Over the years, countless American jobs have been eliminated or dramatically altered due to automation. In an economy that prizes growth and efficiency above all else, this is not surprising.
What’s surprising is that I’ve heard people say that our jobs as creatives could never be turned over to robots or automated in any way.
You can’t write a program to deliver creativity, they say.
Oh really?
I’m pretty sure that program already exists and it’s called the Internet. You know, that place where creatives can visit getty images, archive, youtube and countless other …

Advertising is a team sport.
A relay race is a good metaphor.
When it works well, clients run the first leg then hand the baton to the account guys. The account guys race along and hand it to the strategy guys, who, in turn, deliver it to the creatives, whose job it is to get it across the finish line.
Sure, sometimes the baton gets dropped.
Sometimes a runner falls.
And sometimes everything goes right and you still get beaten.
That’s the business.
But there is one mistake that is really unforgivable: when one discipline doesn’t hand …

That’s all you need to come up with something great. 11 minutes and you could fuck it all up. 10 minutes and only 10 minutes. Great work is too often killed by spending or wasting too much time over thinking or over working. You can’t over think in 10 minutes. You might feel guilty for not working long enough. Fuck guilt. 10 minutes starting now. Don’t turn on your computer. Don’t get a cup of coffee. Don’t set up a meeting. Don’t make a big deal of it. Wake up. …

I’ve spent a little bit of time working on the client side of the business. Not much, but just enough to give me a little perspective.

It’s all about the money.
This is not a judgment. It is simply a statement of fact. You work for a large corporation, chances are you get a large bonus when you hit your numbers. Not an ad agency sized bonus, but serious money.
No wonder clients are so nervous about some of the work we present. There is no incentive to take a big risk, the …

Great ideas come out while I’m watching TV. I guess it’s because I see so many crappy commercials and say. “I can do better.” And, then I think to myself, “Hey, I’m in advertising. I should go ahead and do better.”
Then I apply whatever technique I would recommend to the crappy ad and apply it to my current project and voila (BTW, don’t buy the Voila! frozen dinner from Birdseye)— I’ve got brilliance.
A few agencies ago, I told my Creative Director about how I’m much more awesome when I’m watching …

You get a brief. You work up a few ideas. You get them in a nice place and decide to show your account team.
That’s when you see the look of fear in their eyes.
They’re afraid to show one or more of your ideas because they are anticipating a poor reaction from the client.  Not because the ads are off-strategy. Or off-brand. Or off-anything.
They’re afraid simply because the client has reacted irrationally to work before and they are trying to anticipate what might set them off again.
I get it. Understanding the …

Years ago, one of the principals at a production company told me that as soon as she saw a script coming through the fax machine (I said it was years ago) with either the JWT or Leo Burnett logo at the top of the page, she knew right away that there wouldn’t be enough money in the production budget.
I don’t bring this up to poop on old J. Wally or Leo B., but to make a point.
Your script is being judged before anyone has even read it.
Previously, I wrote about …

We hear all the time how advertising has to be more accountable. We need to ‘mine the data’ and find out how to ‘optimize’ every piece of communication.
Okay.
So explain to me why I’ve pretty much never received any feedback on how a piece of communication that I created performed? Sure, if I harass someone, I may get a cursory “it did great” or “it underperformed”, but why isn’t this information made readily available to the people responsible for creating the work?
Listen, I’m not dying to hear all the nitty-gritty details …

It happened last week.
We were doing a pre-production meeting and one of the clients realized that there was too much information in their new TV spot.
I agreed. Our first script had at least half of the information about their offer.
I opened the computer and rewrote it.
That’s when the coffee lady entered the room.
“Here is our target.” said the client. “show it to her.”
The woman was a bit scared. I would probably be too, if I entered a room with 15 people and somebody called me “target” and then said they …

So I read this article the other day.  It detailed some survey results that speak to a few issues clients have with their current agencies.
Tops on the list? We’re too reactive.
Okay. I can buy that. But I also think that if you took a survey of agencies’ attitudes about their clients, you would find the same complaint near the top of the list.
Which brings us to number two on the list—poor communication.
And therein lies the real problem. We’re not really talking to each other.
I’ve seen it time and time again. …