Letter from NY: Ode to joy

Letter from NY, a MarkLives column, by Matthew Bull, The Bull-White House, New York. I recently attended the One Show Hall of Fame ceremony in New York.  John Webster, Steve Hayden, Jim Riswold, Martin Puris and the ace educator Richard Wilde were elected into it.  It was a night I found to be humbling, motivating and meaningful.  I sat alongside the late John Webster’s children as well as the wonderful Dave Trott and the One Show chairman Kevin Roddy.  As we sat in the impressive Gotham Hall, we wondered aloud just how much the business has changed since the days when the five above mentioned luminaries began their careers.

Quite simply, it’s got complicated.  On every level.  On the pure running-an-agency level, most big agencies now no longer have to worry about making a buck, they also have to make a buck for guys who have invested in them to make a buck.  So they have to make two bucks.  Then there’s research, a process in which you are presumed guilty and have to prove your innocence.  And, finally, now you don’t simply have to execute your wonderful idea in tv, print and radio, we have to do bloody digital as well.  And we know digital isn’t just one thing, it’s a myriad of things all loosely defined by the word digital. Complicated right?

Which inevitably leads to less joy – ask anyone in a “complicated” relationship.

What the five celebrated men did though, throughout their careers, was to find that joy in their work.  They pushed themselves into creating stuff that others either didn’t think about, or didn’t think was possible.  I always love it when I present work to clients and they say to me:  “Well, this is a stretch”.  That’s right, that’s exactly what it is, it’s exactly what it’s suppose to be.  Because if we are to create something, if we are to change the status quo, if we are to be elected into Halls of Fame, that’s what we have to do – stretch ourselves.

Too often of late I have found myself bending not stretching.  Ideas that are intellectually compelling, that make sense, but are emotionally barren, that don’t stretch people’s imaginations nor feelings.  And that means I’ve been creating bad advertising.  Because we all know that emotion is more powerful than logic.  Why else would we have believed Lance Armstrong all these years?

So last night I recommitted myself.  I promised myself that I would once again stretch rather than bend, that I would once again seek joy in the excellence of my work, not in the completion of it.  That’s not complicated is it?

I am wise enough to know now that I won’t always find that joy.  Steve Hayden himself said that, on reflection, 99% of his work was “utter rubbish”.   There are, have always been, obstacles in the way of excellence.  Finding the skill, resilience and determination to overcome those obstacles is what separates those in the Hall of Joy, from those in hell.

– Matthew Bull is a Partner at The Bull-White House in New York. Before that he served as Chief Creative Officer/Chairman of Lowe & Partners/Lowe Bull and Chief Creative Officer at Lowe Worldwide. Letter from New York is a regular column on MarkLives.

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