Three timeless lessons in creativity from #ContagiousLive
Last week I headed down to Contagious’ latestshindig to see the old-school adman legend, DaveTrott talk about why modern advertising sucks and where thecreative community has gone wrong.
While clearly born and bred in the smoke-stained days of marketing’s past,Dave’s candid — dare I say blunt — opinions are a testament to the fact thatthe fundamentals of this job never really change. For all the social andtechnological advances we’ve seen, the thought processes that informed great marketingand ad campaigns 30 years ago are still just as effective today.
With this in mind, here are three timeless bits of advice from the man himself:
1. Creativity is about breaking therules
Steve Jobs once famously asked “why join the navy when you can become apirate?” According to Dave Trott it’s this pirate mentality that is lacking inso much of modern marketing.
Creativity is about more than just following a process or having the right job title. It’s about being disobedient, being stubborn and seeing how much you can get away with. No truly great, original idea was embraced with open arms, and many potentially good ones get sanded down and sanitised until the end result is barely recognisable. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing then you’ve probably joined the navy. If you’re not doing what you’re told then, congratulations, it’s the pirate’s life for you.
2. Honesty earns attention
When it comes to creating a great campaign, Trott’s advice is simple — be ridiculously honest.
Marketing has become obsessed with window dressing. With piling on more objectives, more buzzwords, more messaging and more artistic license until nobody knows what they’re selling or what they’re trying to say.
Marketers need to be honest. Honest with thepublic, honest with their clients and, most importantly, honest withthemselves. Buzzwords and meaningless strategising all sound great on aPowerPoint slide, but when it comes to creating an effective campaign, straight-talkinghonesty is typically the best way to go. If you sell cars, say you sell carsand then tell people why your car is the best on the market. Don’t tell peopleyou sell a disruptive quadricycle transport experience, as they’ll probably comeback with “No thanks. I was hoping to buy a car.”
3. Form follows function
I think it’s fair to say that Dave Trott isnot a big fan of awards. Too many of today’s advertising, marketing and PRfirms spend a fortune developing beautiful, artistic, award-winning creativecampaigns, but with very little real impact on the business’ bottom line. AsDave Trott puts it, we have a whole generation of marketers who “won’t letsomething like the product name spoil their piece of art.”
In overcoming this mentality, Dave has aclear mantra: Form follows function.
It’s all well and good creating a beautiful,creative campaign, but if it doesn’t meet your objectives or impact the bottomline, then it’s already failed as a piece of marketing. Function must comefirst. As Dave himself says: “You want something that’s both liked and thatworks. But if you can only have one of the two… go with what works.”