Sir John’s Talk
The theme is why this is a great time to be a creative in advertising (Details here).
The skeptical amongst you might consider that to be a thinly-veiled talking up of the recent-ish achievements of BBH’s offices worldwide, but as I’m never, ever skeptical about anything I’ll take it on face value and believe that Sir John of Hegarty truly believes that this is indeed a great time to be a creative.
But a couple of questions couldn’t help springing to mind:
1. Why is point 5 (agencies can persuade clients to be brave) illustrated with an ad from early 2002? Does he really mean 2002 was a good time to be creative?
2. ‘Creativity means ideas and ideas will get us out of the mess the bankers have got us into’. Um… yes, and ideas also got us into the mess. Creativity might well mean joining hands to promote world peace and saving Chilean Miners, but it also means invading Poland, bumming donkeys and inventing new torture devices. ‘It’s not intrinsically a good thing, but it’s all we’ve got’ would be more accurate.
3. Agencies have tackled ‘growing social issues’ for years. Unless I’m missing something, BBH’s new Barnados work is no bigger a deal than several campaigns Saatchis have done for NSPCC over the years. I guess Sr JoH is right that a creative’s current ability to take part in this reinforces his point but he might as well have said that you get to make stuff people see on TV.
4. Hats off to BBH for making products. Does anyone know how well they’re doing? (That’s not meant to be a facetious question; I’m genuinely interested). And well done for innovating through things like BBH Labs.
I guess creativity is very important to BBH right now. If you look at the current churn in their London creative department and the move to get rid of Kevin Roddy in the NY office they must be trying to get things exactly right to move forward as they see best.
Good luck to them.
blah blah went the black sheep.
You know i think this is a difficult time period to be created. A world with six billion people in it, kinda makes it hard to be creative
The problem with advertising is that, in the past, it was kind of cool to be the guy who created ads to sell stuff.
Now people have realized that there’s more out there. Our creativity can, and should, be used for bigger purposes.
Alan Moore compared the “creatives” of today with ancient Shamans. But, instead of waking people up from their dreams, we are giving them even more sleeping pills.
This young generation got that. At least I hope so.
Cheers,
t
I agree – this is a great time to be a creative.
We have more tools and more media to work with than ever before.
(It’s also, therefore, the most confusing and uncomfortable time to be an ad/marktng/dig creative.)
But if you’re looking to do a truly original campaign, surely now is your time.
Odd that no one in this country has been able to do such a thing in the last three years.
Not to be rude Ben, but why aren’t we spending the morning slagging off that Argos advert?
yes, the argos advert – the mongoloid cousin of the vw singing in the rain spot. i don’t get it? but it was brave, i suppose?
it’s a standard talk he’s been trotting out for years now.
tea partay – yeo valley partay:
a standard idea they’ve been trotting out for years as well.
interesting, thanks
nice read, keep up the good work
It’s a great time to be a creative who made their name/fortune/reputation over ten years ago.
Lots of easy cash in speaking tours and writing guest articles and blogs.