by Jay Miletsky

Creativity.  Has the word or concept lost its meaning?

Recently, I’ve found myself scratching my head over this.  As more and more of my agency peers express frustration with their clients’ lack of appreciation for creativity in marketing – apparently, brand managers increasingly define “creative” as “not strategic” – I’ve started wondering if maybe they have a point.  Is “creative” a bad word, a mere euphemism for any ideas that are lacking effective strategy?

In the end, I refused to give in to the cult of blame, reflective of a growing agency trend where we point our fingers at clients or the industry structure every time we don’t get what we want.

Creative is creative, strategy is strategy and vegetables are vegetables. We all know what they are. Creative includes an overriding concept as well as the design and artistic execution. Strategy is the plan of action to get a campaign or message noticed by a desired audience. When developed in tandem and executed correctly, the potential results are greater.

The issue here isn’t whether or not the word “creative” is being misconstrued or used to imply a lack of strategic sense. The problem is that agencies, anxious to have things our own way, try to force fit arguments and issues that simply don’t work. We seem, on some levels, unwilling to adapt.   For example, agencies insist that creative is the key to engaging the audience.  They’ve lost site of – or refuse to acknowledge – that we no longer own the word “engagement” in any sense.  Agencies have never presented creative as a means to engagement – at least not in the sense that the term “engagement” is more often used in today’s social media environment. Creative doesn’t engage the same way that Twitter does. However, using social media to draw attention to campaign creative is a component of strategy.  Clients get that, but many agencies, including the ones that claim to provide social media services, won’t let that reality sink in.

Another example of agencies’ unwillingness to adapt: our continued push for brand campaigns in a quick-results environment. The last year was bad for most everyone – the recession slashed budgets and many agencies starved. In an effort to generate income and secure retainer dollars, many pushed the importance of brand awareness (what some clients see as “creative” further defined as “long-term” or “having vague results”). When that didn’t work, agencies moaned that they were being commoditized. What’s missing here is the client POV – long term branding isn’t what most marketing directors are being challenged with. Their CEOs and CFO’s are saying “generate revenue this quater.” They want to keep their jobs, so their interest is in capturing low-hanging fruit and generating a short-term ROI. Until the recession is really over and budgets get back to normal, every presentation is going to be met with the question “so what’s the ROI?”

The problem with “creative” is that agencies want to push art and branding, and clients want results right now. An online display campaign generates low click thru levels (my blog on this: http://bit.ly/hYIm0), and we say “Who cares? You got great brand exposure!” as though long-term creative without short-term result is going to appease anybody right now.

Creative is fine, it’s necessary, and everyone knows what it means. It’s the agency attitude that needs to adjust.

by Jason Miletsky

I was recently involved in a debate with a small group of marketing people in which the following question was posed:

If you had to choose between two employee candidates, one of whom has experience but is not very creative and the other who is very creative but lacks experience, in general, which would you select?

There’s no question: go with the creative person every time.

Creative people see the world in a different way.  They can provide solutions that may not always be obvious, and can push a brand in a direction that it may not have considered otherwise. Creativity can open doors, and get other people thinking more productively.  In a brainstorming situation, they can take  a bad idea and make something useful out of it.

What?!? Did I just dare say that someone in the world can actually have a bad idea? No, no, no – we don’t allow that here.  There is no such thing as a bad idea!

Bullshit.  One of the problems with marketing and one of the reasons why agencies have allowed themselves to become commodities is because they continue to buy into this PC fantasy that there is no such a thing as a bad idea, because heaven forbid we hurt anybody’s feelings.  But the reality is that yes, there are bad ideas – plenty of them:

• Re-branding Tropicana OJ earlier this year – Peter Arnell thought it was time to take the image of the orange with the straw in it off the packaging, and build the brand around a very generic look and feel. Inside of two months, Tropicana’s sales dropped about 20%. Bad idea.
• Anyone remember mLife, from AT&T? They spent tens of millions trying to push that term into our vernacular, and failed. Bad idea.
• A few years ago, some cartoon decided to promote itself by placing Lite Brites with wires sticking out of them near bridges, tunnels and major buildings in and around Boston, causing a panic and shutting down the city. People at the agency were arrested, fines levied and the profile of the cartoon wasn’t raised nearly enough to make up for the damage. Bad idea.
• In 2005, Snapple tried to break the record for the world’s largest ice pop by erecting a 10 ton version in New York City.  In the summer. During a heat wave.  Apparently, nobody told them that ice melts in the heat, and Union Square had to be closed off by fireman after the streets turned into a sticky mess. Do I have to say it?

But creativity is funny that way.  It’s fun, it’s exciting, and everyone wants to be a part of it.  If I mention to people in mixed company that I’m working on the marketing for a certain brand, inevitably there will be one or two people that say, “hey, I’ve got a great idea for a commercial for them.” Like it’s just that easy. No knowledge of their audience, budgets, goals – as though anybody could be a creative director. Somehow, you don’t get a lot of people picking up a baseball mitt and thinking they could play shortstop for the Yankees.  And you don’t see a lot of people rushing to the accountant’s office to try and help them balance the ledger.  But when it comes to creative, everyone thinks they’re qualified for the job.

As long as we continue to promote the concept that everyone is creative, and that there are no bad idea, we’ll continue to devalue what true creatives bring to the table.  Creativity isn’t just about coming up with ideas, it’s also about understanding how those ideas can be executed, whether they have legs and can be sustainable over a period of time, who the intended audience is (not just the end user, but also the individuals that will sign off on it), how it should be positioned, and how it relates to the overall brand.

Real creativity – the kind that is actually worth paying a salary for, is rare. Experience is wonderful, but given the option, I’ll take the truly creative candidate any day.