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where the creatives are

April 18, 2010 6 Comments

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It cracks me up whenever I hear a creative director referred to as “the Creative”.  It makes it sound like creative directors belong to a different species.  We wouldn’t refer to “the Supply” or “the Accounting”.  But “the Creative” is often referred to in this strange third person (as parodied in this clever video from an agency: “Creatives grow better in the Southwest.”)

I think there is a skewed sense of creativity in most business environments.  When creativity is needed, we go off-site for an isolated brainstorm.  Or, we pull in special people at outside agencies.  It is treated as something Other.  There is not enough emphasis on everyday business creativity.

When creativity is outsourced, we lose detail in translation and creative decisions become detached from business decisions.  The client/creative director dynamic is often strained and awkward.  Many creative briefs are bland and uninspiring.  And many creative directors don’t really understand the dynamics facing the client’s business.

The resulting work is often a peace treaty – an unhappy compromise between a creative director trying to breathe life into an uninspiring creative brief and a client trying to reign in the creative director’s wild ideas.

I’m a big fan of in-sourcing as much creativity as possible. When creative directors have a consistent seat at the business table, they add creative insight throughout the business, not just when a creative piece of work is required.  Plus, any creative output becomes tightly linked to the business issues.

I spent an afternoon once at Fruit Towers in London comparing the method model with the innocent model.  We called it “ordering in”.

The best benefit of “ordering in” is that creativity is contagious.  It reinforces that creativity is part of the everyday.  Not something you find elsewhere by traveling “in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the creatives are”.

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6 Comments

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  1. denise lee yohn says

    April 19, 2010 at 7:49 am

    love it, tom!
    and agree — the best experiences i had at sony was when the creative teams were involved in the business.
    why do you think this doesn’t happen more often?
    is the agency account team trying to “shield” the creative team from the client?
    does the client not know how to engage the creative team constructively?
    or does the creative team not want to be involved in the madness and mundane that comes with the everyday business??

    Reply
  2. Rob says

    April 19, 2010 at 10:43 am

    Tom-
    This cartoon is my new favorite.

    Seeing “creatives” as a different species enables a lot of bad behavior. Account managers can discount most of what they say because their just the “creatives”. And we tolerate all kinds of moody or shocking behavior from the “creatives” that no one in accounting would dare try.

    It’s too bad more people don’t see themselves as creative. We could use a lot more creative thinking from people other than the “creatives” in business today.

    Reply
  3. Ted Simon says

    April 19, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    Ted Simon

    Yet another gem, Tom.

    Not only have you put your finger on a very real organizational dynamic (in one hilarious panel), but you’ve reminded us that everyone CAN be creative in a constructive way if the organization encourages and rewards that behavior.

    “Creativity” is too often associated with “the arts” (writing, music, paintings, etc.) and advertising (who else would establish a dept with such a name). It’s much bigger than that. “Creativity” is about finding new and different ways to address opportunities, issues, problems and you name it.

    “Creativity” is about “creation,” and “creation” takes place everywhere in an organization, be it a new R&D technique to validate the safety of a bottle cap, a more efficient method of processing expense items in accounting, establishing streamlined quality control practices for medical products, deriving meaningful insights from a ream of data, writing a complex line of code…and, yes, development of an “ad campaign.”

    So, I’m with you. In my worldview, “creativity” is not the residence of any one department…it is the obligation of everyone in the organization. And, it is the obligation of every organization to encourage, reward and stimulate the “creative” that resides in all of us.

    Reply
  4. Smacklin@optonline.net says

    April 19, 2010 at 7:09 pm

    Unfortunately (for me at least) the species “Creatives” are often considered part of the the genus “Overhead.”

    Reply
  5. Christian Laborin says

    April 19, 2010 at 7:42 pm

    Exactly! creativity IS contagious, no need to live abroad or whatever. Creativity comes from within.
    Loved the way you put that. Makes me want to jump on my kitchen table, cross my arms and say “…Tom!, feed me!…”, more posts like this that is.
    Nice post, have a great one!.

    Reply
  6. Elaine_Fogel says

    April 27, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    Just discovered your blog, Tom. Love it!

    I agree that creativity is not restricted to one job category or profession. It happens every day to most people, whether they realize it or not. Some just know how to nurture it more.

    Reply

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