1. AdLand > Creative Department > Creative Process
Hard & Fast Rules
To Live By
One of the many funny things about advertising is that
everyone seems to think their way of doing things is the
best. So they come up with rules, many of which I’ve noted
are contradictory.
So with that thought in mind, I’ve laid out some of my own
hard and fast rules for approaching the creative process…
2. Don’t be too critical of your work. If you do, you may never get
anything done.
Taken to the extreme, high standards can cause writer’s block.
So just start writing. Never mind that it’s absolute drivel.
The point is: you’re working on it. Once you get past the junk
ideas you’ll find the real gems.
Lower your standards.
3. Elevate your standards.
Don’t ever be easily pleased with your work.
In the hard light of day, it may well turn out to be ghastly.
But after you’re up and running, you’ll start to have a good pile of
ideas. Keep ‘em all.
Push those forward and you may have something. I call it: “The idea
before the idea”.
4. This had the potential to be a great ad. It’s just that the headline is
killing it. And the layout.
5. Own your work.
You’re passionate about your work, but you also have to sell it
through to your CD, account servicing, the marketing guys and
whoever else has a voice.
So present it internally and explain it with a good story people
can remember.
6. Don’t love your words or ideas – they don’t love you.
Detach yourself from your work and look at it with fresh eyes.
Don’t own your work.
Ever wanted to be Creative Director? You are, of your own work.
Great that you wonder what your CD would say about your
lines, but so much the better if you can look at them first and
know what he’d say, then amend them until he has nothing to
say except “well-done” or “ok good, send it out”.
8. Never stop writing.
Never stop writing.
Never stop writing.
There was one time I was teamed up with another writer (who
incidentally was also named Alex – Alex Dobrokronov) as a
copy/copy team in the StarHub unit of Batey.
Naturally, we did what any copy-copy team would do: we started
writing headlines. So I said “let’s each do 20 headlines and see
what we have”. The other Alex replied: “Why does it have to be 20?”
The difference between a junior and a senior writer is when they
stop writing. (One stops much sooner than the other.)
Extend, extend, extend. Once you get the ATL campaign and the TVCs,
go on to brochures, digital, social, mobile media, OOH, guerrilla,
ambient, events, stunts, SMS, and beyond.
9. Naturally, not everyone will be happy with your work. Which usually
means you’re doing something right.
10. Quit.
Yes, QUIT.
Quit while you’re ahead.
Once you’ve beat your horse till it’s dead, forget it.
Get lost. Go play some pool. Chat up the new receptionist.
Or just get out of the office for a long lunch with your art director.
Free your mind, but keep you pen and pad with you. Suddenly, when
you’re least expecting it, a new idea will come.
Taking the pressure off of your shoulders is the most liberating feeling
you can have, and this is where the real work begins.
11. Never trash anything.
The purpose of your weak ideas is to help you evolve past them
and unlock the lateral thoughts.
They’re also a record of where you’ve been, which means you
can always come back to them and maybe see something new
on a rainy Monday morning.
Never kill off anything.
12. Throw it all away
without a second thought.
Kill it all off. Start fresh. The Empty Box is a liberating place to live in.
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14. Always, always
follow the brief.
The bloody brief is there for a reason. The first reason is to give
you a job to work on, so be thankful for that.
The second reason it’s there is because the client or agency has a
problem they need to address. Whether the brief is horrible or not
doesn’t matter. You have to get to the bottom of the fundamental
goals of the job.
A lot of times the answer to that won’t be in the brief, but the suit
knows the answer. So figure it out, because when you do you can
then respond with work that never occurred to them.
I’ve noticed that ironically, the answer is sometimes so obvious
a solution that no one even saw it… or maybe they simply didn’t
ask the right questions.
15. Forget the brief.
Answer the brief; then forget it. I worked on a pitch once where there
were three creative teams.
We all started from the same place. The job called for local insights in
relation to a local beer brand (okay, it was Tiger), and two of the
teams were ‘local’.
The third team was foreign, so they just said, ‘well, we don’t know
anything about Singapore, so forget this brief’ and completely
ignored the whole job requirements. But their work was good and the
CDs didn’t hold it against them – although you can be sure we did.
16. Stick to your guns.
If you’ve done your research, explored all the paths you could
realistically examine, and done a bit more after that, then stick
to your position.
You know what you’ve created, and more importantly, why
you’ve done it.
You’re probably the only one who has been through this
creative process, so defend your work.
An ex-Ogilvy CD who’s frequently at Gem on Club Street told
me: “Present your work like you’re standing naked out in
the middle of the street.” You have to believe in it.
17. Compormise isn’t the
end of the world.
In about 2000, I worked with Anthony Redman at Batey Ads.
He said: “Compromise is a big fat stinking pile of shit”, or
something very close to that, and I wouldn’t ever disagree with him.
But sometimes it’s just easier to let the small jobs go, and it’s okay
to amend things slightly, if it doesn’t detract from the idea, to get
the job through. There’s no need to fight account servicing on every
minute detail.
Get it done. Have a beer. Go home.
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Alexander loves to follow all the rules, especially when they suit him.
