Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Cannes, Colenso, Creativity, Culture, Paula, WARC
I was talking to a friend of mine recently about the ad industry and the challenges it faces.
Specifically about how we are now bathed in for-profit processes and research methodologies that promise us access to ‘risk free success’ and yet we continue to struggle.
Why?
Well of course there are a lot of reasons for it.
+ Costs.
+ Technology.
+ Restructuring.
+ Holding companies.
+ Tech company power.
+ Procurement departments.
+ The rise of social influencers.
+ A lack of ongoing, formal training.
+ Underinvestment in hiring/keeping talent.
+ Too much one-size-fits-all outsourced training.
+ The lack of influence marketing has within organisations.
+ The devaluation of experience in favour of social popularity.
+ A lack of understanding about how creativity works at a client level.
+ The gullibility of organisations that think there is a ‘risk-free success’ model.
But on top of that, there was another thing we touched on – how the amalgamation of all these issues is increasingly robbing the joy out of what we do.
Yes, I appreciate our job is about helping clients achieve their commercial goals so you may ask, “who cares if you enjoy what you’re doing”, but here’s the thing, joy creates commercial and creative possibilities.
I don’t mean that simply in terms of effort, I mean in terms of what comes out at the other end.
The stuff that people feel even if they can’t explain why.
Like this.
Or this.
Or even this this.
Now I should be clear that when I say ‘joy’, I don’t mean happy-clappy-hippy-shit … I mean a sense of fulfilment of doing something really well.
Not because you followed a ‘for profit’ dot-to-dot methodology by someone who has never actually made the work, but because of your vision and ambition that was shaped, crafted and influenced through the blood, sweat, tears, belief and laughter of what you – and other talented souls – made together.
And it was at this point I realized I’d made a terrible mistake with the presentation Paula and I did at Cannes for WARC.
Because while those 150+ slides [as seen above] claimed to be about ‘The Secrets Of Strategy From Artists Who Only Live Creatively’ … it wasn’t.
It was a talk on how to be creatively fulfilled …
Maybe we all need to talk a little more about that.
Not just because fulfillment can keep – and attract – the best talent to stay in the business for longer … not just because it actively drives and encourages commercial success for the clients we work for … but because for all the brilliant things AI can do, it can’t compete with the infectious, limitless, power and potential of fulfillment.
Because it will never understand it, let alone be able to do it.