A while ago I wrote a post titled 'advertising and it's creative teams'. It talked about how the creative department of most 'traditional' ad-agencies have been structured and organized since the fifties and how now there is an emerging trend in shifting that established model. A shift especially seen amongst some, vastly expanding, digital agencies and creative 'hotshops'. Shortly after I noticed some reactions of other 'bloggers' who seemed to be occupied with this issue as well. Mark Tungate, author of the book 'Adland' reacted with some interesting insights on the topic in the comment-section as well DuvalGuillaume's CEO Guillaume Van der Stichelen and DuvalGuillaume's former web strategist who maintains a blog at Pietel.be. Few days later I received a reply from @Janso who asked me to participate the conversation on this topic running at his blog janso.be. Yes, Janso, I know, your utterly right to call me a 'slow fuck'. Your tweet as call for my participation dates from 18.01.2009 and only now I post this ping-back. But hey, I've been having my hands full with a newborn and I've been sweating out a 39.5 degrees fever last week, so please forgive me.
I found the conversation important enough to get back to, even if it has now been 3 weeks since we last posted. First let's analyze the conversation top down and then I'll add what's been tossing my mind about this.
My first post on this topic wasn't intended as a suggestion for the reformation of creative departments in the future. I just find myself cornered, sometimes, in working with a fixed team and nothing but that team. That is team as in 2 other creative thinkers (check last post for insights). To be working as 'a creative' and being bound to planning issues and time-sheets. The out-most reason for the post was the fact that we have a rare structure of working in teams of 3 instead of 2. Lots of people who work at other agencies ask me about it and that spored me to write something about it.
International and network restraints
Pros and cons about working with a team of 3 I thoroughly discussed in the initial writing on this topic but I dropped some info I'd still like to share considering this new post. Namely, you must know, 'international' was absolutely against this reformation. In other words, there was a huge pressure for stopping this 'new model' of working with team of 3 coming BBDO/Proximity supervisors at global levels. It was our current CEO, Gert Pauwels, who led and created this structure within the creative department and he was called to explain why he worked this way. As a matter of fact he was quite enthusiastic about this but needless to say he wasn't quite encouraged to continue his act. He received an e-mail from the some guys up the ladder (they'll probably fire me for write this but anyway, nobody should shoot the pianist). At that time (some 16 months ago or so) he was head of the creative department (guiding 6 creative directors, 7 creative concept teams consisting of 3 creatives, about 10 front-end designers and a graphic design studio of 12), member of the board and creative partner (meaning he is one of 8 stockholders of the company). For the record: Gert also runs a Cuban bar (Barpopular in Mechelen, Antwerp) and a company with his brother. That company, named Boardcast, rents remote controlled digital posters, but this post isn't about Gert at all so let's scroll back to the subject.
All balls on the table
Anyway, the e-mail he received shortly after he reformed the structure of this creative department wasn't all too long: "Stop teams of 3, now". Pretty obvious what there is to do then, right. He decided to keep the setup of 3 persons a team and had a hard time convincing his superiors that this setup was indispensable for the success of the merger at that time. They bought it, luckily. It is only the question now if we will continue to work this way or not. But at this time there is no reason why we should not. If this model wouldn't have paid our check there would be no way we could have continued working like this last 2 years. By the way the revenue of our company didn't drop after the merger occurred and the model of working in teams of 3 ways set into play. Of course you understand that 'international' was against this with a very reasonable explanation: the money. Briefing a team of 3 people in stead of 2 tremendously increases the hourly cost for your clients, and company. The so called profitability would be at stake here. And as you probably know profitability is of a much bigger importance to stockholders than the level of creative output. There are pros and cons to this way of working, naturally. Working with 3 on one briefing gives you extra firepower to take on bigger briefs in demand of delivering a through the line campaign on shorter notice, this way you can deliver faster and clients can enjoy a fast-food service and still be served a quality meal. There's lots and lots of even more pros and cons to light up on this but I'm not planning to write a book so on to the next topic in this conversation.
The 'stuckture' of departments
I've been an opponent of departments my entire life. Maybe more correct to say, an opponent of structure 'an sich' but I understand that people want, and need, some kind of frame to keep chaos from raving. Things must get done, money must be made, what's new. But yes, departments. Sometimes I secretly dream about restructuring the flow of the company I work for. And not only the current company I work with. But then again every model has it's flaws. Anyhow I would like to share my thoughts on the current way we work and the utopia I have thought of from time to time later on in this post.
A dogma called creativity
Next I am noticing your horror for the word creativity. What is creativity? Who is creative? Hmmmn, this is indeed a very subjective topic within this current conversation and I do not wish to spend to much time tossing my mind about this, I can only say this: everyone can, and is creative, yes no doubt. A good idea can come from anybody within the organization. The difference is that not everybody knows how purify an idea and extract the right ingredients from it to make a delicious meal. Moreover, it's given only the happy few that can make it their job, and do a good job. To me, a creative contribution, one with value can be every-ones add. But then again, it is not only the idea that can be accounted for 'creativity' or being creative. On the other hand, having met this situation myself many times now, I do think it is important to be able to claim the idea if it was yours. Award-shows are a way to measure whether you are doing a good job. Since thinking, and it's product: the idea, are so hard to grasp and evaluate sometimes. It is important to be able to appoint who's idea it was because that person gave birth to something that happened, something that gave a lot of other people some recognition as well. I see it as a baby, of which the originator of the idea is the father (or mother). It might as well be that the teacher and the child's friends have influenced it more than the parent but still it remains the child of it's parent. The teacher and friend will be mentioned and thanked whenever the child achieves greatness in it's life but the parent will remain more important to the child in the end. The parent will probably receive more recognition in being thanked, for without the parent there was no child. Of course sometimes an idea evolves, that's when it gets hard to define who's idea it was...
Direct feedback to the first comment
I must admit to agree with Pietel, I kinda missed out on your point writing about the topic in the post but regarding the fact that you were on Sunday mode I don't blame you. As matter of fact I wouldn't have blamed you either way though.
