Creativity in crisis.

It’s always seemed totally odd how creativity needs to be defended. It's like needing to defend exercise or sleep. But creativity will always need its true supporters because whether you’re buying creativity, selling it or making it, it’s damn hard. I used to think there is a mission to defend creativity that has an end in sight. But you never finish defending creativity, you can only stop. It’s much, much easier to simply not rely on creativity and rather pin hopes on data or targeting or search or media spend. Not buying creativity is safer, more convenient, less of a pain and cannot ever cause offence or, god forbid, get cancelled.

The good thing about hard things is that because it’s hard so not everyone does it and that right there is the golden opportunity of creativity. Because only a few truly embrace it, creativity is the cause and the effect of producing standout work, standout brands and with that, the financial rewards of emotional brand building. And like training for the Comrades or renovating your home or most other hard things that are good, creativity is worth it. I wish this point doesn’t need to be made – creativity is worth it – but considering 91% of all advertising in the market is ignored, clearly it does.

Because currently, creativity is in crisis.?

Whether you look at music, film, or advertising, we are at the lowest point of creativity in the last 60 years. It seems the more we know and understand its power, the less we trust it. I think it does have something to do with trying to replicate it but trying to replicate creativity and make it a sure thing (with process or technology or AI) is exactly how originality dies. Originality has been replaced by data, formula and attempts at certainty. In 2022, the 10 highest grossing films in the world included 8 franchise sequels and a Batman rehash. Franchises and remakes dominate Hollywood’s investment and tech companies, not creative companies, rule the ad industry. All promising a sure thing. Ad fraud is currently cashing in on the desire for digital certainty and marketers continue to invest and report on short-term, efficient vanity metrics instead of long-term brand and business effectiveness. We’re seeing a rise of fake ads in the majority at creative award shows because, let’s be honest, most of the real work wouldn’t stand a chance.

Why is this happening?

?Creativity is one of those subjects in life that are gifts. As soon as you believe you understand it, you discover a whole new realm. You can never get close enough to be an expert on creativity and when you understand this, the relationship with creativity is more powerful. I consider myself a lifelong student. If, as an agency owner, I need to develop and sell creativity, I realise I need to understand it as much as possible. And, more recently, I have tried to understand what’s holding creativity back.

I continue to hunt for answers to this question. I asked the experts on LinkedIn and, as expected, marketers blamed agencies and agencies blamed clients. That’s a lazy argument and for the most part, I have avoided taking sides here because creativity needs to serve everyone if we’re all to win - the only thing great work has in common is client sign off so we are on the same team here. This journey led me to read Orlando Wood’s book Lemon , Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act and Paul Feldwick’s Anatomy of Humbug and I have joyfully consumed hours of content from Dave Dye, Vikki Ross, Adam Morgan, John Evans, Giles Edwards, and Dave Trott. I am currently midway through John Hegarty's excellent course - the Business of Creativity .

So, your honour, this is my case. Here are what I believe to be the major 8 factors holding creativity back for brands in 2024 and some thoughts about what to do about it.

1.??? We have forgotten how to play.

The fantastic creative work of the 90s and 2000s was created by a generation who grew up without the internet. If they were bored, they played. Their favourite toy was imagination. The generation that grew up after the 80s do not know how to play because they never had to, it became too easy. Netflix, YouTube, social media, PlayStation, cable television, mobile phones. No one needs to know how to be bored anymore and I see it with my kids (which I am desperately trying to change). If we don’t know how to be bored and how to play, you can't use your imagination to solve a problem which is pretty much exactly how creativity works.?

2.??? The world has become too left-brain dominant.

A lot of Orlando Wood’s book is based on this theory (it’s excellent, please read it) which in turn is based on Iain McGilchrist’s work from The Divided Brain. “We are all behaving like people have right hemisphere damage” Iain said. The left brain is rational, narrow focussed, literal, factual and explicit while craving rhythm and repeatability. The right brain is broad, empathetic, implicit, metaphorical and craves relationships, connections and whole context. The left brain drives us to creating rational advertising, looking for sure things (like digital metrics) and short-termism.

3.??? The hard work has been done, we aren’t using it.

Speaking of short-termism, there are not enough marketers using the teachings of Les Binet and Peter Field’s The Long and the Short of it . Brands undeniably need a balance of both long-term brand building from emotional, creative work (the right brain) and short-term performance, bottom of the funnel conversion work. You can’t have one without the other. I believe selling ideas into an organisation (from the marketing team to the exco/board/CFO etc) is incredibly tough and I empathise but the lessons from this book should give everyone the data they need to make that happen.

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4.??? Too many options and not enough trust.

Again, I am hesitant to pick a side here so I will just say everyone is guilty. Clients want choice and agencies present way too many creative/campaign options to cover all bases and that’s down to a lack of trust. A doctor doesn’t give you options on your diagnosis, “I think you could have flu, a post nasal drip or sinusitis, either of them could work but my favourite is the post nasal”. If you fully trust an expert, you are comfortable to receive a single solution. We have all lost trust in the one idea, the right idea. If marketers trust the people in their agency (and please if you don’t, it’s time for a new agency) then by the time the agency presents an idea, know they have worked through hundreds. So, if this is the one they believe is right for you, and you trust them, there is no need to see further options. Once 3 options arrive at a committee of decision makers, the middle idea will probably get picked, and the middle idea is not the most creative idea.

