Advertising Agencies: Kiss Your Creative Teams Goodbye

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	April 20, 2010

Advertising Agencies: Kiss Your Creative Teams Goodbye
By: Sean Duffy

New demands on ad agencies mean old ways are dying and new job opportunities are being created.

Few things in advertising are as sacred as the creative team. Traditionally, this team consisted of a copywriter and an art director. When called upon, they would take the planner's insight and apply precisely the right combination of words and images to produce communication that was disruptive in its media environment, memorable in its delivery, and crystal clear in its meaning. This was done in hopes it would yield bountiful sales for the client (or a creative award for the agency).

I have spent most of my career on the copywriting half of that equation. I loved the work, but I also loved the privileged position my art director and I occupied in the agency. Once sequestered with our creative assignment, our methods were not questioned. Our work process was shrouded in the secrecy of a papal enclave with nervous account executives wringing their hands outside our chambers in anticipation of the time when we would emerge with concepts in hand (or not). Ah, nostalgia. I'm glad I was a copywriter in the '80s and '90s because the position as I knew it is going the way of the stat camera and Letraset.

The reason the creative team no longer works is because the right combination of words and images alone will no longer yield bountiful sales for the client. This is not to say good copy and art direction are unimportant. They have never been more important. Today it takes more than that, a lot more. Ad agencies now have different expectations placed on them. Our campaign solutions must do more than combine words and images to inform, inspire, and motivate. They must deliver business value in new ways that maximize the potential of digital media as well as traditional media.

It's not just print, outdoor, TV, and radio. If it’s digital; it’s also a potential media. Anything from rich media banners to social media assets to mobile apps and games.
Our creative team must not only create material to place in media. The media itself must be incorporated into their concept from the start.
Integration across media must be seamless, but concepts also need to work across platforms and delivery devices.
They must do more than address the target’s primary needs. They must look at tangential needs and ﬁnd new ways to facilitate them.
Their solutions will not be conﬁned to two of three campaign periods a year but will need to engage consumers and deliver value every day.
In some cases, they may even be called upon to create solutions that fund themselves.

That's a lot to ask of even the best copywriter and art director.

Today I run an ad agency and brand consultancy. About ﬁve years ago my partners and I concluded that developments in the digital world (speciﬁcally social media, mobile media and the evolution of the Internet) would fundamentally change the advertising industry. So we began the process of adapting to those changes. The ﬁrst thing we realized was that adapting would not simply be a matter of hiring a web designer and a few geeks. We had to go one step further and change the way we develop solutions for our clients. Processes that worked well for creating campaigns in traditional media were not producing the type of solutions we needed in the information age.

The ﬁrst casualty of this restructuring was the creative team. I loathed to do it. I thought too many cooks would destroy creativity, but what I found was an exponential increase in creativity. Creativity was no longer conﬁned to our pictures and images. Our campaign concepts began to routinely integrate innovative ideas across the entire marketing mix from media, product development, and distribution to sales, pricing, and PR.

What do our creative teams look like today? It is no longer a duet; its a quintet: copywriter, art director (preferably a digital art director), web designer, and social media architect. More often than not the strategic planner, who used to drop oﬀ the brief and leave the creatives alone, is also in the group. As soon as the ideas begin to gel we add our SEO guy to the mix to make sure anything we create is made to be found from the start.

Diﬀerent people. Diﬀerent creative process. Great results.

Our best clients today demand creative business ideas as well as creative communication. We are able to provide it. Sacriﬁcing one of advertising’s most hallowed institutions is the price we had to pay. This may be bad news for agency traditionalists, but it's great news for clients and job seekers who are in tune with the changes in the marketing landscape. If you are either of the above, I’d like to hear from you.

Comments

Add Your Comments

dean (here)	on 10 Aug 2010 at 10:34 am

I'm sure someone said that things were going to dramatically change when TV came into existence. These are just new media, and if you're someone's who's creative and strategic, you should be able to work in any form. As far as adding other people into the concepting, I'm hesitant. If they can's concept or force their bad ideas into the process, it's not helping. Good luck is all I can say.

Sean Duffy (Malmö Sweden / Boston USA)	on 25 Jun 2010 at 7:46 am

This is one of the best posts I've read on this topic. It's from Edward Boches at Mullen. Called: The new creative team and getting it to work. Worth a read. http://edwardboches.com/the-new-creative-team-and-getting-it-to-work

John Palumbo (BigHeads)	on 27 May 2010 at 3:32 pm

I feel like the title doesn't do this article or the whole open collaboration/crowdsourcing movement any justice...as it is not about replacing creative teams...it's about proving them with a resource Now I usually hate when people jump into threads like this and post a blog....but I gotta do it....sorry..... http://bigheadsnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/09/possibly-worst-headline-in-advertising.html

Indiana Joe (Chicago)	on 18 May 2010 at 3:44 pm

As a graphic designer, I'm struggling to find any place in this period. I have a BA in Visual Communications, which allows me to work both in print and online, contributing to a more cohesive campaign. Add my background in marketing (direct mail and otherwise) and you'd think I'd be perfect for this new creative arrangment. Here's the problem. People like me are being pushed out of the industry. More often than not, the web designer is not a designer at all but a programmer. Every Art Director job requires "agency experience as an art director", and many agencies aren't internally moving people up to gain that experience. Most agencies now, including my own, are skipping the art director, or creating the actual creative, in favor of outsourcing the entire creative. Where do we go from here? Niche creative agencies?

JWM (Cleveland)	on 29 Apr 2010 at 12:32 pm

GREAT ARTICLE. I wish all creative directors got this. I am still struggling with some people from the "old world" who don't get that the game has changed and they need to adapt. This is a very accurate depiction of where the business has gone and why CHANGE is necessary, albeit painful for those who just haven't kept up or adapted.