Direct feedback to the second comment
Of course I have nothing to add to what Guillaume said on the topic of creativity. To me he is one of the Godfathers of creativity, in Belgium that is. Not that I claim that he's the most creative person in the Belgian advertising industry, yet I'm not saying he's not but that is not what I intend to point at glorifying him with this mafia title. He was the first, of course together with André no doubt, to not only focus on creativity within the organization but to build a new one entirely incorporating this creativity as a center-point. And of course this is (very) old news Mr.Wulleman but, in my opinion, it has never been about creativity but always about relationships. Relationships are the real center-point of the theater. Communicating with a constantly renewing spirit fueled with innovation and creativity is what builds a lasting relationship. If I bring my wife red roses every Wednesday and fuck her doggy style once a week that relationship is bound to crash anywhere soon. Bringing her different things on different days, making love in different ways in different places is still communicating the same boring message of "I love you and want to forever hold you" but I estimate my chances a lot higher in establishing that long-term relationship doing the latter. And that's exactly what Guillaume has showed many of us. Let God thank him for this. For now we are all rallying that same believe.
The prize of growing fast, the price of being big
I had breakfast with Guillaume last week. And of the many things he said there's at least one thing I'd like to talk about in his post. We briefly talked about the way the structures are now tighter then in the past, especially in his company were growth tends to parch creativity and freedom. The bigger the company gets the more people get involved in managing the company, thus the more people have to share the money, thus the more importantly the aspect of profitability becomes. Of course the growth of the head-count mustn't entirely be devoted to the growing importance of profitability. The sell-out to large networks accounts probably for the significant part of this change in attitude. Yet it is inevitable. Only few agencies of this size have been able to resist being bought by the networks. As a matter of fact I can recall only one: Famous. Or have I missed out on any news? Even they were very close to selling out to DDB. On the other hand why shouldn't they, these larger networks amplify the agency to fish for clients in the ocean rather than to stick to local rivers and lakes. Needless to say this hammers in on the ease of how one is comforted to create. To mark Guillaume words: "the business of advertising used to be simple. The clients had a 100 to spend and the agencies were assigned 15. For that 15 we could spoil the client until he'd be happy. Just do whatever, things that suited his needs, 'basta'. The real quids were coming from the commissions the agencies git out of the major media contracts and as in any business some guys got greedy and gradually the pressure was put on the agencies as larger commissions faded to media-companies and clients became more demanding. And now it's all about the hourly cost of things." The hourly cost of things.
Meet the timesheet
Guillaume: "Can you imagine? I would have never thought someone would be able to 'create' within the boundaries of a day-to-day planning. It's has got even this far, hear me out. I was in the Antwerp offices and I had a wild idea for one of our clients. I stepped up to a designer that was still sitting there and asked him if he'd like to work with me on the visualization of this idea. The bloke simply prompt me: I can't I have be been 'planted'. (I'm sorry 'booked' that is, as in I'm scheduled for the daily planning, planted just sounds so funny and in dutch planted and booked is the same word :)) I was left standing and roughly sketched it out myself." I was folded by laughter hearing this story. It reminded me of my crusade against the schedule I meet daily.
Oldschool spreadsheets and two cups of coffee
We have 2 traffickers who handle and arrange the bookings for the jobs and projects. They assign every project to the assets requested to handle the job. That happens in time-slots on a day to day basis. Starting from were we are now. No fancy project-management tools where bookings are made project based, nope. Just some old-school spreadsheets and two fine ladies filling up the holes to get things covered. There is no way I could possibly oversee who is working on a project that I started nor can I check out on people that run projects coming my way. Just day to day spans of a scattered back-planning that is probably stashed in some accounts pile of papers. No ins or outs of before or after the period of time I handle a specific job or project. But hey, what do I know, maintaining a project-based planning doesn't seem profitable for traffickers so I write down one paragraph on the subject and that's that.
Direct feedback to the fifth comment
Someone aliased as Sideburns questions the use of 'a creative brainstorms'. Probably because they tend to consume a lot of time and they seem to be fun hours to the ones not participating it. A perception most likely initiated by lazy and lame 'creative' people at the agency who get noisy and loud during their brainstorm sessions. There are different ways: a brainstorm session can be held short, powerful and (very) effective but those are mostly very demanding of energy and not always easy to establish because they require a lot of focus from participators. Crucial in a brainstorm is the level of interaction, or communication, contact between the participators. If it is not a small coffee it can be a long one and those are mostly the ones recognized as the ones where 'creatives' are going berserk and waiving away decent authority and respect. Sometimes that works. Pushing the boundaries and boredom. It is a way of looking for a new entrance on the matter confronted with. Often a mind-map is sketched out. A brainstorm is literally piling up or spitting out information and insights in the left (or was it the right) part of the brain so all the sudden some nerves would pop and 'thé' idea can come out. But, dear Sideburns, they are useful you know. They might not bring forth direct results but they lead to it, if properly practiced. Not to mention, a client is willing to pay for that time. The brainstorm exists to dig into the givens. The idea (more often than not) comes unexpected but is fed by the time spend on the matter during the brainstorm. It initiates the activity that established the forthcoming of that one idea that can come out anytime, anywhere, or not.
And then, finally, some direct feedback to the third comment
The current model of our companies, ours and many others (in Belgium at least, I can't include the ones across the borders since I've never visited one), divides the structure in different departments: commercial/accounts, PR/marketing, strategy, creative, production, CRM, finance, management. This is mainly done, I think, because of planning reasons. Larger companies work with a strict work-flow chopping up the flow, from brief to delivery, into manageable pieces. It is also assumed that grouping and teaming up people with comparable profiles takes care of a large portion of knowledge-sharing within the company. While some state that combining different profiles would make a generalist out of everybody. Well well the eternal question surfaces water again: "do you want to be a generalist or a specialist?" — The generalist knows little about a lot, the specialist knows a lot about little — quite a nut-cracking dilemma if you ask me.
