the skills but those ones were never going to be discouraged from leaving the game in the first place. Could someone post some info about the success rate of start-ups?
Essentially, you reap what you sow.
If you work in silos because (well, it’s easier to bill it that way) and move creatives down the order so all the strategic thinking is handled by another department, should you expect your ‘creative’ people to be anything else rather than a studio department that resembles a sausage factory?
If their rewards, pay, recognition, promotion and job offers are directly linked to award show results, should you expect them to be focused on anything else?
If you make people a commodity, the clever ones will always leave.
It really is as simple as that.
Thanks all for the thoughts
@Stan I hear you – not sure I agree though
@Me I think you’re right the most brilliant creatives are always entraprenerial. Not sure why it just seems that way
I think advertising has only ever attracted the mildly creative. And it’s not surprising considering 90% of a creative’s time is spent on process. It mostly just attracts people who want to make a buck – stop here.
@Peter Rush you make me laugh
@Me Here are the start up stats you asked for:
Four out of five businesses no longer exist within their first five years. Of those that are left, four out of five will no longer exist within the next four years.
This means that, of every say 8,000 businesses that commenced operating in January 2005, there will only be about 320 left now in 2014!
A whopping 7,680 will have closed down, been liquidated, merged, been acquired, changed direction or become a new business.
The more shocking statistic is that, of the 320 remaining businesses, only 50 or so will be making a significant profit.
My boutique agency UNO, with a formula for growing challenger brands, is now in it’s 13th year.
@glenn mabbott. Thanks for that, sorry I was not specific but I was thinking tech startups.
@peter rush. I take a dim view of the gormless pursuit of awards, but I think most of the best creative types I know of have been in advertising. by comparison, the quantum of actual creative talent in the arts is a joke. Yes, we spend most of our time on process because we are working to an brief, we apply creativity or lateral thinking or whatever you want to define it as and make a business solution out of it. Awards don’t muddle things, its the pursuit of awards that makes a joke of a clients budget. I think we all want to make a buck. Don’t you?
@Me
Tech start ups stats based on my own experience: I’ve been a partner in 5 tech start ups over the last 7 years. 3 have failed. One is floundering in it’s second year. The one I’m about to launch I’m hoping will change the world of Self Managed Super. And fund my own retirement. The odds are against me.
@peter rush has won enough awards in both categories, ads and art films, to know what he’s talking about. And be rightfully cynical.
@Glenn Mabbott. Thanks. Tech start-ups represent the greater risk, greater reward model for those who don’t want to end up working for ‘the man’. I was more wondering what happens to those many who don’t succeed, they probably get a job in… advertising. Good luck with yours.
@Peter Rush. I wasn’t having a dig at you, I wrote my opinion before I sussed out your linkedin page. I agree that most creatives spend their time in misdirected pursuits, but some of the talent I see in this game still blows my mind.
It’s a great question Adam. As usual. I see creativity as mostly something to make people stop and think. Increasingly difficult to do. But the question has always been “what do you want people to think about, if you can stop them?” and more recently “how will you stop them – and where?” These are not new questions, but there’s no question that we have better ways to answer them before we start getting too creative, just for the sake of it. So I think the combination you’re inferring here is critical. Brilliant behavioral insight + data driven targeting + role of technology in creating engagement + meaningful ideas that make us stop and think = better commercial success.
I’m finding that some people have roles that they do for money and start-ups as a hobby they hope one day will supplement their income or become their main revenue stream. It’s very important to hire people who have pet projects because they will have better business sense (in general). Google encourages its employees to have personal projects. Who are some advertising professionals with start-ups on the side? I’m sure there are a few!
Totally agree with @Eda – can see this as a huge trend coming through. Even at a basic level loads people (particularly GenYs) are eyeballing (or trying to rollout) some kind of ecom through shopify and the like.
Your typical ad agency letter of employment will occasionally imply stuff like ‘anything you do during your employment here is ours’. Whether it applies to hobby/ sideprojects or not, these kind of statements are quite juxtapose to the point above about google – going out of it’s way to foster entrepreurial projects. Time ad agencies start thinking about ‘open source’ entreupreneurial/ creative projects to lure the next gen of young (techie) talent?