Monday, December 7, 2009

"Am I doing anything relevant?"

Here's an Adweek interview with Jeff Goodby. Around the 2:25 mark, he points out that the current state of advertising is forcing us to ask questions like, "Am I really lending any value to anything? Am I doing anything anyone cares about? Am I doing anything relevant?"


Normally, when working on an assignment we ask ourselves, "Is this good enough to win an award?" Or "Will this get me a job at a hot agency?"

And to answer those questions we start comparing our work to what we see in the most recent One Show: My print ad looks like this award-winning print ad, so I'm on the right track.

But if we're asking questions like "What can I do that's relevant?" or "What can I do that will be valuable to my book/client/career?" our thinking starts to get a little bigger, and less concerned with what's already won awards.

Try asking yourself questions like Goodby's. Then try answering them.

2 comments:

  1. Greg!

    How are you doing? I'm still checkin the blog!
    I heard a bit from James Wood a while ago, as you were his mentor. Can you check out my website www.kevingroat.com, let me know what you think?
    Maybe spread the word about it,,,maybe bring me into Switzerland :) you'll find contact info on there. take care,,,

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  2. I love that Kevin thought this was the appropriate post for him to leave this comment in...value, what people care about, relevant...maybe this self-serving moment is the most relevant, insightful caption possible for our industry? I suspect this, in some unfortunate, seemingly "disconnected" way is exactly what Goodby was talking about.--jon lancaric

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