Together or not together
Combining profiles works very good for a 'hotshop' of front-end designers for example. If front-end, or flash, designers can work in small teams (4 to 6, maybe 8) they will, over time, be able to easily share their codes with each-other. A lot of 'scripters' tend to have different approaches and ways of writing code. Because of this, it is sometimes hard to collaborate or join projects with each-other. If these designers have different scripting methods or handle and manage assets and 'codewriting' differently they can be literally be inaccessible for others which holds them from bouncing for each-other, when someone is ill, or fired let's say. It also is a barrier for working on larger projects. When they are able to team up regularly they can start sharing their methods and develop a small standard of handling things within the group. This way projects can easily be passed on, or joined. But this is not the case for all profiles in the structure. For creatives the cards are shuffled from different decks. We're not really talking about technical skills here. The strength of a creative department is more based on thinking and visualizing. So directing them into one big pool leads to the dangers of consensus. Maybe even the development of the same style, level, strength, thoughts even. The danger of reaching only mediocrity. Of course within companies that have the nature and philosophy of striving for the best creative work and being better than the others in the same team can lift the level of output tremendously but again this is not always the case and but few companies harvest this positive drive from spontaneous competitiveness.
My creative asset proposition
My utopian proposition for restructuring the assets (*) and abandoning the departments would be to divide the block into smaller formations housing all profiles and working as brand-teams. Could be seen as creating small companies inside a big company but this is not entirely the case. I would try to amplify those micro-structures with plug-and-play Bishops, or wild-card profiles. Let me zoom in on the that. Or may I first point out that this would only be manageable for companies with more than 100 or so assets. A different model would apply for smaller companies, yet I don't think that smaller companies suffer from the weight of departments.
How would it be done?
Well according to the amount of assets in a middle management the blue-chip clients must be selected and appointed. Let's say there are 4 account directors and 4 creative directors. You have a list of clients with 8 significant account accounting for about 80% of the companies income. That sounds pretty sane to me. Ok, checking reality tells me that a lot of companies have a big-fish in their wallets, eating by large the accounts of the next accounts on your account-list but that to me is more off on the edge for a healthy balance amongst the services you provide to each client. If your big-fish chooses open waters you'd have to fire a significant part of your organization so let's stick to purity and take on the fact that the 8 top-clients of the company is accounted for 10% of your income, each. The setup would be this: 4 groups, led by 1 account director and 1 creative director each. Every account director leads 1 (or 2) account manager(s) and 3 (to 4) account executives. Every creative director leads 2 creative teams. That creative team houses 2 copywriters, art directors with different specialties and backgrounds (preferably 1 above, 1 online and 1 below), a graphic designer (with skills reaching from print over simple animation design and web-design) and 2 desktop publishers. Every group enforced by 1 strategic planner, 1 project manager and checked by 1 finance. These brand-teams work on two blue-chip clients supplemented with smaller income clients in order to cover the load. The test would be to equally divide the weight of the clients in terms of income for the company and workload for the group. Key in this micro-company model is the wild-card teams. Wild-card teams are teams that can bounce whenever a group is hot, or when needs suit specialties not included in the group formation. A first series of wild-card teams would be made out of front and back-end developers or code-designers as you please. To comply with the numbers used in this example: 4 teams of code-designers existing of 3 front and 1 back-end developer. They are able to be appointed to a group but individuals can also shift on working on different projects whenever task-force is demanded. A second wild-card team is the current CRM dept. Like the code-designers their best to be directed together. This seems better for remaining the power of sharing specific knowledge, taking care of issues in group and remain the ability to constantly update on new services and they way the processes are handled and monitored. They count 12. R&D (4) is checked in the CRM team here, they brief the strategists casually. Then, not quite a wild-card team, yet in a way acting as one. In fact one I should have started with. The grease to the entire organization: the management team. They supervise the organization and can in my opinion hardly be devoted to one team only. They are, in this model, the only ones that still remain working within the structure of the old departments. They are ideally 4. 1 mainly new biz and public relations, 1 client service, 1 creative partner and 1 strategic partner. We now have an MT of 8 or so but that is of course due to the merger of the former 3 companies. Next to this pool of wild-card teams there are the wild-card individuals that enforce whatever group is in need of an extra pair of hands. These wild-card individuals contain the necessary functions: an HR and marketing manager, an extra PR or new biz manager, 1 or 2 production managers, 2 for handling traffic, 2 IT managers, a network administrator, an event manager maybe 2 to 3, a media (2 would be comfortable if you would think of a planner and a buyer as two different profiles) and art buyer. The completion of the wild-card individualists would be to supplement it with seniors, specialists and experts of the former strategy and creative departments. One senior of each specialty should surely do the job and might even be overkill but could though give extra draft and support to the appearing weaknesses within some groups. Oh and an office manager would come in handy to be complete. By working with devoted groups supported with wild-card teams and individuals the organization, I think, can be freed from the pressure of the frustrating inertia. And simultaneously reposition to be the lean mean fighting machine that serves it's clients well, gives sufficient oxygen for the people on the floor and at the mean time is able to create cutting edge through the line campaigns motored from the digital center-point desired in so many cases.
A round up of the indicated numbers, top down a total organization of 120 sharp.
• the management team: total of 4
• the core groups: 4 (total of 76)
—> 1 group = 1 cd, 1 ad, 2 am, 4 ae, 2 copy, 4 ad, 1 gd, 2 dtp, 1 strat, 1 fin, 1 pm
• the wild-card teams: 2 (total of 28)
—> code-designers: 4 teams » 1 team = 3 front, 1 back
—> CRM dept: total of 12 (4 R&D)
• the wild-card individuals: total of 16
About the size most big single companies are in Belgium. That is; companies inside Belgian networks, working from different locations across the country, not accounted for.
The benefits
Why go through all this trouble of creating micro-companies and restructuring the whole organization?
This thought sprung up out of the idea that departments work limiting to some extend. We needed to get rid of the departments and the current structure with which agencies, or their base, tend to struggle. Working groups with these groups allows people from the organization to work closer with people from different backgrounds and still not be forced into total independence and being left to working alone. The synergy of the groups will, to my opinion, allow people from top down to be involved with projects from start to finish, maybe not entirely but at least more than before. Also, and more importantly, skills of different profiles within that group will be able to but more value to the projects they are involved with. 1) because they will know more about the clients the group maintains and get in on more of the insights of the brief. 2) because they will, on a daily basis, be able to work closer together with people from different backgrounds and thus will be able to fully grasp the outcome and stretch of the project. 3) projects will, hopefully, be taken to the next level because all possible profiles will be involved. They will be creating together and will no longer have to struggle over making interpretations of certain concepts or ideas to work in other media.