Ann (India)	on 24 Apr 2010 at 5:48 am

Dear Sean, Wonderful article! You have put in words what a lot of agencies are trying to adopt these days. In fact the agency, I worked with used a similar structure of working. There were a few more reasons in addition to the ones you've mentioned. We noticed that when we worked in teams of four (taking the example you mentioned), it was easier to come up with a design solution and the deadline could be met with much precision. I had worked as a visualizer in my previous agency. When art & copy work with the planners and media architect, the discussion is more wholesome. The team gets a better direction/idea of the brief. It made work easier and client's happier. So although it was a medium-size agency, we were able to rope in a lot more clients.

What\'s new about that? (New York)	on 23 Apr 2010 at 3:58 pm

And why is this news? I can't remember a time when the wider creative team DIDN'T reflect on, contribute to, and create for, every platform that your product lives on. So it is and so it shall be.

Bill Oates (Memphis)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 1:31 pm

I've been seeing this coming for some time. As a creative pro with more than thirty years in the advertising and design industry, I wondered how us older dogs, just getting our minds around all the new (social media) toys, compare to the new generation of talent raised on them. I've had to re-invent myself more than once- from doing paste-ups in 1989, to one of the first agencies in town to submit files on a Mac. But, today how do I differentiate myself to stay relevant? I don't know if a good portfolio is enough anymore. I wondered a blog about reinvention and imagination could show I still have some? You decide: http://wilddreambook.com/ http://oatesdesign.com/

Bradford Barker (Chattanooga, TN)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 11:33 am

Thanks for the article. My agency is undertaking a similar transition at this point. Although our main focus is interactive, we are full-service. Incorporating SEO and Social Media into the mix has been a bit of a frustrating experience, but once those people involved realized that both social media and SEO must be intertwined with all departments, things have gotten much better. Serving as Sr. SEO/Social Media Editor, I have had to step on quite a few toes, but things are starting to pay off. I believe we will see a new breed of agency emerge that successfully integrates each of these teams. No more silos. That model is dead.

Dave (Dallas)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 11:08 am

No link posting, ay? How's this: davefoxred.wordpress.com

Dave (Dallas)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 11:04 am

Yes, there is still room for the traditional creative team. Yes, that room is getting smaller and smaller. No one here really seems to be wrong, just hyperactive. Now lets get down to business: who wants to hire a shamelessly self-promoting copywriter? my work

Jeff Stache (NYC)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 9:16 am

Some excellent counterpoints, Sean! However, it's still not accurate according to my experience and the experience of my compadres who still have jobs in the industry. While print has taken a big blow, it's far from dead. In fact, one of my businesses (the demise of advertising was my wake up call to start some new games), a small sports products business, relies primarily on printed advertising, after I tried all the web avenues. Print targeted my demographic much more neatly. But to put web designers on print advertising is to ad insult to injury--or it would be if it didn;t provide occasional freelance jobs to those who know how to. "New talent" always makes me squirm. It's an oxymoron. Talent is a skill developed over years, and i was lucky enough to work with old timers who had really developed creative strategies and were able to conceptualize. They could handle design crises and find unique angles. I haven't seen a single creative out of school who had real skill, usually just patience and some old saws they picked up in school. You know, everytime we had some old product with nothing going for it, we'd slap that "new and Improved" sign right on the bottle. Students out of school regurgitate the same old concepts they copied from their teachers: Spoof on the 50s, spoof on the 70s, find a "hip" angle for college markets, call on childhood imagery for boomers... Most of the time, they don't even know why they're doing it. This is why so much advertising has become non-descript and repetitive. Not only can't most webbies really do a good job at other areas, it's not really fair to foist that work off on them. It's like a patent coming to a doctor and telling the doctor in no uncertain terms that since he's paying the bill, he's expecting a clean bill of health, and the doctor will have to fill his cavities, give him a manicure and a prescription for oxycontin. No other profession is treated so shabbily as "creatives." Look, the preeminence of web design at the expense of everything else is based on cash, not talent. A kid out of school is willing to work for less, put in more hours and since the people hiring, and almost certainly the clients, don't really know the extent of HTML, they think it can do everything--print, ancillary marketing, etc., they make unreasonable demands. What's sad is that standards for an accpetable advertisment have been lowered so much that there's no real need for talent or creativity. I bet there's not a single professional on this list who hasn't had a client toss a cometitor's ad on their desk and say, "I want exactly that!" We've become a profession that shrugs and says "OK. It's just a job."

Sean Duffy (Malmö, Swden / Boston MA)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 6:21 am

TONY LAUHER (Charlotte NC) - Well put Tony. I love the ideas of “welcoming others into the creative mix” so long as they are capable of contributing to the creative process in a meaningful way. The reason I used to get bent out of shape when someone from account service, or media, direct, web, client-side, etc.. showed up to “concept” with my art director and I was because they had different objectives and nothing to offer our creative process except derailing it. I still keep anyone who cannot contribute on a conceptual/creative level out of the room.

Greg (Connecticut)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 6:20 am

Sean Enjoyed your thoughtful and insightful piece, and fully agree with your main point; we need to revise our ideas about what skills and what professionals should comprise a creative team. Reading you sub-point about switching from the periodic, campaign approach to more of an "everyday" approach made we wonder, though. That switch really calls for a rethink on how agencies have traditionally been compensated. How do you work that out with your clients and reflect that in their marketing plans and budgets? Greg

Sean Duffy (Malmö Sweden / Boston MA)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 6:06 am

MARK (NEW YORK, NY) - Agree. Thanks for the tip on Scott Brinker’s Blog. “Marketing Technologist” Great stuff. http://bit.ly/axQsvP

Sean Duffy (Malmö Sweden / Bosotn MA)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 5:53 am

BC. Thanks. You are right, that is ridiculous. Did I mention we are clairvoyant? Sorry for lumping everything together. My point was that about 2005 we noticed our clients were valuing web competence in a whole different way. At the same time web agencies began showing up at our pitches (for mostly traditional work). We saw their services were sprawling out beyond websites into print and collateral. At the time we were not so strong on the web. That is when the penny dropped for us and we began to shift towards developing out digital competence which lead to developing our web 2.0 skills and then social and then search. I suspect our evolution has only just begun.

