Creativity. Has the word or concept lost its meaning?
Recently, I’ve found myself scratching my head over this. As more and more of my agency peers express frustration with their clients’ lack of appreciation for creativity in marketing – apparently, brand managers increasingly define “creative” as “not strategic” – I’ve started wondering if maybe they have a point. Is “creative” a bad word, a mere euphemism for any ideas that are lacking effective strategy?
In the end, I refused to give in to the cult of blame, reflective of a growing agency trend where we point our fingers at clients or the industry structure every time we don’t get what we want.
Creative is creative, strategy is strategy and vegetables are vegetables. We all know what they are. Creative includes an overriding concept as well as the design and artistic execution. Strategy is the plan of action to get a campaign or message noticed by a desired audience. When developed in tandem and executed correctly, the potential results are greater.
The issue here isn’t whether or not the word “creative” is being misconstrued or used to imply a lack of strategic sense. The problem is that agencies, anxious to have things our own way, try to force fit arguments and issues that simply don’t work. We seem, on some levels, unwilling to adapt. For example, agencies insist that creative is the key to engaging the audience. They’ve lost site of – or refuse to acknowledge – that we no longer own the word “engagement” in any sense. Agencies have never presented creative as a means to engagement – at least not in the sense that the term “engagement” is more often used in today’s social media environment. Creative doesn’t engage the same way that Twitter does. However, using social media to draw attention to campaign creative is a component of strategy. Clients get that, but many agencies, including the ones that claim to provide social media services, won’t let that reality sink in.
Another example of agencies’ unwillingness to adapt: our continued push for brand campaigns in a quick-results environment. The last year was bad for most everyone – the recession slashed budgets and many agencies starved. In an effort to generate income and secure retainer dollars, many pushed the importance of brand awareness (what some clients see as “creative” further defined as “long-term” or “having vague results”). When that didn’t work, agencies moaned that they were being commoditized. What’s missing here is the client POV – long term branding isn’t what most marketing directors are being challenged with. Their CEOs and CFO’s are saying “generate revenue this quater.” They want to keep their jobs, so their interest is in capturing low-hanging fruit and generating a short-term ROI. Until the recession is really over and budgets get back to normal, every presentation is going to be met with the question “so what’s the ROI?”
The problem with “creative” is that agencies want to push art and branding, and clients want results right now. An online display campaign generates low click thru levels (my blog on this: http://bit.ly/hYIm0), and we say “Who cares? You got great brand exposure!” as though long-term creative without short-term result is going to appease anybody right now.
Creative is fine, it’s necessary, and everyone knows what it means. It’s the agency attitude that needs to adjust.