I think this model would be able to give creative agencies more possibilities to fully grasp the stretch of the resources provided per project. Offer ideas using the suited, not demanded, media. And most importantly, create concept-frameworks that can act as platforms to role out specific declinations instead of medium-fit solutions that don't fit the bigger picture.
DISCLAIMER
Of course I am very aware of the fact that this idea is kinda 'utopian', and as well as any other structure-model has many flaws. No, I am not a business-consultant nor do I have experience in building, managing, organizing let alone maintaining or running a company. I'm just writing down my vision and ideas to start a conversation with people who do know about these things. Also writing about eases the way thoughts evolve and are handled inside my head. I appreciate you reading or scrolling this far down the post and would like to invite you to re-post or comment on this topic if you feel a need to correct or complete my writing. If you sincerely think what I wrote is complete crap, bullocks, bullshit please keep your guts and don't comment anonymously I'm open to take on the beating and learn something.
Kind regards on this.
(*) People within creative and production departments are referred to as resources or assets. Usually they do not work in a pro-active sense, their job is to execute or act upon what they are briefed, asked or told to do.
Showing posts with label creative management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creative management. Show all posts
15 February 2009
03 February 2009
Art directors are the best kopiriters
I attended a lecture by Peter Ampe during the Copycursus 2008 (*) and enjoyed it so much I thought I'd share it with you.
Art directors are the best kopiriters
Peter, who currently works as a Creative Director @ DuvalGuillaume, told me that a good writer not needs to write without a spelling mistake. Correctors will sharpen the edges, thus the title of this post. Please note that I've expanded the content of the presentation with my own remarks as they ran along.
Peter Ampe, originally uploaded by Pieter Baert.
It's all about ideas.
Peter began his career in 1995. After studying Germanic Philology Peter started working as a journalist. But at the age of 28 his job dissatisfied him and he started looking for a new challenge. He had found that new challenge in advertising. The advertising business proved to be his new mission. The agency he started his career at was Young&Rubicam. He got enrolled there via the Copycursus. What stunned him was the fact that the people of the agency (Y&R) didn't ask him for a diploma when he applied there. All they wanted to know was: "what are your ideas?". Ever since then the most important thing Peter has learned is: "a good idea isn't quite just enough, it has to be well executed as well."
Why was Peter involved with this Copycursus?
Obviously because to him it kickstarted his career and because as he explains: "nowadays — in Belgium — all (most or more and more) creatives teams — traditionally an art director and a copywriter — are compiled out of two art directors." There simply is no training program for copywirters in Belgium. Because of this the Copycursus arose and formed to be a platform from which new adwriting talents step forward every year.
Who needs a copy of that copy?
So, Belgium lacks a decent education in creative writing for the advertising industry. Knowing this makes it not too hard to draw some conclusions. The most compelling conclusion drawn would be that this deficit makes copywriters the most wanted type of creative, in Belgium that is. Period. Peter pointed out that, even as he works with some of the greatest creative teams, he is often presented a strong visual concept lacking the finishing touch of an explanatory line that makes the idea sell. And as David Sable (this years Direct Lions Jury President) states: "if it doesn't sell, it isn't creative. In a year of turmoil - it's time to honour the truly creative." Which is why the Cannes Jury of this years edition has made some alterations to the judging scheme of the Direct Lions. They have improved judging criteria to place more emphasis on results. They've integrated clearer submission questions to help provide more accurate information for the jury. Added digitally focused categories and amended an Integrated campaign category to ‘Best integrated campaign led by direct marketing’.
It is often perceived that, because of our extensive visual and imagery minded ad-culture, the visual is more important than the accompanied line 'which nobody reads anyway'. Also a lot of art directors look only for a pretty ad hoc 'funny' idea. The idea: 'if it's funny it sells' is something a lot of students worship as omniscience when they enter the industry. And that's 'funny' as in 'it looks funny' (the idea is the visual joke). Of course there is some truth in this point of view. Jokes and funny things tend to work virally (people talk about it with other people) and moreover they stick (the product or brand gets remembered » top of mind) but humor is a very personal thing. You can't expect everybody to find everything funny, moreover it's hard to divide target audiences in groups according to what kind of humor they like. Of course being funny works just fine if it's not too slapstick, and yes copy can be funny as well. Anywway the point is that, more often than not, a strong visual idea needs a supporting line to nest the idea deeply into the minds of the audience. The line often brings along the strategic approach the ad wants to communicate next to being funny and visually standing out. According to Peter the line makes or brakes the campaign!
So why would you want to be a copywriter?
First, copywriters (in Belgium) are the most wanted type of creative at the moment and competition is rather scarce (compared to the competition an art director has, that is). The work of the copywriter makes or brakes the campaign. Next to that, Peter states, copywriters are most likely to become famous and they get to see lovely places as they get to travel along to clients and awardshows around the globe.
A good writer is a good reader. Good readers understand how good books are written. The first line of a book has to grab on you attention in order to get sold. Good copywriters know what line to pen down in order for something to sell. Selling more by adding a simple line of text will make you a superhero worshipped by all the clients you work for.
What does it take to be a good copywriter?
According to Peter, being a good copywriter is a lot about knowing when to stay invisible. Yes it is regarded as, and sometimes is, a complementary services to the visual idea but it can empower the idea as well. Thus the copy is fact no flavor. Not quite. In fact a good line always empowers the idea. And for some briefs the idea comes out of the copywriting. A good example is this. Think about it, you're working on the brief of a car-client. The car-client wants 'just' the best creative ad he has ever seen and the only restriction the brief has is using a packshot of the car with nothing to much sitting or standing next to it. Definitely the job that needs some strong copywriting wouldn't you say so?
The key to being a good copywriter is not explained talking over just one slice of pizza but Peter rounded up some - rather controversial - basics:
• A good copywriter writes like an art director. Well that kinda solves some problems doesn't it? 'Real' copywriters, as Peter poses it, often try too hard being a copywriter. They tend to write every bloody e-mail 'correct'. Every line is checked, double checked and well thought of. The need to always write 'good'makes lots of conversations (copy) too clean, simple, enforced, without feeling and warmth. Art directors do pretty good job writing as spoken just putting down what they feel. "Ok, so then why do we actually need copywriters anyway Peter?" - "Nobody reads bodycopies unless they are really well written, and that is something not all art directors are gifted to accomplish with success."