Sean Duffy (Malmö Sweden / Boston MA)	on 22 Apr 2010 at 5:40 am

KASSANDRA: This is excellent news for you. And for some perspective, my first creative director at BBDO was a cop before he became a copywriter. No one thought that was strange (interesting, but not strange). He was a skilled writer and conceptualizer. He could come up with original ideas. He did very well. By comparison the fact that you studied web design and know some code does not put you that far off the mark at all. As for your book, I don’t think every piece needs to be interactive. But you should have a couple of ideas in there that expand beyond traditional media to encompass digital and social. Good luck.

FD (Denver, CO)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 11:27 pm

I was a buyer or production manager in my recent previous past. The agency I worked for had the very team environment you are referring to and has had for quite a few years, however, at the end of the day the art director, writer and sometimes the creative director "the creatives" ideas prevailed - why? Because they are the most creative people. I can buy and produce anything you want made, but I am not as creative as the creatives by a long shot.... I say let them do what they do best, let others do what they do best - if they happen to be creative and have good creative ideas - by all means include them ...but if they don't, let them do their thing until they are needed for advice and specifications and let them do the part that they excel at instead of being dead weight in creative meetings, etc.

bobo (toronto)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 7:11 pm

Thank you Michael Pitzer and 'Annie Oakley' - my thoughts exactly. As a long-time

Kurt (Seattle)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 4:39 pm

What a dumb, misleading headline. Any agency that devalues its creative team does so at its own peril. Who's going to create the um...creative? AE's and coders?

Brad (NYC)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 1:14 pm

Yes, all advertising needs ideas. Yes, advertising has grown to include anything and everything with a screen on it. Yes, we need all kinds of skilled folks to understand media that didn't exist five, ten or fifty years ago. But when it comes down to it, ads (yes, ads) aren't going to create themselves. Someone's gotta write them. Someone's gotta art direct. Someone's gotta make them good. Hello, creative team.

Gragg Advertising (Kansas City Missouri)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 12:12 pm

Interesting article. I agree print advertising is dying, it is pretty apparent that people are cutting costs, and investing those funds into online marketing.

Elysia (CT)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 9:42 am

Jim Dominic sounds like he worked for the folks I used to work for. Unfortunately, I think we've reached an age where suddenly everyone thinks they're a designer. That all materials can simply be created in any of the (atrocious) Microsoft Suite products (read: Word/Publisher/Front Page). That it's easy to create good/great design with a template and 560 fonts. I feel this is partially to blame on software companies that tout solutions that are 'just a click away'; creating a false sense of know-how where none exists. We're not alone, either--this is also occurring in the back-end web world; where scores of people think it's super simple to create dynamic commerce sites that are as easy as pie to maintain (it's not, they aren't). There is little regard for what great design adds to the equation and even less respect for it. And it shows--lousy copy, horrid composition, inelegant presentation is everywhere. May the firms that actually understand the importance of the new team dynamic--one that includes design professionals as mentioned in this article-continue to do well. And may we all find work with them.

Jim Dominic (Cleveland, Ohio)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 7:35 am

What is happening to us designers is that design is becoming regarded as too important to be left to designers. It has always been our practice that design cannot be conceived and executed without participation from outside the creative team. These days, we are being excluded from the creative process. What remains of our creative contribution to a given project is being appropriated by people who do not know how to design. We designers are being excluded from the creative process and pushed into a production role--the executives and managers tell us what the concept is going to be and in some cases how to build it--because it's too important and the stakes are too high. They're right because they're in charge. We're wrong because we're just designers. When one of them thinks of an idea, that idea must be incorporated in the final design no matter if it is off brand or just plain bad. All executive ideas must be built for their review, and instead of refining and polishing the work, they make idiosyncratic changes until we all run out of time, then it's a last-minute push to get mediocre work out the door. Then they wonder why we lose business. Executives and managers demand innovation, yet they also demand the same pet solutions they always pronounce as if they have had a stroke of genius. This is nothing new, but today it has reached new levels. We designers are in a constant battle not only to do work that is innovated and that exceeds expectations, but to do work that adheres to ideas as shopworn as a picture of a handshake to symbolize partnership. That competition with non-creative team members is as old as business design. Unfortunately the non-creatives consider themselves better at it than anybody else, and it shows in the final product.

pete (dee why)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 4:49 am

I think you mean there's lots of people now who would like to take credit for the ideas and executions a good writer and art director actually produce? Just a thought.

Sean Duffy (Malmö Sweden / Boston MA)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 4:05 am