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5.??? The execution gap.

The idea that gets bought should eventually look nothing like its earlier self by the time it’s executed. There is too big a gap from idea to execution and there are too many people that will try kill, fix, change or, worse of all, improve an idea. There are also new learnings, new discoveries, new people that can add to the idea to make the execution the best it can be. Embrace the execution gap, don’t try control it but understand the dangers that lie within and the opportunities. Ideas can and need to evolve, grow, change direction and have time to flourish. If that wasn’t true, we wouldn’t have standout directors like Greta Gerwig, Guy Ritchie or Jonathan Glazer who are able to take ideas and make them better.

6.??? The broken agency model.

The agency model has been broken for some time now. I am biased but I think this is especially true for networked agencies. This is how the lifecycle of an agency generally goes: An independent agency starts out and they have a one master – the work for their clients. Then the agency becomes famous and inevitably they are bought out by a holding company. And now the agency has 2 masters. The first master is the new, bigger client (*procurement department has entered the chat*) and their need for efficiency, short-term ROI, cost cutting and productivity. The second master is the holding company who demands staff-cost ratios, margin, profit performance and productivity. The net result is productivity; productivity which is created through a repeatable business model and process. Process is very good for a manufacturing business but it’s not very good for creativity. How can we have specialists or be creative when agencies are referenced with terms like resource allocation, artificial intelligence and margin.

In our agency, Halo, we moved away from retainer clients toward retained clients and we scrapped timesheets. We quote on outputs and outcomes not hours because we believe our clients should pay for the quality of the idea not the time it took to come up with it.

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7.??? Fear.

Again, this is not a dig at clients, I have seen plenty ideas die inside agencies because of fear but fear exists all around. I remember when brands would flight ads on a Friday when the ASA (The?Advertising?Standards Authority of South Africa, now the ARB) closed for the weekend, and the Authority could only get to pulling the work by Monday. Nowadays, an ad never gets that far. This is by no means the benchmark of creativity, but I wonder (I doubt they’ll tell me if I even asked) when last the ASA/ARB pulled an advert for being too risqué.

Everyone is petrified of getting cancelled, especially a brand owner. My argument against that though is brands don’t get cancelled for being brave, they’re cancelled for being inauthentic. Knowing your brands’ true self (read: positioning) allows you to express it in creative ways your audience admires. The work Benetton does (and gets away with) would never work for Vodacom. We also won’t ever get over this fear by telling everyone to be brave. We will get over the fear through a deeper understanding of the benefits of more emotional creative work and an understanding of the creative process with stronger positionings.

8.??? The audience.?

This isn’t reference to a brand’s external audience. I am talking about the internal audience who needs to buy or sign off creative ideas. I have heard that strategists are better at selling creative work than creatives. I think this may be true in parts because of framing. Strategists know how to frame creativity for the correct audience in terms of business objectives, brand objectives, and desired outcomes. Creative people will always struggle to sell an idea to finance people; they don’t speak the same language.?

The same issue arises when an idea goes through 5 levels of approvals with a different person presenting their own interpretation of the idea at each stage. A new messenger won’t have the same incentive to defend an idea that the originator may have. This might sound frank but it is best to create the shortest and clearest route between the idea originators and the final decision makers and then remove everyone else. Governments (and not very good ones) are the results of democracy, creativity isn’t.

Ideas are vulnerable.?

As I said upfront, I am a lifelong student and will most likely find 10 new theories on this subject soon. He doesn’t know this, but Ahmed Tilly is one of my teachers (whether he likes it or not ??). I had the pleasure of discussing the above over lunch with him recently. He said something that has stuck, “it takes just millimetres”. If you move an idea just millimetres from its best course, the net result could easily be miles away from making any creative impact. That’s how vulnerable ideas are and how hard it is for creativity to thrive.

In a world of hyper-efficiency, technology and certainty, chasing the sure thing with creativity is the sure-fire way to make sure it isn’t creative. Many forces exist against creativity as is. Creativity doesn’t happen on its own; it’s the net result of an idea that has survived and thrived and an entire team of likeminded individuals need to have the same creative ambition to see that happen. This is one of the many reasons why agency/client relationships are so important. It takes an immense amount of experience, confidence, taste, foresight, imagination, hard work, grit, conviction and perseverance to come up with an idea and see it into the world. And if that wasn’t enough, as Simon Vicars rightly says, creatives also need psychotic levels of optimism and persistence.

It's worth repeating. Making something creative, buying something creative or selling something creative is not easy. But it is worth it. And the good thing about hard things is not everyone will do it and that’s exactly why when done properly, creativity stands out and works.

This article first appeared in @marklives