• Talking to the viewer is key to drawing the attention. You should not talk to everybody but to somebody in specific, namely you. I am talking to you. Using You is the most important word in bodycopy. You wouldn't want anybody to talk to you persuading you to buy his/her product while addressing a crowd would you. Or, let's pose it this way: do you like having a face to face with somebody looking the other way?
• Tell a story! Give people something to remember (humor doesn't always work to stick) The more you know, the more choices you can make, the more chances you have of finding an idea worthwhile. Peter here refers to David Ogilvy's story on Rolls Royce, perhaps the most famous headline in the car business – “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”. This, and lots of other remarks of course, make Ogilvy 'probably the most famous copywriter, eughm sorry, advertising man in the world".
• Don't try to hard to be a copywriter. Make your sentences direct, not passive but appealling. And stick to approximately 16 words, certainly don't go over 26 words.
How to become an adstar in one day?
You can't, I'm sorry. Not even with the greatest of ideas. That's because a good idea has to be well executed AND have your clients' full support. Also, a 'real' relationship is build over time. Work until it works. In other words: "one stupid line of copy is worth spending at least one day of work if the outcome is that it leverages tons of extra revenue".
One to learn by heart:
If you make good work you feel happy. If make lousy work you feel crappy.
— David Abbott
Q&A:
What is your favorite line? Let it be one that you've revised yourself as a creative director.
Good music makes good people.
(*) Copycursus is a workshop/masterclass about copywriting, organised by Sint-Lukas Hogeschool Brussels. This years edition was held at the offices of de Persgroep. This years Copycursus was a series of 3 sessions, a mixture of lectures and interactive workshop given by some of the most upfront leaders of Belgian advertising industry.
@Peter: if you'd end up reading this and find I've twisted some the content too much by adding my own please mark that in the comment section or drop me an e-mail. tnx
Art directors are the best kopiriters
Peter, who currently works as a Creative Director @ DuvalGuillaume, told me that a good writer not needs to write without a spelling mistake. Correctors will sharpen the edges, thus the title of this post. Please note that I've expanded the content of the presentation with my own remarks as they ran along.
Peter Ampe, originally uploaded by Pieter Baert.It's all about ideas.
Peter began his career in 1995. After studying Germanic Philology Peter started working as a journalist. But at the age of 28 his job dissatisfied him and he started looking for a new challenge. He had found that new challenge in advertising. The advertising business proved to be his new mission. The agency he started his career at was Young&Rubicam. He got enrolled there via the Copycursus. What stunned him was the fact that the people of the agency (Y&R) didn't ask him for a diploma when he applied there. All they wanted to know was: "what are your ideas?". Ever since then the most important thing Peter has learned is: "a good idea isn't quite just enough, it has to be well executed as well."
Why was Peter involved with this Copycursus?
Obviously because to him it kickstarted his career and because as he explains: "nowadays — in Belgium — all (most or more and more) creatives teams — traditionally an art director and a copywriter — are compiled out of two art directors." There simply is no training program for copywirters in Belgium. Because of this the Copycursus arose and formed to be a platform from which new adwriting talents step forward every year.
Who needs a copy of that copy?
So, Belgium lacks a decent education in creative writing for the advertising industry. Knowing this makes it not too hard to draw some conclusions. The most compelling conclusion drawn would be that this deficit makes copywriters the most wanted type of creative, in Belgium that is. Period. Peter pointed out that, even as he works with some of the greatest creative teams, he is often presented a strong visual concept lacking the finishing touch of an explanatory line that makes the idea sell. And as David Sable (this years Direct Lions Jury President) states: "if it doesn't sell, it isn't creative. In a year of turmoil - it's time to honour the truly creative." Which is why the Cannes Jury of this years edition has made some alterations to the judging scheme of the Direct Lions. They have improved judging criteria to place more emphasis on results. They've integrated clearer submission questions to help provide more accurate information for the jury. Added digitally focused categories and amended an Integrated campaign category to ‘Best integrated campaign led by direct marketing’.
It is often perceived that, because of our extensive visual and imagery minded ad-culture, the visual is more important than the accompanied line 'which nobody reads anyway'. Also a lot of art directors look only for a pretty ad hoc 'funny' idea. The idea: 'if it's funny it sells' is something a lot of students worship as omniscience when they enter the industry. And that's 'funny' as in 'it looks funny' (the idea is the visual joke). Of course there is some truth in this point of view. Jokes and funny things tend to work virally (people talk about it with other people) and moreover they stick (the product or brand gets remembered » top of mind) but humor is a very personal thing. You can't expect everybody to find everything funny, moreover it's hard to divide target audiences in groups according to what kind of humor they like. Of course being funny works just fine if it's not too slapstick, and yes copy can be funny as well. Anywway the point is that, more often than not, a strong visual idea needs a supporting line to nest the idea deeply into the minds of the audience. The line often brings along the strategic approach the ad wants to communicate next to being funny and visually standing out. According to Peter the line makes or brakes the campaign!
So why would you want to be a copywriter?
First, copywriters (in Belgium) are the most wanted type of creative at the moment and competition is rather scarce (compared to the competition an art director has, that is). The work of the copywriter makes or brakes the campaign. Next to that, Peter states, copywriters are most likely to become famous and they get to see lovely places as they get to travel along to clients and awardshows around the globe.
A good writer is a good reader. Good readers understand how good books are written. The first line of a book has to grab on you attention in order to get sold. Good copywriters know what line to pen down in order for something to sell. Selling more by adding a simple line of text will make you a superhero worshipped by all the clients you work for.
What does it take to be a good copywriter?
According to Peter, being a good copywriter is a lot about knowing when to stay invisible. Yes it is regarded as, and sometimes is, a complementary services to the visual idea but it can empower the idea as well. Thus the copy is fact no flavor. Not quite. In fact a good line always empowers the idea. And for some briefs the idea comes out of the copywriting. A good example is this. Think about it, you're working on the brief of a car-client. The car-client wants 'just' the best creative ad he has ever seen and the only restriction the brief has is using a packshot of the car with nothing to much sitting or standing next to it. Definitely the job that needs some strong copywriting wouldn't you say so?
