ideas

It all started here, with Russell and then I saw this over at Scamps, where an article that I felt was about 'in praise of doing', was seen as an insult to thinkers. HEAVY SIGH. Okay Scamp wasn't really taking all this too much to heart, but PUR-LEASE

Here we go, creatives (and I am one so I feel free to say this) once again banging on about how they have the toughest job in the industry. "It's alright for you guys who produce and traffic and do, what we do is by far the hardest job, that's why so many of us turn to drink, drugs and then burn out. Yada, yada, yada."

But frankly, that's bollocks. It's just the sound of old agency thinking giving its death rattle.

I firmly believe ideas are easy to come by. Spend anytime in a playground and you'll see kids come up with hundreds of the little buggers without too much hassle, cohersion, pain or cocaine. I believe being creative is the natural state of humans, but today's society doesn't really appreciate it, so it's knocked out of us at an early age and we become accountants.

A few brave souls light this, probably  because they're useless at numbers or something and find themselves in the creative industries. Where they quietly go about their business being creative. Accept the sodding ad agency creatives who will at every opportunity tell you how tough it is.

And it is. But not the coming up with ideas part. The truly tough part is knowing what to sacrifice and what not to when protecting the idea, coming up with more ideas to help 'sell in' the idea, having the tanacity to constantly tweak and shape and develop the idea (crafting). being sure enough to know your idea is strong enough to be done on a smaller budget, being mature enough to be able to see beyond awards, being generous enough to know that the idea isn't yours at all, but is owned by many.

My final word on all this would be a repeat of this, from Where's the Sausage blog, which goes under the headline, execution is king. Which brings us back to doing.

Comments

[simon]

Scamp. I don't want to be seen as over generous at all. And I'm most certainly not saying everyone else screws our ideas up for us.

Let me expand.

Two people in a room talking about a product - a great idea?

Not if it's TC in a K talking about the power of Flash Ultra, but possibly if one's a monkey and the other is Johnny Vegas. And if you except that, what made it so good? The idea, the casting, the script, the fact one is a monkey, the fact Henderson's made monkey, monkey's voice, Ben Millar, the location, the Lazy Boy chair, the directors who shot it?

All of which had to be fought for long and hard many times over. (True fact:The senior client at ITVdigital wanted Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry and have them in a swanky penthouse). Same scripts, but would it have had the same impact? Of course not

A great ad (any great creative, with the possible exceptions of art and novels) is realy a series of many, many little ideas - all of which gell and make the initial 'big' idea better.

As for other people screwing them up, I so disagree. That hints at a them and us situation, which is bollocks. Planners, account people (should you have them), clients etc are not the enemy of great ideas, if we can't help them in see an ideas potential then we are the ones failing them and not the other way around.

Too often creatives believe their job is done once they hand over the rough or the script, giving up protecting and developing their work and instead sitting back and waiting to proportion blame. When in fact the best creatives will admit it's only the begining. All you need do is look at Websters approach to his work.

[Scamp]

Yes Simon you can have your card back.

Although now I think you're being TOO generous to creatives!!

Do we really have lots and lots of great ideas, and it's everyone else who screws them up?

I think the truth is we don't have many. But that just shows how hard our job is.

[Manish]

simon
you are the rare creative breed who tells the truth so bluntly!
ideas are easy to produce...its just some agency fossils who make such a fuss about them...

[simon]

I guess the starting point should really be, what is a good idea? But assuming what you're asking is, what is a good creative idea - one that ad creatives wish they'd done - then the answer is simple. There are so few because there are so few situations where everyone who leaves their fingerprint on an ad makes the right decision/was allowed to make the right decision/was prevented from making the wrong decision. Simply put we, as creatives, have to accept coming up with a thought is not the same as brilliant ad and that unless we work as hard in protecting that thought as we do in coming up with it, the chances of that thought evolving into a brilliant piece of work are zero.

(Can I have my union card back please?)

[freddie]

Perhaps because... so many of them get rejected!

[Scamp]

Simon, your membership of the creatives' union is hereby revoked!!!

But seriously, if having ideas is so easy, how come there are only three or four really good ones a year?