Thanks to all of you for the comments! It’s great that creativity, ideas and originality are at the focus of the debate, even if they do raise some ire. If I can find a red thread through the comments it is this: anything that impedes creativity, ideas and originality in an agency is a bad idea. I could not agree more. I also agree with the comments about creative-by-committee. It is an oxymoron. @jamesdamron Re-Tweeted this post with the advice “Don't let the headline rile you up”. Just to be clear: I’m not saying send your copywriters and art directors packing and replace them with tacticians and bean counters. My message is to consider the changes that are taking place in our industry and then ask if the role and skill set of the tradition creative team (not the people themselves) are as relevant today as they were when Bill Bernbach devised them in the 1940s. I think Kevin Simcock summed it up nicely “It not so much that we are saying good-bye to the traditional team as we are saying good-bye to the teams traditional skill set.” Does this mean that ideas no longer matter? Nope. Will a big idea translate more readily into any media compared to a weak concept? Of course it will. But I’d argue that those big ideas get even bigger when the people who create them from the start have a better understanding of the context in which they will appear. I think we take this for granted because since the 50s everyone is familiar with the context of traditional media. The same can not be said of the media landscape that has been taking shape over the past decade and is still changing. This all may be a mute point anyhow. As CGalli points out it is not a matter of the number of people. For me its about the competency in the room in relation to the brief. Although a core team of 4 people can hardly be considered crowd-sourcing an idea, I’d also rather see two people in the room. And I may be getting my wish. Many of the books I see coming out of places like Miami Ad School blow me away. The new creatives I’m seeing are not simply digitally-familiar or digitally-interested. They are fluent, 21st century digital natives. The talented ones demonstrate all the conceptualization skill of a traditional creative, but it is backed with deep, almost intuitive understanding of how things work on-line (digitally and socially) and a working knowledge of the technology behind it. In my experience, this doesn’t distract them from focusing on the big idea. I don’t see this as the death knell of creativity. Quite the opposite. The creative space for the copywriter and art director to operate in has becomes exponentially larger and full of shiny new toys and possibilities — if they can get their heads around it. P.S. For those who asked specific questions, I will try to reply individually. We have two pitches tomorrow so it may take a day or so to get back to you.

T_Haus (Milwaukee)	on 21 Apr 2010 at 1:23 am

I'm a copywriter who has loved the days in the bullpen as much as the next. I think what's more interesting than Sean's article, actually, is the discussion that has followed. The crux of it all is, in one word, 'adaptation.' And like Ms. M stated, this is nothing new. Rather; it's the name of the game. Creativity IS still king, and if you don't like the way certain AEs and/or other agency doufases (insert any douche-bag title) are calling the shots, then YOU call the shots. Create your own game. Create your own douche-bag title. Now is as good a time as any. So you're creative. Yippee-Skippy. Prove it. Adapt. Become the best/hottest thing in the business. Become unforgettable. To Sy the Cynic, regarding your comment: "Remember advertising? When a campaign started with an idea and not a media plan?" Do your history. Before guys like Bill Bernbach came along, much about advertising was lifeless and lame. He and others like him helped shape our culture. Later, we have more lameness, i.e., "Don't Squeeze the Charmin," hence Luke Sullivan's book entitled, "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This." The pendulum doth swing. When it all boils down, it's still about selling a brand to the point at which the customer feels that it was his idea to "Just Do It" in the first place--no matter how you do it. That's a win. Say, who here, has come up with a "Just Do It?" Just wondering. So. The ever-texting thirteen year old girl is fascinated by the messages on her phone; not your One-Show pencils. And by the way, that notion isn't all that different from what David Ogilvy once said: "The customer is not a moron--she's your wife."

chammer (Portland Oregon USA)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 10:22 pm

Sean, I agree completely, we run a team of primarily web/new media creatives who all have broad creative backgrounds across a wide array of media. We tend not to pull SEO out as a specific role, but it is expected "basic" knowledge that our entire team is required to have before they are even considered for employment. Our Creative Director role is still considered sacred, as we know that there must be a final arbitrator of quality and owner of the project.

mmOpinions (BKLN)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 7:17 pm

Ummm... A lot of great comments to yet an other only decent Talent Zoo article. As a REAL designer who is finding it impossible to get employment these miserable days forgive the blatant angst in my tone in what follows: I have to say that "Digital Art Director" and "Digital Copy Writer" are each oxymorons. This kind of talk only impresses clients who don't know their asses from their heads. Wannabe agencies who want to come of as being hip and current use such ridiculous terminology and titles for their teams. What needs to be made clear is the different between "production" and "creative". We are currently in an age where the rise of what I like to call "digital production" is in full swing. It is a market of skill sets that are proliferating and evolving every year by leaps and bounds. One coding language after another, each enabling yet more interactive capabilities. And it is VERY true that no agency can exist let alone grow without being on top of these interactive trends and practices. The reason that nobody is stating things how they are is that these old digital "agencies" (production houses) are doing so well and are in such high demand that they're literally taking over the realm of the traditional agencies. Not that traditional agencies haven't brought this upon themselves, but that is a conversation following a different article. Out of desperation, I must clarify the fact that a coder or programmer is NOT a creative talent. They are the mechanics of an agency, period. Not to lessen their importance, as we all have roles to play. And, at the end of the day all of equal importance as no one can properly exist without the other. But, what is happening these days is shocking. These people come in at the end of a project and "build" and "enable" the creative to live in certain spaces. That's it! They are the proverbial "cherry on top", except they aren't the cherry... get it? Anyhow... I am saddened at how the least talented of my classmates, those unable to "design" anything even remotely aesthetically appealing, and so had no choice but to learn coding languages, seem to have become the most successful in this new interactive/social networking age. To call these people designers is just silly. Setting up a YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, etc account is about as complicated as frying an egg. What is important is what has always been important and that is great creative (ideas) smartly implemented and deployed. It's that simple. And, I don't need to be so disrespectful Mr. Sean Duffy, but after looking at your agencies site... SERIOUSLY? The sad truth is there are too many bullshit agencies out there run by people more ambitious then their actual talent or intellect. These folks then go on to hire mediocre talents only because they can control them creatively. This way they are not threatened by really talented employees who ultimately end up having more power over their clients than they do. This way they don't have to worry about their business getting stolen. This is also the reason they don't win any awards, and certainly not any awards of any relevance. Sorry, but this is the truth.

Writer (New York)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 6:11 pm

AMEN to Ryan in Minneapolis. First of all, what this article is actually saying is that the creative team became a creative herd. And I think we all know that too many cooks... What died is the idea, the concept. I agree that with a good concept anyone who has never written or art directed for the web would do a better job than those "experienced" in executing drek. There is so much shoved in our faces right now, it's too bad that none of it has a concept. If it did, I'd probably remember it. I remember most of the great concepts in the One Show books before the book became one huge encyclopedia of everything out there. Quick, can anyone out there come up with a great campaign that's currently running ON ANY MEDIUM?