The key to being a good copywriter is not explained talking over just one slice of pizza but Peter rounded up some - rather controversial - basics:
• A good copywriter writes like an art director. Well that kinda solves some problems doesn't it? 'Real' copywriters, as Peter poses it, often try too hard being a copywriter. They tend to write every bloody e-mail 'correct'. Every line is checked, double checked and well thought of. The need to always write 'good'makes lots of conversations (copy) too clean, simple, enforced, without feeling and warmth. Art directors do pretty good job writing as spoken just putting down what they feel. "Ok, so then why do we actually need copywriters anyway Peter?" - "Nobody reads bodycopies unless they are really well written, and that is something not all art directors are gifted to accomplish with success."
• Talking to the viewer is key to drawing the attention. You should not talk to everybody but to somebody in specific, namely you. I am talking to you. Using You is the most important word in bodycopy. You wouldn't want anybody to talk to you persuading you to buy his/her product while addressing a crowd would you. Or, let's pose it this way: do you like having a face to face with somebody looking the other way?
• Tell a story! Give people something to remember (humor doesn't always work to stick) The more you know, the more choices you can make, the more chances you have of finding an idea worthwhile. Peter here refers to David Ogilvy's story on Rolls Royce, perhaps the most famous headline in the car business – “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”. This, and lots of other remarks of course, make Ogilvy 'probably the most famous copywriter, eughm sorry, advertising man in the world".
• Don't try to hard to be a copywriter. Make your sentences direct, not passive but appealling. And stick to approximately 16 words, certainly don't go over 26 words.
How to become an adstar in one day?
You can't, I'm sorry. Not even with the greatest of ideas. That's because a good idea has to be well executed AND have your clients' full support. Also, a 'real' relationship is build over time. Work until it works. In other words: "one stupid line of copy is worth spending at least one day of work if the outcome is that it leverages tons of extra revenue".
One to learn by heart:
If you make good work you feel happy. If make lousy work you feel crappy.
— David Abbott
Q&A:
What is your favorite line? Let it be one that you've revised yourself as a creative director.
Good music makes good people.
(*) Copycursus is a workshop/masterclass about copywriting, organised by Sint-Lukas Hogeschool Brussels. This years edition was held at the offices of de Persgroep. This years Copycursus was a series of 3 sessions, a mixture of lectures and interactive workshop given by some of the most upfront leaders of Belgian advertising industry.
@Peter: if you'd end up reading this and find I've twisted some the content too much by adding my own please mark that in the comment section or drop me an e-mail. tnx
14 January 2009
Advertising and it's creative teams
A traditional creative setup: a team of 2.
Traditionally a creative team within an advertising agency contents of two people: an art director and a copywriter. But this wasn't always the case. According to Mark Tungate, in his book AdLand, copywriters and art directors worked in different departments for long. My thought was that they didn't used to work in a team and maybe will not remain as such. There are several arguments for it to stay or to change. I myself am not quite sure what will, or would, work out best but I found it interesting to reflect on the topic.
Let me tell you why: Here, at ProximityBBDO, we're working in teams made of 3 people. 3? 3... a copywriter, an (offline) art director: who specializes in one-on-one communication and an (online) art director: who specializes in online advertising, social media and broader technological applications.
Newly bride: teams of 3.
Let me point out why ProximityBBDO is running teams of 3 while most agencies are working teams of 2. First there's a structural problem on the level of education. There isn't really a training program for becoming a copywriter, in Belgium. Moreover, copywriters — writers that specialize in advertising — are increasingly scarce. An instant result of the lack of a decent copywriter education is that the creative inflow of fresh young talents consists of mostly art directors. Therefor a lot of agencies are 'forced' to work with teams of 2 art directors.
Business effectiveness brakes traditions.
Next, when AtmosphereBBDO, DirectBBDO and ProximityBrussels merged — somewhere during the summer of 2007 — they became the countries largest integrated marketing company, housing a broad range of specialists that stretch from creative thinkers over flash- as well as backend-developers, on- and offline designers, direct response and web 2.0 specialists and CRM integrators. In the beginning there was clash. I can tell because I started there when the merging physically took place. For some people, in the beginning, it was horror. Gone was their safe and known — often narrow minded — world of safety that they had been known for so long. So to shorten that transitional period and reduce a fled of knowledge to other companies — as well as to limit internal conflict — the company needed to 'physically' merge these different profiles. Mixing the profiles would most likely (and it did, I can tell you already) ensure a fertile merge between very different company philosophies, spark the sharing of knowledge and eventually create cross-profiles that overlap various disciplines without being cost-intensive to the merger. Training a direct response specialist in social media could be proven very expensive if you'd send them all to some fancy community gatherings and expensive masterclasses. Also it was proven that shock therapy wasn't the key to solving the myriad of obstacles ahead. So, by integrating these different specialists into 1 team the skills for creating a full integrated marketing campaign are brought together. This way, working in teams of 3 could well be the glue for swapping knowledge, and the problem of scarcity of the copywriters would be solved (1 copywriter, more often than not, from a one-to-one background is bride with 2 art directors in order to make the circle complete).
A good blade always cuts twice.
I can see you thinking about the downside of this set-up already, and of course every model — a solution to multiple problems in this case — has a downside.
For example, one extra person in every meeting is, as you would suspect, a heavy weight on the account/budget of every project. But, this cost is compensated with the fact that there's a saving post in the educational budget, as mentioned before.
The dark of a new model.
A repercussion of working in this setup is that timings for creation shorten. Shorter timings put lots pressure on some projects — creation is serendip-wise process as you all know of course — but again this has positive as well as negative outputs down the hammer.
Negative would be that some projects go out without thoroughly being thought of or with going for the idea at hand within one or two days... Another downside is that claiming ownership of 'you idea' becomes harder when you are working as an art director, especially when planning a career move (not that I'm planning one at the moment but still). When you claim ownership for the idea of a project the copywriter and art director are credited for 'their contribution' to the project. Other creatives and headhunters often refer to creatives as 'the art director who thought of or made that visual' of 'the copywriter who wrote that one line'. When working in team with 2 art directors that ownership becomes blurred to the outside world, but on the other hand an art director could as well I've come up with 'that one line' and vice versa.
The profit of discovery.
