Do you care?

I remember one time, in my first incarnation as a Creative Director, when I was extremely upset about some client changes to a multi-regional TV spot for a major QSR (fast food) brand.  In the moment, I just couldn't see how the client could have the perspective she did -- all I could see was a perfectly good spot being watered down to the point that it wasn't really a perfectly good spot anymore.  It had become just a spot.  Nothing remarkable in either its horrible-ness or its greatness.  In my mind, the worst kind.

One of the partners of the agency, the lead Management Supervisor on the account, pulled me aside.  He was about 15 years my senior, and I suppose, due to our respective functions in the world of advertising, we didn't always see eye to eye.  He could see how upset I was.  He put his arm around my shoulder (probably not acceptable in a 21st century agency, but whatever), and just when I was expecting him to tell me to do whatever it takes to make this client happy, he simply said, "Relax.  It's just a f***ing hamburger."

Now, there are a lot of creatives, then and now, who'll think I'm a pariah for this, but you know, I know he was right.  I could have fought to the death for the spot as it stood, and I would have been the casualty.  As it happened, I made the changes, then made the most of the changes, and the result was a spot that made money for the client and the agency, and sold a bunch of f***ing hamburgers.

I could have fought for the vision -- losing battle or not -- but the truth is, it was my vision, not the client's vision.  And in that particular case, the client's vision mattered more.  That's not always the case, of course, as I went on to prove that year with quite a few other hard-fought spots for other clients that won awards and sold plenty of product.  But this time, what mattered was that the client got the spot she wanted.

Did I care about the work?  Absolutely.  But what I cared about was a bigger picture of the work.  I cared about the agency's ongoing relationship with the client, and understood that this particular spot was but one piece of that relationship.  Now, that's not to say that giving in on creative principles is always the correct way to foster a good relationship.  In fact, it's almost always not the way to do it.  In this case, though, it was.  And I cared enough about the ongoing work to know it was time to change the piece of work at hand.

Creatives don't like it when people change their work.  That's always been the case.  After all, we're hired to think the stuff up, and we're good at it.  We're better at it, rather. We have the books and reels to prove it. 

But very often, caring about the work gets confused in the creative mind with caring about self.  Sometimes, somebody other than a creative has a voice that matters.  Sometimes, that voice matters more than the creative's voice, or the particular creative vision.  And -- here's the hard part -- sometimes, that voice helps create a piece of advertising that's better in the end.

The thing about the web is that the voice that matters tends not to be the voice of the client, or of the account supervisor, or even, anymore, of the creative director.  The voice that matters is the voice of the user.  And they're not shy about speaking up, by clicking, opting in, buying, downloading, commenting -- or, by actively doing not a single one of those things.

Caring about the user is caring about the work.  Creative virtuosity doesn't exist just because you say so anymore.  It exists when people say they like what you did by interacting with it.

Creating is harder than it used to be.  The challenge is still to make the greatest piece of work ever concepted by someone in an advertising agency. Succeed, and you will have pleased the user.  But if you don't please the user, you won't succeed. Pleasing the user -- and seeing the evidence -- is part and parcel of the definition of great work now.  So, if you really care about the work -- really care -- then you must care about how the user experiences it.  It's not a compromise.  It's part of making the work better.

Technorati Tags:
Advertising  Marketing   Creative   Interactive   Online Marketing Design  Digital Design Blattner Brunner  Ernie Mosteller  BB Digital 

del.icio.us this      

Comments

[michaelwill]

this is some quality insight. i appreciate you posting this! keep up the good stuff.