I'm teaching a class this quarter called STORYTELLING. I'm completely jazzed about teaching this class, and I'll probably share assignments on the blog, though they're not all ad related.
Anyway, as I was typing up the syllabus, describing the workshop format of the class and encouraging students to be honest and critical without being a dick, it struck me that there are two things that help one grow in this business. KNOWLEDGE and CONFIDENCE.
Someone with all the knowledge (some might call this "talent") in the world, but no confidence to share their brilliant ideas isn't very valuable. And someone with tons of confidence but no knowledge, well, we've probably all met those kinds of people.
But here's the cool thing: You learn from your mistakes and you gain confidence from your successes. So either way, you're growing. The important thing is that you're creating.
Creative Depression
If you're fortunate enough to have a job during this economic downturn, or if you've watched TV during it, you may have observed one of the laws of advertising economics: When the economy heads south, so does the creative.
It happens with every depression. The budgets get tighter, brand managers get nervous, executives and bean counters get more involved in the day-to-day creative product (never a good thing) and everyone demands really hard-hitting (i.e. straightforward) advertising. You see TV spots with CEOs talking to camera. You see brands jumping through hoops to deliver a "value message," (e.g. our paper towels cost a little more, but they last longer). And because clients become overly fearful of missteps, they rely more heavily on focus groups and testing to cover their butts (also never a good thing).
Yes, there are some clients who are brave enough to still put out good work, who see the competitor's timidity as an opportunity. But for the most part, expect smaller budgets and smaller risks.
Inaugural Radio Thursday
I just finished re-reading Jim Aitchison’s Cutting Edge Radio. Such a helpful book.So for the next several weeks, Thursdays at Makin’ Ads will be Radio Thursday, and I’ll post a quote I think may be helpful for young creatives. (Art directors, you should learn radio, too. It will help you be a better creative director later on.) We’ll keep it up until I run out of quotes.
So here’s the inaugural Radio Thursday quote:
Silly voices are another hallmark of poor radio. [It shows creatives] can’t think of an idea. They don’t put any effort into being creative.
Note: There are so many quotes in Cutting Edge Radio, I’m not going to attribute them all to their rightful owners. Just know they’re all from Aitchison’s book.
Avoiding Groupthink
Here's a personal anecdote. Maybe you can learn something from it.
I once did work for a client that had very strict marketing guidelines. Most of them were very poorly thought out, in my opinion. All their print work had to include the following:
Every time we went to the client, we'd bring in ads that adhered to their guidelines, and some better ones that didn't.
They'd usually appreciate the more creative ones. But they'd always fall back on their guidelines, because they were, after all, guidelines. (Emerson has some words about this.)
It became apparent that no matter how brilliant the idea, we weren't going to do any award-winning print for them. Realizing this was pretty crushing. And I spent the better part of a morning researching other agencies I might work for.
But then I realized that their guidelines only applied to print. No one had written guidelines for ambient media. Or webisodes. Or PR stunts. Or bus wraps. Or a ton of other media they probably hadn't considered and might benefit from.
Sometimes even the best clients and the most creative creatives get trapped in their own Groupthink. Where everything is done a certain way because it just is.
And sometimes coming up with a big idea is figuring out a better way to come up with a big idea.
I once did work for a client that had very strict marketing guidelines. Most of them were very poorly thought out, in my opinion. All their print work had to include the following:
- A key visual taken from the client library.
- A frame on at least two sides of the key visual.
- The frame had to be one of six pre-approved colors patterns.
- Supporting copy in bullet points, just like these.
Every time we went to the client, we'd bring in ads that adhered to their guidelines, and some better ones that didn't.
They'd usually appreciate the more creative ones. But they'd always fall back on their guidelines, because they were, after all, guidelines. (Emerson has some words about this.)
It became apparent that no matter how brilliant the idea, we weren't going to do any award-winning print for them. Realizing this was pretty crushing. And I spent the better part of a morning researching other agencies I might work for.
But then I realized that their guidelines only applied to print. No one had written guidelines for ambient media. Or webisodes. Or PR stunts. Or bus wraps. Or a ton of other media they probably hadn't considered and might benefit from.
Sometimes even the best clients and the most creative creatives get trapped in their own Groupthink. Where everything is done a certain way because it just is.
And sometimes coming up with a big idea is figuring out a better way to come up with a big idea.
...But networks aren't everything.
Fast Company recently published a small piece on UpMo, a career tracking path. I took it for a test-drive and was told I need to spend more time building my network. Sage advice.
Maybe.
Creative advertising is too unique an industry for this thinking to really apply. As we wrote yesterday, networking's a good thing. But you can't network your way into an agency if your book is just so-so.
You can't get promoted to ACD or CD or ECD purely based on your network. At least not at an agency that values creativity.
And there are no categories in the One Show or Cannes for most connections on LinkedIn.
Once you're in the business, your network grows because of your reputation. And your reputation grows because of your work.
If you're a student or a junior, feel free to network. Join LinkedIn. Plot your career on UpMo. But realize that none of that matters if your book isn't absolutely amazing.
Maybe.
Creative advertising is too unique an industry for this thinking to really apply. As we wrote yesterday, networking's a good thing. But you can't network your way into an agency if your book is just so-so.
You can't get promoted to ACD or CD or ECD purely based on your network. At least not at an agency that values creativity.