Kevin7 (Cleveland, over by Detroit)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 4:43 pm

Let me take a crack at this, too, with yet another perspective. In twenty some years as an AD, CW and agency suit/AE, the major shift has appeared to be essentially bi-polar, with the extention of media options up to and including social on one pole; and a concurrent sinking of the philanthropic corporate base that used to be, on the other. Shift plus shrink is what we have experienced. I see older agencies around town with the plastic letters falling off of their street signage. What does that signal? While the biggest of the big may still be viable clients, the vast middle has largely dried up. So now you can work for either GM -- well, bad example -- OK, instead, let's say Frito Lay, or you can work on a free-lance basis for the hot new restaurant in town. So how important is the Idea? It is still central, but to my way of thinking, it is secondary to survival, and the main question remains -- is there a viable client base willing to support the quest? If not, we drop back in to the Dark Ages until a meteor strike or something else shakes things up again. It's ultimately a financial equation.

copyvet (New York)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 4:00 pm

There's a guy on the corner of Madison Avenue and 51st Street who's lonely and wants to be invited, too. Don't forget to include him!

Em (Hoboken New Jersey)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 3:38 pm

Unfortunately this is the pack mentality in advertising right now. Maybe that\'s why advertising is in such a state of malaise. Creativity is what separates the good agencies from the bad ones, and also makes brands iconic. No matter what the medium is, the message is always king. I\'ve always thought a committee approach to anything is inefficient and plodding. I\'m glad it works for you, but at the end of the day, do you really want to be like everyone else? I sure don\'t.

Charlie Sweeny (Los Angeles, California USA)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 3:05 pm

Hej, Sean: Du skrev en intressant artikel. Och du resa mellan Sverige och USA. Du är en upptagen man! Collaboration and synergy has always been the cornerstone of (good) advertising, marketing and brand communications. As we all know, (good) art directors have been known to come-up with great copy and headlines. And (good) copywriters with great visual concepts. And any (good) agency, studio or marcom firm (already) has whatever appropriate team – account management, tactical/strategy development, creative, and production (read: technical) – to execute whatever work the client's business may need to move their needle in the marketplace. Back in the early '90s, I had just returned to the US from a stint at Hakuhodo/Tokyo freelancing as a creative director on their Hitachi, NEC, Toshiba and Canon English-language accounts. Herring/Newman, and fairly prominent West Coast direct response ad agency based in Seattle, called me in to handle a very special project they had for one of their lead accounts, Sun Microsystems. At that time, H/N already had an account strategist (Chris Altwegg), several account executives, and a creative (Gini Lawson and Dennis Globus) and production (Teresa Riefflin-Ellis) team dedicated to this piece of business. It was this consortium that led to generating $260M in incremental sales within three months (and $42M in profit for Sun) off a $300K investment through a multilingual, multinational direct mail campaign targeted to prospects in the US, Britain, Germany and France. That was synergy. And that was nearly 20 years ago. This campaign won an International Silver Echo from The DMA for Excellence in Creative Direction Leading to Outstanding Sales Performance. What you're touching-on Sean here isn't new, revolutionary, or evolutionary. It's how any (good) creative branding business would have already been running its business for its clients. The only thing that's "changed" in the past 20 or 30 years is technology. The fundamentals are sound and the same. Phil Herring and his partners at Herring/Newman knew this a long time ago. But, I understand. This is a guest column and you're here promoting you and your agency. You have to appear as if you're bringing something [new/interesting/different] to the table. No harm, no foul. Lycka till med Duffy Group! Drick lite glögg för mig! - C.

Robb (KC)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 2:40 pm

What a great and thought provoking article Sean buts forth. Is it possible he can be right and wrong as so many creative professionals here debate? I think so. From my perspective, the creative team has morphed and migrated to something that ill resembles the salad days of the model creative dept and the creative team. What I see is a mosh pit or mob rules approach to marketing today. The market has become so absorbed with different ways to communicate the message, that the message itself is getting smothered. Smart and strategic approaches to the creative message is what's endangered here. If that foundation is not firmly in place, then the creative is sure to fail, being left with a shotgun blast of disjointed noise and a complete waste of a clients marketing dollars . The creative can only be as solid as the foundation on which it's built. As I am becoming far to used to saying, "crap in equals crap out." Granted the crap is now bundled into a tight little package often resembling a snickers bar but Brother, don't you dare eat it. So what's the answer? Should creatives all learn to harness HTML and CSS and action scripting and flash and java and all the nuances of social media in order to justify their new found existence as a creative all the while getting bogged down in the mechanics of how to make something work? From all the job postings I see out there, most employers are now looking for a jack of all trades, master of none. By comparison, it would be silly of me to think I could hire one guy to build my house and then not be disappointed with the end result. But that seems to be the case with todays agency owners, write a job description that God Almighty would have difficulty applying for. What I see lacking in this new age of marketing or whatever the buzz word du jour is today (it will change tomorrow) is the ability to manage a client and client's expectations of the new media. To many of the inmates are running the asylum and by inmates, I mean young AE types that cannot manage clients and lead clients but a bunch of order takers. Admit it, how many times has a AE come to you and used the excuse " We just need to do this. It's what the client wants." That's the equivalent of a get out of jail free card, only instead of the exception, the new order of the day is the AE's business card. Does every client's product or service need a Twitter account or a facebook page? Do they have a product or service that will honestly add value to that increasingly cluttered space or is it as one person put here, just checking off boxes becuase nobody is focused on what's best for the clients business, just what's easiest to take orders on? Smarter, not harder. Basic rules of the game still apply. Less still can be more and clients still can use their increasingly limited spends in places where they can target their messages most effectively instead of spreading the message so thin that and weak that nobody notices or cares. TV, radio, print and outdoor are not dead but they certainly are on life support. All paths lead to digital regardless of the sometimes traditional paths the message takes to push it there and just like technology, the learning curve demands more attention to a business already known for working people into quivery blobs of gelatinous goo. In the end, I have no answers for those of you that have made it this far in my rant (sorry). Just encouragement. Keep fighting for the creative idea. It's why you are a creative and not an AE. It's why you are passionate and not passive. (an AE) So put down that bottle and learn some digital or die.

paulgoodsalt (toronto)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 2:28 pm

I am certainly in the 'ideas first, tactics second' camp. If we are trying to justify an approach through how we roll it out through to bring value to a client, well, there is no idea. But I will say that too often agencies do get hung up on the big idea. They dismiss conversations about tactics early on. I've heard a million times, 'ideas can come from anywhere', but somehow they can't come from a technology we saw, or an innovation we read about, or a tactic we'd like to use.

