Innovation by SIT

What would you say is the single most important characteristic of an advertising person? Or advertising agency? Or advertising campaign? Most people would answer all these questions with the same, single word answer: CREATIVITY.

There is no denying that creativity is important in advertising. It is considered so important that one of the major departments within an advertising agency is named after it. But is it really THAT important? Or could it be that we have taken the reverence of creativity one step too far?

To address this question properly we first need to discuss the roles of creativity in advertising, and as Goose (Anthony Edwards) says in the movie Top Gun – “the list is long and distinguished”:

1. Much like artists, and particularly poets, advertising professionals try to communicate a lot of information in a concise, and preferably aesthetic, manner. Creativity is very useful for dealing with this challenging task.

2. In a marketplace that is rapidly becoming more and more crowded – advertisers need their campaigns to differentiate their brand from the multitudes of competitors out there. Creativity is certainly a useful tool for developing such campaigns.

3. With the decline in consumers’ attention span for everything – including advertising –agencies strive to find more and more engaging ways to grab & maintain the attention of their audience. Here, again, creativity has an important major role.

The list goes on and on, but you get the picture… Creativity has become such a dominant factor for a very good reason. So can there really be such a thing as an overdose? The answer has to do with a paradigmatic shift in the status of creativity – a change in the way it is used and perceived by both advertising professionals and their clients.

If we review the  list describing the roles of creativity in advertising we will find words like “useful”, “tool” and “role”. These words indicate a functional benefit – a way to achieve something, or get somewhere. Indeed, creativity is a tool – one of the most effective and important tools in the advertising toolbox. It used to be a means to an end… but not anymore.
Over time we have gradually moved from “creatively developing effective campaigns” to “effectively developing creative campaigns.” Creativity has made a full transition - from a means to an end, to an end in its own right. And that transition – ladies and gentlemen of the jury – is where the problem begins.

It becomes a problem when advertising professionals “forget” that they are hired to increase the sales of the product and not to come up with the most creative campaign for the brand.

It becomes a problem when advertisers reject effective campaigns, which would perfectly execute the marketing strategies they themselves have developed, simply because “they are not creative enough.”

It becomes a problem when customers are excited about a particularly beautiful, funny or moving TV ad, but cannot recall if it was for Heineken or Carlsberg the next morning, not to mention the next time they are at the store.

Let’s take a step back from advertising and explore the role of creativity for other professionals. The adjective “creative” or the noun “creativity” appears in many other industries. A simple Google search for the words “creative accountants” will yield over 2 million results. “Creative lawyer” yields around 10 million results. “Creative technology” will get you over 28 million results. And “creative education” tops the chart with over 55 million results. Many professionals in a variety of other industries also enjoy the soaring stocks of creativity. But you can hardly imagine the clients of a lawyer rejecting an effective line of defense on the grounds of it “not being creative enough.” Similarly, very few managers will criticize their accountant for presenting monetary plans that do not adhere to some vague creativity level that they had expected.
In other words – while the importance of creativity is increasing in many other industries – it is still considered a tool for achieving bottom line goals. In the words of Jerry McGwire (Tom Cruise), professionals in these industries are still expected to “show me the money” rather than “show me how creative you are.”

So how come creativity has conquered such a unique status in the advertising industry? At least part of the answer has to do with the intensity & frequency of using creativity within this specific industry – even when you compare it to other, creative-rich, industries.

Think for a minute about high-end Manhattan restaurants. There is no doubt that a creative menu is vital valuable for such an establishment. But the creative courses in such a menu need to be developed once. After that – the restaurant is measured for the exact repetitive execution of each course. There is little creativity involved in this phase. It necessitates very different qualities and characteristics than the ones needed for the development phase .

Now think of successful architect agencies. Many of these have relatively routine projects that necessitate only a moderate degree of creativity. But even in those that deal with more challenging or complex projects – the creative phases are usually limited to the development of the general concept and to the translations of that concept into preliminary designs. Once these phases are over, the rest of the work must be meticulous, precise, practical and aesthetic – but not necessarily creative.

The fact of the matter is that for many professionals creativity plays a major role in only a limited portion of their practice. In other words, while creativity may be crucial in the initial phases of a given endeavor, the following phases usually involve activities that necessitate very different cognitive capabilities.

In the advertising industry the situation is almost reverse. The initial phases of developing a campaign are analytical, systematic and organized. These phases take into account different types of data, strategic or tactical goals, demographics, client preferences and several other factors. It is only after these phases, when it is time for the ‘real work’, that the full-blown creative process begins. Every step of the way (e.g. copy, art, production and media) involves a high level of creativity. In the simplest term - in the advertising industry creativity does not GUIDE the execution. It IS the execution.

This unique dependency of the advertising industry on creativity can be viewed as mitigating circumstances for the confusion around its status. It makes this confusion understandable, but it does not make it OK. It is the responsibility of advertising professionals, and more so, of brand managers and marketing managers, to remember what advertising is meant to do. It is not meant to make us laugh, or to make us cry. It is not meant to move us or excite us. It CAN do all of these things – if, and only if – it serves the real purposes as defined by the customer (e.g. increased awareness, sales, brand recognition etc.). It is perfectly acceptable if sometimes we try to achieve these goals and fail. It is a whole different matter if, for the sake of creativity, we fail to even try.

Amit Mayer is a Senior SIT Facilitator, and a creative & didactic manager at Medidactic Ltd.

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If you liked this post, you might also want to read Roni’s post on The Importance of Being Innovative