And there are no categories in the One Show or Cannes for most connections on LinkedIn.
Once you're in the business, your network grows because of your reputation. And your reputation grows because of your work.
If you're a student or a junior, feel free to network. Join LinkedIn. Plot your career on UpMo. But realize that none of that matters if your book isn't absolutely amazing.
Your real asset
I left portfolio school with what I think was a pretty solid book. But the real asset I left with was the network of my peers.
People I used to go to movies with and make waffles with and go to karaoke bars with and laugh really hard with and stay up really late trying to do better ads while downing a box of Krispy Kremes with now work in almost every major market in America at places like Goodby, GSD&M, DDB, Fallon, Publics, david&goliath, Burnett, BBDO, Chiat/Day, Crispin and Vitro/Robertson. Most hold leadership positions, and I'm pretty sure collectively, we've won every major award out there. It's good company.
If you haven't decided whether or not portfolio school is for you, consider the fact that I haven't needed my student book in almost a decade. But I keep in touch with these people very frequently.
People I used to go to movies with and make waffles with and go to karaoke bars with and laugh really hard with and stay up really late trying to do better ads while downing a box of Krispy Kremes with now work in almost every major market in America at places like Goodby, GSD&M, DDB, Fallon, Publics, david&goliath, Burnett, BBDO, Chiat/Day, Crispin and Vitro/Robertson. Most hold leadership positions, and I'm pretty sure collectively, we've won every major award out there. It's good company.
If you haven't decided whether or not portfolio school is for you, consider the fact that I haven't needed my student book in almost a decade. But I keep in touch with these people very frequently.
Save Your Ideas
Research shows that an average advertising creative generates 735,017 ideas in the course of a career.* That's a lot of ideas. Maybe 25% of those will be more than a sentence uttered between partners, or a doodle on a page. Maybe 5% will be fleshed out into executions, 2% presented in meetings, and something like .01% actually created into spots, or print ads, or whatever.
So what happens to the other 99.99% of those ideas?
There's a rumor that the Bud frogs idea was something that Goodby found in a box of old scripts and boards that they'd inherited from Bud's former agency. I don't really believe this (I've never heard of an agency passing on their old scripts and boards to the agency that just took their business), but there's a truth in the story. Things change, and an idea that wasn't right, or wasn't sellable, or didn't even make it to the client one year, might be just what's needed a few years later.
I can be a little anal when it comes to organization. I keep all my notes in little sketchbooks on a bookshelf in my office. It's not that I think every thought is worth keeping, but I can't tell you how many times I've been doing my second tour of duty on a piece of business and find a nugget by looking through the old ideas. Or a creative director has called and said "Hey, you remember that campaign you guys had that was off strategy a few years ago? Well, the strategy's changed, and I'd like to take another look at that campaign." Some executions might even solve some completely different assignment down the road.
It baffles me when I see people jotting stuff down and then leaving their notes behind, or throwing them away at the end of a project. Yes, most of those ideas probably belong in the garbage, but there's always a chance that some of those hours of thinking will come in handy later in your career. So keep them somewhere you can find them later.**
Also, after a project is finished, if we had a concept I really believe in but didn't sell for whatever reason, I file that away separately. You never know when a director or photographer will be looking for something to shoot, or a little extra money will show up.
Some might say I'm advocating lazy recycling of ideas. Hardly. (And I would caution against ever trying to "put one over" on a client or creative director; be upfront with the fact that the idea was presented before, but you think it still has merit.) All I'm saying is that you put a lot of time into generating ideas. It just takes a little organization to give them a chance at a second life.
*This is based on my research, using numbers I made up.
**When I retire I plan to sell all of my notebooks on eBay for $3. Or I'll sell them to you now for $10 (shipping not included).
ADC Young Guns - Call for entries
99% of students and juniors qualify for this competition.
Early Bird Deadline: April 15
Regular Deadline: May 13
Do not let this opportunity pass you by.
This one's huge.
(Let us know how you do. We'd be happy to post you if you're a winner or finalist.)
Non-Ads You Will Have to Work On
Here’s a secret you won’t learn in portfolio school:
Not everything your boss will ask you to work on will be ads. You will also have to write and/or art direct the following:
But there's a very simple way to make this less of a headache: Know how to write. Be able to art direct in your sleep. Know your craft and this stuff becomes easy.
The more you practice your craft the easier it will be to get this stuff off of your desk, so you can focus that talent on opportunities.
- Mood boards
- Mood videos
- Campaign set-ups (paragraph-length explanations of why the agency pursued the campaign it's presenting
- Web copy (not the exciting stuff - the gunk on the side bars)
- Explanations of how an ambient media or interactive piece will work
- Brochures and leaflets
- PowerPoint slides for your CEO (I wish this were a joke or a one-time experience)
- Award show entry forms
- Award show entry videos
- Agency brand videos
- Emails to client/agency audiences
- Treatments to sell your work to directors
- Casting specs
- Direction for other vendors: editors, music people, SFX (especially when working remotely to edit, or do music etc...more about being crystal clear than crafting it, but important nonetheless)
- Pitch leave-behinds
- Manifestos
But there's a very simple way to make this less of a headache: Know how to write. Be able to art direct in your sleep. Know your craft and this stuff becomes easy.
The more you practice your craft the easier it will be to get this stuff off of your desk, so you can focus that talent on opportunities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)