Jeff stache (Manhattan)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 2:01 pm

Pew. This article embodies something that's been slowly killing the Ad industry since the late 80s--namely a compulsion to celebrate every failure and bad decision with denial and rationalizations. In fact, what I've seen in major NYC agencies over the last 10 years is the gradual encroachment of management in opposition to the creatives-- the guys who produce good advertising. I was very happy to have worked at several major agencies who had no qualms aobut saying NO to management and client demands when they compromised the quality of the product. No so daring really, to do otherwise would be to compromise what the client was paying for, whether the client understood that or not. In actual fact, what we see know in this sad, dying industry is a top-heavy boys club or MBAs as eager to fawn to a client's unreasonable demands as they are to pass off responsibility, all while farming out 90% of the work to whatever freelancer is willing to work for less. If you're a copywriter, you HAVE to have experienced copy written by marginally literate secretaries used because the client didn't understand why they had to "pay for words." That's not stepping into the future. It's shabby. The dependence on webbies as designers has been a blessing for my freelance career. There are some great web designers out there, but realistically, the web is a very limited creative medium and web designers, usually with less than even 5 years of experience, are expected to apply their limited skills to everything from outdoor advertising to package design. After they reach the end of their rope, they call me, and it happens all the time. Look, any advertising needs a copywriter for the text, an art director for the visuals, and a management team who is wise and strong enough to know the client's best interests and to be able to say no as well as yes. Sure, agencies can continue to chisel corners off the process and pocket the difference, accede to clients demands and produce crappy products, and hire freelancers at the 11th hour to plug the leaks, but for how long?

craig (new york)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:53 pm

Sy the Cynic: so very well said!

craig (new york)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:51 pm

The core principles remain the same. The entire agency and all of its disciplines need to work together and always have to be effective. You can't expect one (or two) people to know every discipline inside out and upside down. More one and zeroes adding up to zero.

Sy the Cynic (New England)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:46 pm

NOW ENTERING THE DISCO ERA OF ADVERTISING Remember FM radio in the good old days? Playlists created by people who loved music rather than by bean counters? Commercial-free college stations? What was good for FM was good for music. Now FM is a wasteland strip-mined by corporate media conglomerates. Disco helped usher in the end of that era. Remember Disco? Polyester, synth drums, platform shoes? We all knew it was crap but it was more easily managed, peddled, and formularized by the corporate music biz than that pesky anti-establishment Rock and Roll, which created that biz in the first place. Remember the Internet? Before it was clogged with banners and popups? Before it was glorified junkmail and FSI's on a screen? In the near future, people will gladly pay their service providers a premium to have this so-called advertising blocked from their browsers. Remember advertising? When a campaign started with an idea and not a media plan? Before holding companies took over ad agencies? When creatives had offices and didn't sit six to a table? I anxiously wait for the New Wave, the Punk Rock, the Grunge of advertising to blow these holding companies away.

CGalli (chicago, IL)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:41 pm

Thanks, interesting article. Creative teams consist of as many parts as needed to give the client the integrated buzz they desire today. 2, 4, 8? The debate is over how to best get an idea, always has been. And then integrate it to all media. But lets stop the madness. It's, NOT how many people but, how much of what we do has an idea or is just an execution? And the debate rages on. The client says whatever works, works, but give me that social media and some twitter and throw in a website. And we are all too happy to accommodate them. Buzz baby buzz. We are searching for that exclusivity that only our agency can bring to the party. The "IT" thing you can only get here. Let's lay a foundation with an idea then build off that. A traditional, logical approach. Novel indeed but, in todays littered media landscape what stands out? A strong idea, more than an execution? I am beginning to believe execution is winning in our attention overloaded society. Idea, execution, cool if you could have both, right? There in lies the rub, and the hard work of what we do. How many and what we call ourselves in the process, 2,4,8 not relevant. As we rush to embrace the new buzz jargon we should be careful not to jettison our traditional core principle. Ideas sell. C

Powers (Los Angeles)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:36 pm

My remarks are in a recent PDF of mine. How do I send it to you? Thanks -- Alfred Powers Los Angeles

Patty Nolan (Detroit)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:24 pm

Sean, Have you been spying on me? Right there with you. After being a writer/CD and even Exec CD at an agency, I've found that "my" best ideas wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't had the right people in the room when we were first noodling them out. Now that I'm freelancing, it's interesting to see how other agencies and clients wrestle with the same issues. I loved being part of an agency creative team, but I'm seeing more creative ideas now than ever before. Best of luck, Patty

Peter McCarty (Chicago)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 1:24 pm

Sean, I'm happy for you and your agency to have conceived a path that works for your clients. And I'm impressed that the concept of such an undertaking was done by committee ("my partners and I"). That being said, I cannot disagree with you more about the principles of your argument. Instead, I side with the majority of respondents who realize talent and the resourcefulness of said talent, is the better path to innovative concepts and ideas. Concepts and ideas that are modified to fit the media they must serve. Not the other way around.

