Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture
One thing I love is working with creatives who – during a review – looks at the nuance of the idea, not just the excitement of it.
I don’t mean getting lost in the details … I mean understanding what the actual idea is behind the thought and seeing how it all works together.
Of course, knowing when to do this is important.
Too early and it kills the creative journey of exploration.
Too late and it just fucks and undermines everyone involved.
But done properly doesn’t just mean you gain clarity on what the actual idea is … but it highlights the nuances make the idea work so it can be pushed and elevated in ways that allow it to be consistent without ever being boring.
To be honest, it shocks me how little this stuff is talked about …
For all the talk of ‘brand’, it’s amazing how many people equate that to simply repeating a tagline a colour or a set of ‘brand assets’ without realizing the work they’re producing is slowly but surely moving further and further away from the premise of what the creative idea was built on or what the brand stands for.
What really brought this home was a post by the brilliant Trevor Beattie.
For those who don’t know who Trevor is, please go learn your creative history.
For those who do, you’ll appreciate why this is so good.
How good is that?
I particularly love how concise and articulate Trevor is in identifying the heart of the Specsavers idea.
“The comedic potential of not seeing clearly enough”
Clear. Definitive. Focused.
Opening creative possibilities without falling into creative ambiguities.
And then there’s the fact it’s delivered with such brevity.
No rambling. No ambiguity. A demonstration of someone who can see past the flash and see the core. Affording them the ability to give proper feedback … feedback that changes how people see the work and how they can improve it.
Simple. Valuable. Powerful.
Which – based on a lot of the work I see out there in the world – seems to be a dying art … lost to a sea of concepts without consideration or pithy headlines over random images. Or – as Trevor’s feedback also highlights – people interpreting ideas without ever really understanding them or giving them proper consideration so they end up dumbing it down and taking it to somewhere else. And while Trevor politely suggests that in the case of Specsavers, its a strategic pivot [laughing at stupid people] it’s probably more likely laziness, convenience and a lack of craft.
When we’re good our industry is a total fucking force … an infectious, impossible-to-ignore, emotion pleasure machine … but when we’re bad, we’re cheap wallpaper.
But while we have to take a lot of the blame, it’s not entirely our fault.
A lot of clients need to take responsibility for their contribution to this situation.
A situation that undermines their potential with all their mandates and demands.
Demanding simplistic and tactical than distinctive and definitive and caring more about what is said rather than what their audience will embrace and connect to.
If we think craft is dying in our industry, so is the understanding of what it means.
Too many dismiss it as time consuming or expensive.
An outdated concept from a time where advertising was a broadcast only medium.
But those people are wrong.
Because craft isn’t limited to execution, but in the nuance.