by Jerry Mpufane (@JerryMpufane) The face of the advertising industry is its creativity. Our ability to create, however, goes beyond the work. It is important to remember that creativity is defined by more than just the work we produce.
The advertising-agency business is filled with countless examples of agencies that have their foundations in having done the unconventional. Those agencies started with the mission to hire a special kind of talent, working for clients who wanted extraordinary work, produced the “I wish I did that’-type campaigns, gained recognition and fame, and made money.
The founders of these agencies have one regret only, and that is allowing the conventional to take over. And the conventional takes over quickly!
They regret having allowed their innovative shops to become stock-standard businesses. They rue the day they allowed many other reasons, except for creativity, to define their choices about the future.
Creativity is the non-negotiable
When it comes to advertising agency success, creativity is not the icing on the cake; it is the cake.
That virtuous circle involving talent, client, idea, recognition and profit requires that we constantly revisit our raison d’etre. Creativity is, after all, the reason our customers come to us.
Agency leaders are required to always remind themselves that creativity affects the manner in which they source insight and that creativity inspires the thinking process, as well as guiding campaign design all the way to production.
Agency leaders should perhaps begin by always re-evaluating success based upon the very reasons that brought all of us together in the first place:
- Do we have talented people who are brave — who constantly challenge all the rules?
- Do we partner clients who genuinely require fresh and new approaches to solving business problems?
- Are our ideas always truly unique and new?
- Do our peers recognise and reward real work on real clients?
- Is money the no.1 motive or part reward for success?
The ad industry will succeed when agency leaders have the courage to confront all of these questions. Beyond interrogating the questions, we must be bold and deliberate about doing something about the answers that are anything less than true.
If one looks around, it is very clear that the people who get real attention are doing so because they are setting some kind of new agenda. That is what creativity is all about. Fostering an environment that fosters a permanent state of creativity is hard work, but it is doable.
Let’s take some time and compare notes on one of the key ingredients to achieving success, focusing this time on talent.
The right environment for great talent
The ad industry’s goal, to remain at the cutting-edge of creativity, can only be achieved when we create the right environmental conditions for our most precious asset. Talented people want the opportunity to set the agenda, and creative industries such as ours are lucky to be employers of first choice for these people.
Here are some thoughts, practised to varying degrees by very successful organisations, which I hope will create interesting conversation at your next think-tank:
- Flexible work arrangements, particularly for but not limited to strategy and creative talent, allow teams to focus on quality outcomes, as opposed to clock-watching. Discipline is key, however; we cannot sacrifice the opportunity for innovative thinking on the basis of the clock.
- Establishing project teams for very specialised tasks without enforcing formal employment. This approach helps to free up talent to pursue projects that match their passion points, and leads to better outcomes.
- Offering a guaranteed and formalised inspiration-time away from work for the talent pool. This can take many forms, from a week attending an ideas and innovation festival to a month working on a brief in an agency office in the Far East.
- Implementing fixed-term exposure to a client portfolio, thus providing an opportunity for diversity and variety. Today’s economy requires a skills set that has both breadth and depth. This will also help manage some softer dynamics, eg preventing a likely burnout from working on very intensive and pressured account portfolios.
- Tapping into people’s wider purpose — what they define for themselves to be of service to society. Agencies must support their people’s passions and make this a part of the broader community programme. This way no one needs to be coerced into giving some of their time for charitable causes. And last but not least,
- Creating opportunity for ownership in order to link personal goals to the business goals. In an environment where everyone shares in the success of the business, collaboration with one another and the clients comes naturally.
Defeat of habit
Creativity is the defeat of habit. One never achieves creativity by staying in the same space.
Seeking to find the new, originality and constant change may well be the lost ingredient to the success we so cherish.
Jerry Mpufane has executive experience in both ad agency and client organisations. He’s only got one goal in life, which is to be an inspiring leader. Jerry is currently group MD, Gauteng of M&C Saatchi Abel. His monthly column on MarkLives, “The Business of Business”, focuses on what it takes to run a great AND sustainable ad agency.
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