Hal Kaufman (Los Angeles)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:56 pm

Sean... To bastardize Marshal McLuhan.."The media is not the message"..Maybe it's the implementation of your philosophy/methodology that has resulted in so much "group think...every idea is a good/great one..truly unitelligible garbage" masquerading as advertising today. Succumb to the idea that creating mediocrity (or worse) that covers a broad spectrum is better than creating a truly innovative motivating message for a speicif medium(s) is a recipe for disaster! Bon Apetite!!

Michael Pitzer (Scottsdale)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:49 pm

Nothing fundamentally about the creative process has changed — only the tools we use to create our end product has to evolved due to "destructive technology". "Disruptive Technology" introduces new ways to accomplish tasks. "Destructive Technology" destroys everything that came before it. Rubber cement and wax vs. Spray mount. Typesetters vs. 1200 dpi personal laser printers. Color progs and films vs. pdf-X. The most famous examples are products like 8-track vs. cassette. Cassette vs. CD. CD vs. DVD. DVD vs. High-bandwidth Internet access. And so on. My point is this, regardless of what we create today, how we created it is no different than once having to create 10 different size print ads for 10 different size magazines. Each was reformatted to work the best it could in that media. The same applies to a creative concept today, only there are more, and more ways and medias to expose the creative to the targeted market. The trick has always remained, how do you do this and still make obscene amounts of profit and mark-up? The skill sets, the titles, the actual job functions of people in the ad business will continue to change to answer of fill the current needs of the agency/design firm/web company, etc. The one thing that will never happen in our lifetime is the creation of a piece of software that is able to generate concepts that perfectly answer the strategic brief coupled with the cost to execute within a client's budget. So move people around. Give them different titles. Advertising as we've known it is not dead. There are just lots more media environments for us all to master. And if we can not master them, outsource. The other thing I would recommend is locating your house near several nightclubs and bars. That way your young talent will work even later, or until happy hour starts.

Phil B. (Illinois)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:44 pm

Ryan from Minneapolis nailed it. It all starts with a concept. And strategy. The rest is just tactics. A good "two-person" creative team, however, has never been just two people. A GOOD AE is always very involved and a good Account Planner is a very welcome addition to creative brainstorming. Media types who realize, rightly so, that they, too, can be "creative," are also valuable. But the essence of a great, memorable and powerful advertising communication - that "killer line" and that awesome concept that expresses the idea - that's still best born of the "arcane" marriage of writer and art director.

Annie Oakley (Toronto)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:41 pm

Well Sean I couldn't disagree with you more. I am not advocating the return to the copywriter/art director "old days" of which I am also a product. I advocate what Barry is saying. Great creative is based on the people who are able to zig when all others zag. It isn't about a digital guru here, a planner there and nobody really taking responsibility for the ideas except the loudest voice. A great idea is able to be delivered in any medium. And as a creative person, you have to agree that there is a massive difference between a delivery system process and a creative idea. When push comes to shove, the idea should win out every time however great ideas are getting shoved to the background now in favor of "great tactical processes".... typical of the old "silver bullet" syndrome all agencies and clients are always looking for, which hasn't seemed to change in all these years. Then agencies wonder why they are floundering.

Jojo (Los Angeles)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:30 pm

Copywriter here. I've never been shy to work with media people to get their input in technical and even creative terms. I walked up to them and asked "Can we do this?" when I tried something new. The question doesn't change applied to a traditional billboard, to a holographic app or to integrate a soda in a video game. I don't see any difference in terms of thinking. If you do, you're out of the game.

Tony Lauher (Charlotte NC)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:29 pm

I agree with Aaron, it's not anything akin to "kissing the creative team goodbye," but rather welcoming others into the creative mix. In today's environment, copywriters and art directors, while the overall weight of their responsibility may be lessening, are still at the forefront of where the great ideas are. The fact that these ideas are not limited to print or broadcast just forces us to tap into different talent sources. Those with the skills and wherewithal to succeed will. And there will always be creative teams, just maybe not in the old cw/ad model.

Dacky (Orlando)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:20 pm

Don’t forget to add the Legal Compliance Department to the mix. Because like it or not, they are watching with erasers in hand.

golgo13 (ny)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:14 pm

My bank account and I must completely disagree with you. As part of a creative team. Ive been in more demand than ever. And Im not doing print. Lots of mobile, film, online video, etc. The "tech people" are the equivalent of the print production department of Sean's day. As long as good, strategic ideas that advance the client's goals are being done, the media does not matter.

Ms. M (New York City)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:09 pm

This is supposed to be news? The creative team died about 20 years ago.

Kevin Simcock (Vancouver)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 12:03 pm

It not so much that we are saying good-bye to the traditional team as we are saying good-bye to the teams traditional skill set. Today creatives need to embrace all facets of execution in online, SMM, and traditional forms. As a copywriter who turned CD and now an agency owner I took the necessary steps to learn the new methods of advertising. It has helped me immensely to understand how to approach and utilize them to greater capacity. I truly feel that even with the advent of these new channels that we use to connect and engage consumers with, the key element that still and will always be king is the idea. Regardless of how we choose to execute, socially, digitally or traditionally there must be a compelling idea that gives people reason to engage. That's the foundation of my agency and a philosophy the vast majority of industry veterans will contest to. So to a traditional team I would say don't come up with a print ad idea come up with an idea that can go beyond print. Don't come up with a TV idea come up with an idea that can be used in other places besides TV. It's not kiss your creative teams good-bye it's kiss your traditional way of thinking good-bye. But that is merely stating the obvious. If you're an agency and you're just coming to this conclusion now you're about a year or two behind the rest of us. Good luck.

marklaporta (New York, NY)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:55 am

