Brilliant!
'Those who call themselves "creatives" in our business are, to a large extent, mediocrities who delude themselves into thinking that if they have a silly haircut and an annoying personality they must be talented.'
ahahahaha, so very, very true
keep up the good work
Amen for "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't." Please tell that to the client who insists a concept board must score 6.8 or higher by focus groups in order to proceed to the dang shoot.
Creativity isn't scorable. It's a gut feeling.
Well, I feel like creativity is the think I am missing. I am the kind of person and gets things working, but to take an idea and portray that in a way that will reach a certain market, I just can't do it...
I always have ideas and can't make them look good...But, it's not stopping me. I am working on this every day.
My favorite comment re creativity (or almost everything else) summmed up the problem this way:
"If you want nice, clean, fresh oats, you must pay a fair price. If, however, you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse, that comes a lot cheaper."
If I knew who said or wrote it, I would credit him or her.
"..good creative doesn't always produce good business results..". Is that the sound of David Ogilvy rolling around in his grave? What happened to 'If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative'? Or am I taking Mr Ogilvy's quote too literally?
I saw some good creative last night. It was for Jack in the Box. It was simple, Jack loading his cart with outrageous items from a CostCo type store. Very entertaining. The spot tells us about giant values (we don't need)like a flat screen twin pack and a garbage can size jar of pretzels. The end card comes up and offers a huge meal (we do need) for a small price. It was fun, simple and made a sale. I think great creative comes from a simple sales message. They didn't snipe it, tack on a late night menu, add a "jumbosize it" for an extra buck, they didn't add store hours, locations, etc. They kept it simple. And great.
I was once asked to speak on the same subject to a similar group of ad execs. With a few minor exceptions, I gave the same talk you did. Doing great creative is personal. You do it because you'd rather hit a home run than bunt. And yeah, sometimes it doesn't work. But a whole lot of times the stuff that stinks doesn't work either. The difference is that when great creative does work, everybody notices. And that's how little known shops get invited to pitches everyone else reads about.
Bookmarked. =)
I disagree with the premise that mediocre creative makes clients uncomfortable. In my experience, clients are usually only comfortable with boring ads that overpromise on their product/service. They only get really uncomfortable when they have to consider something that's truly creative.
Just curious - how'd this go over, and what kind of questions did you get from your audience?
Good stuff here. Bravo on trying to lasso this conundrum.
I'm having trouble getting the "You buy it" thought out of my head with regards to how you get great creative. I don't think all of us together have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times a mediocre (or worse) agency has tried to buy great creative and failed. In fact, I've never seen great creative talent succeed in an agency that didn't have the same passion and desire to deliver great work as the talent they brought in to do it. Yes, talent is integral to delivering great creative, but it is only one aspect. Without the support of management, without the shared drive to take every ad and make it the kind of work people actually make an effort to watch, read or hear, buying great creative is a myth.
Homerun! This is the stuff great sites and businesses are made of. If you keep this up Hoffman, you're going to big someday. Very big.
Thank you so much for writing this!
I had a pretty incredible run as a copywriter and creative director, working at Scali, Chiat/Day, Stein Robaire Helm, BP&N, and ultimately BBDO. So I've crossed paths with some of the greatest talents in advertising.
I've come to the conclusion that there are two components to what makes a great creative person:
1) A borderline unhealthy compulsion that forces him or her to work at a problem until he or she finds the best possible solution.
2) A brian that's wired in a way that forces him or her consider unconventional approaches.
#1 without #2 gets you a boring workaholic. #2 without #1 gives you a mediocrity with a silly haircut and an annoying personality.
--Brian
http://60secdirector.blogspot.com
When I hear the word "creativity," I reach for my gun.
Our industry obsession with creativity is based on two false assumptions:
1. That an agency's primary asset is its creativity. It's not. An agency's primary asset is its salesmanship. Move the needle or get the fuck out of the way.
2. That the the ad is the star of the show. It's not. The product is. (This is a common misconception among naive creatives who fall in love with the execution -- not the product.)
"When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it 'creative.' I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, 'How well he speaks.' But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us march against Philip.'" -David Ogilvy
Most "creative" agencies care more about awards than selling a product. It's one of the reasons advertising agencies have so little credibility.
Here's a good example of what creativity can add
http://bit.ly/QmTaU
Thanks, Nigel
@David Burn:
Thanks. You've become much more lovable since you started wearing corsages.
Bob,
What I loved most about this speech is how you haven't changed a bit. Well-thought-out and transparently truthful as always. Good stuff.
Like dk, I am curious as to how it went over with that particular group of hard-bitten listeners. I'm imagining a spirited Q&A session.
Mike,
I've always loved that Ogilvy quote, but... he's not saying he doesn't want the work to BE creative, he's saying he doesn't want to hear that as the feedback, yes?
Like when I wear a beautiful dress. I don't want my date to come up to me and say "beautiful dress." I want him to say "you look hot."
As TAC says, "if you're going to be miserable anyway, you might as well do good creative work."
'Nuff mixed metaphors for today.
(Nigel
—love that link. That's going into my Saturday roundup post. Rad to the power of 500%. Whoa!)
Regards,
Kelly
@ Kelly
What Ogilvy was saying is that the creativity factor is irrelevant. The persuasive factor is what counts.
When people are paying attention to the execution, they're not paying attention to the product. Or, to steal from another ad legend:
"Be provocative. But be sure your provocativeness stems from your product. You are not right if in your ad you stand a man on his head just to get attention. You are right if you have him on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets." -Bill Bernbach
Worshipping at the altar of creativity is standing a man on his head. Worshipping at the altar of persuasiveness/salesmanship is showing how your product keeps things from falling out of pockets.
Creativity be damned (to a degree, I'll concede.)
Check out the "Ad Slider". It lets you manipulate the ad message by moving the x axis setting from "Strategic" to "Creative" with "Win-Win", of course, being the sweet spot in the middle. Sadly, I'm not kidding.
http://www.the-cma.org/awards/fu...rds/fun/
fun.asp
Right on.
Best quote ever- i have it posted at my desk:
"When I write an advertisement, I don
’t want you to tell me that you find it 'creative.' I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product." -David Ogilvy
@JaeSelle
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