A while back, a headhunter in the UK got in touch and asked if I’d “like a chat”.
While I love W+K – and told them that – I said I also love chatting to people, so if they didn’t think it a waste of their time, I’d be up for it if they were.
So we sorted out a mutually agreeable time and made it happen.
I wish I hadn’t.
I can honestly say, the 30 minutes I spoke to her were one of the worst uses of my time ever.
Yes, ever!
Apart from the fact, her view of what great advertising was – and should be – was up it’s own arse, her response to having someone have a different opinion was downright rude.
And lets face it, where rude is concerned, I’m a master of it.
When I said I disagreed with her view that agency creativity and client commerciality are separate things – and then added the whole point of our industry is to help our clients prosper in some way – she replied with …
“You’re a true child of the Thatcher years”.
What an idiot.
Seriously, a fucking idiot.
Putting aside her ridiculous – and utterly wrong – statement, the fact is adland is in the commercial creative business, not the creative business.
It has absolutely nothing to do with political allegiance, it’s got everything to do with making a living.
It was at this point I informed her that it was 2013 and not 1983 and part of the reason our industry now had to contend with over zealous procurement departments and sceptical clients was because of the attitude she was peddling.
The conversation ended shortly after – very shortly after – but what really struck me was that if this was the sort of person our industry was relying on to help fill our agencies with ‘talent’, then for all the talk our industry likes to spout regarding ‘being business focused’, the fact is we have our heads in the sand even more than I feared.
Being commercially focused is not a bad thing.
Christ, it’s a great thing.
Money literally makes the World go round and allows you to do/fix things that might otherwise never get done.
The issue is always HOW you make it and what you DO with it once you’ve got it … and anyone who doesn’t appreciate that – or thinks it means you have to make ‘cliche driven, rationale advertising’ is part of the problem, not the solution.