Sure, add more people to the team. Copy and Art Creatives always benefit from more input. But don't make the mistake of equating technical advice with true creative development. A strategist or IA expert can have a germ of a creative idea, but the authority to decide whether or how to implement it has to remain with people who have the talent, training and experience to make that decision. Otherwise, the creative process degenerates into a box-checking ceremony, tracked by a flow chart and mass produced like so many donuts. No campaign anyone can remember was produced that way. Further, if Strategy, IA and Social Media, etc. are added to the team, they still need to report to the Executive Creative Director, not Account--or the Business Manager. Creative is a separate discipline. If you undermine that, your work will lose dimension across the board. You'll only produce what aligns with current theory. Consumers don't give a fig about your theory, however. They want to be moved, motivated, to get excited about the brand. You can only accomplish that with creative vision, not by committee.

ryan (minneapolis)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:51 am

This assault on the 2-person creative team is really becoming annoying. When will guys like Sean realize that the media an execution shows up in is not THE IDEA. The idea is the idea. Here we go again. Two smart, talented creatives can take a business problem and develop an idea that addresses / solves it better than any other number. Then that idea can be executed appropriately in all the media. So simple, yet guys like Sean are always ringing the death knell of traditional creatives when what they should be announcing is the death of campaigns and executions that don't have an idea; an all too common occurrence as of late. The idea is key. I have yet to see a team of 4 people come up with a good one. In practice, this just complicates things. That said, I have seen a team of 4 take an idea and develop it in their discipline, expand on it, make it better. This works great...when there is already an idea.

Stephen Etzine (Area Man)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:49 am

I think Duffy makes an excellent point, as do some of the commenters. I don't have a clear idea of how he works, but I get the sense that the operation is driven by creative principals with high regard for creative principles.

Dena (New York, NY)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:43 am

Advertising is a dessert wasteland for real talent. It's all been done, and all the "creative teams" I've experienced are just rehashes of done-to-death hack that is churned out in every tired agency there is--and there's way too much of it. How much can you be bombarded with words and images, words and images before your brain shuts down? Let's face it, this business is bottom-lined to death by the clients--most of whom wouldn't know or appreciate real creativity if it bit them in their collective ass.

Marc (New York, NY)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:34 am

Kiss your creative team goodbye is a great title for an article but its not a great practice. Requiring clear leadership at a creative level by asking more from your CDs is fundamental. Not allowing a CD to atrophy in their technical knowledge and get bogged down in emails and spreadsheets is key to a successful creative team. A renaissance Creative is absolutely necessary - may I suggest also looking into the writings of Scott Brinker and his concept of a Marketing Technologist: http://bit.ly/axQsvP

Kassandra (Los Angeles)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:31 am

I guess this is good news for some. Myself included, I'm 22, fresh out of college, and somehow got caught up in web design because of my technical and artistic abilities. My love for advertising was discovered from an early age, but out of ignorance and fear, I pursued a bachelor's degree in a University (and did not go to an art school). Now I'm taking classes trying to build a strong book to later apply to an agency. It's tough though, because as you point out, the landscape is changing. The more I read though, the more I decide an emphasis on social media and interactivity is required. Which I guess puts me ahead of the curve, being able to understand a lot of the coding language myself. I just wonder, how far out is too much for current art directors to see? Should I aim at including interactivity into all of my book campaigns? Thanks for this article - it really invites me to not be afraid of trying new things and breaking away from the traditions taught in a lot of institutions.

BC	on 20 Apr 2010 at 11:17 am

"About ﬁve years ago my partners and I concluded that developments in the digital world (speciﬁcally social media..." Wow, you must be some kind of genius to have targeted social media five years ago. Everything else in the article is good, but let's not get ridiculous here.

Barry comer (Louisville)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 10:01 am

Well said "blah blah"

Aaron C (Kansas city)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 10:00 am

I'm with you Sean. I get it. But it's not necessarily getting rid of the creative department, it's just opening them up to different disciplines.

Blah Blah (Sodom)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 9:28 am

Given that this business would rather gouge their eyes out with hot pokers than nurture, recruit, and compensate talent, it's not surprising we keep hearing talent diminished and process elevated. The talentless scabs and leeches that inundate this business love their titles and their processes. But when it comes down to it, talent is all that matters. Being a creative that doesn't know interactive is like being an ae who can't write a creative brief (of which there are hundreds, unfortunately) If your top creative team only knows how to make tv spots, you need to either demand they raise the bar or replace them. Being a one-hit wonder is not talent, even if they're your best friend and they've been with the company for ten years. I am a classically-trained copywriter, but because I am passionate and resourceful, I can approach things from the integrated perspective you describe. And I've never had the luxury of working with social media gurus, or seo experts, ir interactive specialists, or anything like that. What we need are talented people who know what is great, who can produce, and who have passion. I couldn't care less what their titles are. Give me that, and all this other stuff will come about.

barry comer (Louisville Kentucky)	on 20 Apr 2010 at 8:12 am

Dear Sean, I appreciate your willingness to expand the creative team and must assume everyone is of equal or willing talent. The same solution was applied in my former workplace with disastrous results. Not all talent is created equal and not all experience is quality. There must always be a leader to help distill the ideas and toward a coherent way forward. In our case, the leader deferred to the loudest and most self-assured voice. It was a recipe that and still dilutes the creative tempo. The personality weighs heavier than the better solution for the project. In my case, the leader was intelligent but not very wise or experienced. The solutions and results became "his" vision based on a "degree" of experience. In this case, the louder voice won, defeating before starting an honest discussion. My congratulations to your group. Obviously you command respect and have the measurable experience. Plus you are the owner. Thank you for this article. It reminds me how happy I am to be de-partnered from my previous experience. Thank you for impressing a solution that works for you.

About the Author
Sean Duffy

Sean Duffy spent 18 years with ad agencies in Boston, San Francisco, Copenhagen and Stockholm before founding The Duffy Agency in 2001. Sean is president of TAAN Europe and a regular
guest lecturer at the Lund University School of Economics. He is also a blogger, Twitterer and is on LinkedIn.

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