Creative teams of the future
Posted: July 8th, 2009 | Author: Sermad | Filed under: Advertising | View CommentsTaking white kids from middle class families and putting them on briefs – advertising to kids from the inner city is a bit absurd. Yet that is pretty much the state of the advertising industry and it needs to change. Not just changing the racial mix in agencies but changing the type of people that make up those agencies – can we blow apart the two team art director/copywriter model? Can we bring diversity of all sorts into advertising?
These are really big industry wide questions that are not going to be solved overnight – but I’m really interested that Dan Wieden has put the point across and also that Platform has been created by W+K London to try and find new talent from all walks of life. Starting from September, upto 12 lucky people will work across real world communication problems and solve these with a whatever approach they think can work.
Architects could be clashing with poets – electronics tinkerers forming creative partnerships with sculptors – everyone hands on – learning by doing.
All of these inventive people around an agency could give it an edge in moving into new territories – Perhaps products could be evolved and produced, buildings designed and built – Businesses changed and flipped upside down from their core.
William Bernbach whom I believe was the first to combine art directors & copywriters said this -
A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.
So if we need to change the mix of the creative team so we can do things, then who needs to be in this team?
So to steal a quote from Big Spaceship -
“where putting the art director & copywriter together was the structure of the tv age, we put strategy, tech, design and production together.”
Designers, Writers, Coders, Tinkerers, Thinkers and Makers – This is the creative team of the future.
Image from TWT interactive from UVA.
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Agree with all that Sermad.
One point to note though.
With all this media fragmentation the actual arts of copywriting and art direction I feel have become more important again. Whereas a copywriter used to be able to rely on crude interruption, now they have to think of ways of actually engaging with people! That means they have to be good. And the same goes for art directors.
So while I agree whole heartedly with what you say about the changing dynamic of the creative team, the irony is this new media landscape means the skills of copywriting and art directing are more important and relevant than ever.
I couldn't agree more Ben – the art of storytelling has to run through the core and brilliant writing will be at the heart of it.
I just wanted to hammer home that writers and art directors can't cope in the new media landscape without help – embrace us and we'll make your life easier and better.