The positive aspect of this timing push — for creatives — would be that there's an everyday training in efficiency and no time to just wander around and waste all that precious time. Another positive aspect of the setup — for the company — is that it is able to manage a bigger workload of projects and jobs, and the planning ease. Working in a tight schedule for time management makes it necessary to work with day-to-day plannings, parallel to like how lots of development and hotshop web companies work. Many more traditional ad-agencies don't keep pace with the tight schedule and plan in jobs and projects on a weekly basis, sometimes giving 3 to 4 briefings every week with different deadlines — I guess I mustn't mention that quite some creatives lack the discipline to keep pace with their agenda's. A tight day-to-day planning makes it easier to precisely measure the return on each specific job, which at it's turn makes it more ease to budget and plan feature projects and check down occurring issues. Of course, for the creative department, working in a day-to-day schedule puts the pressure on, every job.
I must also mention that working in this setup (teams of 3 creatives) never gets you cornered planning and assigning the briefings to the creative teams. As before the briefings would be carefully divided according to the knowledge and specialties of specific teams. This would corner you when all the sudden the market would flooded with online projects.
Hmmmm... (have a break, I had one as well)
Shape shifting profiles.
Last thing I'd like to note is a more recent trend I've noticed, especially amongst some online creatives, is the doubt about the need of a creative team at all. Most art directors I know — the ones who are specialized in 'online' — are creatives with a more technological background. Moreover, lots of them started their careers as web designers or developers. And they're actually a weird species next to a traditional advertising creative, although also that is shifting vastly. The shift from being a web designer or developer — to being a creative thinker or concept maker — comes from the fact that they 'really' understand what is possible and what is not, and also because they can communicate with the back-office more easily. The latter is often a problem with 'traditional' creatives who push hard on the idea without understanding the technical and budget impact of it.
Drawing the wild card.
These — the 'onliners' — are the species that don't often like to work in a fixed team. They're not used to working in a fixed team in the first place, as they most likely shift teamies regularly on various design and developing projects. Also they want to keep up with the pace of new media and technologies and are often best friends with their RSS readers. Explaining and sharing the enormous stream of information with their team members (the not tech savvy ones) is mostly time consuming, intensive and thus frustrating. In their opinions it slows development. Mostly they're more fond of working as a plug-and-play member. But of course handing out wild cards to some creatives with online skills isn't always an easily manageable position if the company is an oiled machine loaded with a large, and therefor strict, structure of departments and work flows.
The online creatives are more technical thinkers, spending lots time checking on flow models and usability. Often they incorporate interface ideas as an existential part of their concepts. The behavior of interaction is central, they are concerned about participation, they mostly understand the Groundswell better than most heads inside the office and think about more than just pushing and trying to add a pull. Many of them tend to shift towards a job described as "strategic planner" or to them in the more common position named "web strategist".
New ambitions.
The ones shifting to the strategic positions found themselves working more in the support of the marketeers and accounts of the agency, as a sort of social media consultant or web guru housed in the creative department. These online creatives are sometimes more tech savvy and informed about current trends then others at the agency (mark the emphasize on sometimes :)) making them more skilled at observing consumer behavior as well as spotting attitudes of specific audiences. Also they gradually develop the ability to expose the tiniest niche into which a brand might squeeze.
The shift from being a creative to being a strategist springs — to my opinion — from the 'natural' fact online creatives stumble upon regularly. Namely, the combination of creative thinking with being strongly tech savvy often reverses the flow of input. This flow of input is traditionally: from client to account and strategist providing insight that starts a creative team down a certain path. If the creative — in this case the 'onliner' — has the feeling that more often than not he/she is providing or steering the input in a better direction then the ones who came up with the briefing did, well, then that creatives ambitions will start to shift eventually leading to the shift of working as a strategist. And being a strategist can be a very comfortable position, especially as a lot of traditional network agencies in Belgium (such as LeoBurnett, Publicis, McCann, Lowe, Y&R, ...) haven't 'really' put their chariot on the right track (the full integration with online media and advertising) quite just yet. Traditional strategists often lack the knowledge of 'the unwritten tech specs', or just don't keep pace with the possibilities of new technologies. Shifting to work as strategist also it gives the the opportunity to escape the structure of working in team.
The reason why.
Web strategists have become heroes in those (traditional) ad-agencies, especially the ones who have strong concept and thinking skills that can bride the creative departments with the developers and still distill and market a strategic and creative output that suits the needs of most clients.
So, I hope you've enjoyed this reflection and hope to hear from you anywhere soon.
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Traditionally a creative team within an advertising agency contents of two people: an art director and a copywriter. But this wasn't always the case. According to Mark Tungate, in his book AdLand, copywriters and art directors worked in different departments for long. My thought was that they didn't used to work in a team and maybe will not remain as such. There are several arguments for it to stay or to change. I myself am not quite sure what will, or would, work out best but I found it interesting to reflect on the topic.
Let me tell you why: Here, at ProximityBBDO, we're working in teams made of 3 people. 3? 3... a copywriter, an (offline) art director: who specializes in one-on-one communication and an (online) art director: who specializes in online advertising, social media and broader technological applications.
Newly bride: teams of 3.
Let me point out why ProximityBBDO is running teams of 3 while most agencies are working teams of 2. First there's a structural problem on the level of education. There isn't really a training program for becoming a copywriter, in Belgium. Moreover, copywriters — writers that specialize in advertising — are increasingly scarce. An instant result of the lack of a decent copywriter education is that the creative inflow of fresh young talents consists of mostly art directors. Therefor a lot of agencies are 'forced' to work with teams of 2 art directors.
Business effectiveness brakes traditions.
Next, when AtmosphereBBDO, DirectBBDO and ProximityBrussels merged — somewhere during the summer of 2007 — they became the countries largest integrated marketing company, housing a broad range of specialists that stretch from creative thinkers over flash- as well as backend-developers, on- and offline designers, direct response and web 2.0 specialists and CRM integrators. In the beginning there was clash. I can tell because I started there when the merging physically took place. For some people, in the beginning, it was horror. Gone was their safe and known — often narrow minded — world of safety that they had been known for so long. So to shorten that transitional period and reduce a fled of knowledge to other companies — as well as to limit internal conflict — the company needed to 'physically' merge these different profiles. Mixing the profiles would most likely (and it did, I can tell you already) ensure a fertile merge between very different company philosophies, spark the sharing of knowledge and eventually create cross-profiles that overlap various disciplines without being cost-intensive to the merger. Training a direct response specialist in social media could be proven very expensive if you'd send them all to some fancy community gatherings and expensive masterclasses. Also it was proven that shock therapy wasn't the key to solving the myriad of obstacles ahead. So, by integrating these different specialists into 1 team the skills for creating a full integrated marketing campaign are brought together. This way, working in teams of 3 could well be the glue for swapping knowledge, and the problem of scarcity of the copywriters would be solved (1 copywriter, more often than not, from a one-to-one background is bride with 2 art directors in order to make the circle complete).
A good blade always cuts twice.
I can see you thinking about the downside of this set-up already, and of course every model — a solution to multiple problems in this case — has a downside.
For example, one extra person in every meeting is, as you would suspect, a heavy weight on the account/budget of every project. But, this cost is compensated with the fact that there's a saving post in the educational budget, as mentioned before.
The dark of a new model.
A repercussion of working in this setup is that timings for creation shorten. Shorter timings put lots pressure on some projects — creation is serendip-wise process as you all know of course — but again this has positive as well as negative outputs down the hammer.
Negative would be that some projects go out without thoroughly being thought of or with going for the idea at hand within one or two days... Another downside is that claiming ownership of 'you idea' becomes harder when you are working as an art director, especially when planning a career move (not that I'm planning one at the moment but still). When you claim ownership for the idea of a project the copywriter and art director are credited for 'their contribution' to the project. Other creatives and headhunters often refer to creatives as 'the art director who thought of or made that visual' of 'the copywriter who wrote that one line'. When working in team with 2 art directors that ownership becomes blurred to the outside world, but on the other hand an art director could as well I've come up with 'that one line' and vice versa.
The profit of discovery.
The positive aspect of this timing push — for creatives — would be that there's an everyday training in efficiency and no time to just wander around and waste all that precious time. Another positive aspect of the setup — for the company — is that it is able to manage a bigger workload of projects and jobs, and the planning ease. Working in a tight schedule for time management makes it necessary to work with day-to-day plannings, parallel to like how lots of development and hotshop web companies work. Many more traditional ad-agencies don't keep pace with the tight schedule and plan in jobs and projects on a weekly basis, sometimes giving 3 to 4 briefings every week with different deadlines — I guess I mustn't mention that quite some creatives lack the discipline to keep pace with their agenda's. A tight day-to-day planning makes it easier to precisely measure the return on each specific job, which at it's turn makes it more ease to budget and plan feature projects and check down occurring issues. Of course, for the creative department, working in a day-to-day schedule puts the pressure on, every job.
I must also mention that working in this setup (teams of 3 creatives) never gets you cornered planning and assigning the briefings to the creative teams. As before the briefings would be carefully divided according to the knowledge and specialties of specific teams. This would corner you when all the sudden the market would flooded with online projects.
Hmmmm... (have a break, I had one as well)
Shape shifting profiles.
Last thing I'd like to note is a more recent trend I've noticed, especially amongst some online creatives, is the doubt about the need of a creative team at all. Most art directors I know — the ones who are specialized in 'online' — are creatives with a more technological background. Moreover, lots of them started their careers as web designers or developers. And they're actually a weird species next to a traditional advertising creative, although also that is shifting vastly. The shift from being a web designer or developer — to being a creative thinker or concept maker — comes from the fact that they 'really' understand what is possible and what is not, and also because they can communicate with the back-office more easily. The latter is often a problem with 'traditional' creatives who push hard on the idea without understanding the technical and budget impact of it.
Drawing the wild card.
These — the 'onliners' — are the species that don't often like to work in a fixed team. They're not used to working in a fixed team in the first place, as they most likely shift teamies regularly on various design and developing projects. Also they want to keep up with the pace of new media and technologies and are often best friends with their RSS readers. Explaining and sharing the enormous stream of information with their team members (the not tech savvy ones) is mostly time consuming, intensive and thus frustrating. In their opinions it slows development. Mostly they're more fond of working as a plug-and-play member. But of course handing out wild cards to some creatives with online skills isn't always an easily manageable position if the company is an oiled machine loaded with a large, and therefor strict, structure of departments and work flows.
The online creatives are more technical thinkers, spending lots time checking on flow models and usability. Often they incorporate interface ideas as an existential part of their concepts. The behavior of interaction is central, they are concerned about participation, they mostly understand the Groundswell better than most heads inside the office and think about more than just pushing and trying to add a pull. Many of them tend to shift towards a job described as "strategic planner" or to them in the more common position named "web strategist".
New ambitions.
The ones shifting to the strategic positions found themselves working more in the support of the marketeers and accounts of the agency, as a sort of social media consultant or web guru housed in the creative department. These online creatives are sometimes more tech savvy and informed about current trends then others at the agency (mark the emphasize on sometimes :)) making them more skilled at observing consumer behavior as well as spotting attitudes of specific audiences. Also they gradually develop the ability to expose the tiniest niche into which a brand might squeeze.
The shift from being a creative to being a strategist springs — to my opinion — from the 'natural' fact online creatives stumble upon regularly. Namely, the combination of creative thinking with being strongly tech savvy often reverses the flow of input. This flow of input is traditionally: from client to account and strategist providing insight that starts a creative team down a certain path. If the creative — in this case the 'onliner' — has the feeling that more often than not he/she is providing or steering the input in a better direction then the ones who came up with the briefing did, well, then that creatives ambitions will start to shift eventually leading to the shift of working as a strategist. And being a strategist can be a very comfortable position, especially as a lot of traditional network agencies in Belgium (such as LeoBurnett, Publicis, McCann, Lowe, Y&R, ...) haven't 'really' put their chariot on the right track (the full integration with online media and advertising) quite just yet. Traditional strategists often lack the knowledge of 'the unwritten tech specs', or just don't keep pace with the possibilities of new technologies. Shifting to work as strategist also it gives the the opportunity to escape the structure of working in team.
The reason why.
Web strategists have become heroes in those (traditional) ad-agencies, especially the ones who have strong concept and thinking skills that can bride the creative departments with the developers and still distill and market a strategic and creative output that suits the needs of most clients.
So, I hope you've enjoyed this reflection and hope to hear from you anywhere soon.
Follow my blog with bloglovin
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