Client's feedback to creative.

I'm always trying to bring some light into our world of advertising, the creative process, brainstorms, creative presentations and ideas. It is an easy job, but it comes with lots of layers and shades of gray areas.

That's why I wanted to share with you this post I found at Life in the middle.

It offers good advise about one of the hardest part of the agency-client relationship: The creative feedback.

1. Prepare to see the work. What am I expecting to see? What are we trying to do? What will impress me?

2. Get in the mood to see the work - read the brief - remember what if feels like to have the problem fresh in your mind.

3. What's my instant emotional reaction - do I like it? Hate it? Am I surprised - why? Is it confusing? (It's not always a good idea to share these thoughts, but note them.)

4. What caused the reaction you had - is it 'what' the work is saying? Or, 'how' it's saying it?

5. Does the work contain a real brand idea that changes perception, as opposed to a nice advertising idea?

6. Never act like Simon Cowell. My job is not to say whether something is good or shit. But to say how right something is, and to find ways of expressing how to make it more right (if that's what it needs).

7. Feedback does not mean criticising. It means trying to understand and articulate why the things that are working are working, and why the things that are not are not. These are equally important.

8. Start macro when feeding back but go micro. As long as feedback is something the agency can action then all comments add to the intelligence around the problem,even the little things.

9. Post-rationalise. If something you didn't think was previously important or salient now looks like it might be. Try and understand why - strategy never ends.

10. Be aware of the self-serving bias and the confirmation bias - interpreting things in a way that confirm preconceptions, or meet your interests.

11. Always say thank you. Creative work is hard work.

What gets you in at W+K?

In an era of social networks and Linkedin, where people search for a job using twitter and social pressure, this 19 year old decided to do it the old fashion way: writing a reason for his cause.

Dear Weiden + Kennedy, I am a 19 year old, entrepreneurial/creative mind. I have between 2-3 groundbreaking business or creative ideas every single day, and to say the least, I do NOT have the capability to even keep track or implement them so; I started a business. I decided that If I were to ever become successful and impact the world greatly by undertaking huge and "impossible" projects I would need a very balanced, efficient, and productive degree of discipline. Sometimes discipline and creativity/randomness sit on opposite sides of the lunch hall; however, to combine them would I assume be as earth-shattering as balancing the ying and the yang of business. Behold, my mobile billboard business in Las Vegas, NV. However, I did not have enough money to start it to I decided to sell it first, and with the profits, start it (opposite to the quote "think with your hands, and then talk about it, not in reverse") Well I did it in reverse. I dressed up in a black and gold suite and tie, drove down to the Forum Shops in Las Vegas, NV (very wealthy shops) and started selling my ideas to the managers, converting them to my corporate sales people, and starting the damning corporate marketing man chase. I thought "wouldn't it be awesome if I had some clout, some pull, to just pitch these ideas,". So out of the few dozen I approached, and followed up over weeks and weeks, I ended up with about 4 hot prospective clients. I mean, one that is looking at buying a marketing package from me for $30,000 U.S. and very, very EXCITED to do so. So I have a feeling my ideas are golden, but I promised myself I would stay here until I make my business, my ad agency, my marketing consulting firm, which I named "Unique and Innovative PRO (Personal Relations Officer)"--a success. Well what does this have to do with you? Well I'm a young man, and I "stay stupid, stay foolish (steve jobs)" so I thought I would write this e-mail to someone who has done what I want to do in the advertising/marketing world. I found Weiden + Kennedy from watching everyone of your Nike MVPs videos, and found that you had internships/platform program. This is what is on my mind: Nike Factory in the forum shops needs strip advertising; I concepted a Giant Shoe on a platform truck that will drive up and down the strip with a sign in it promoting a weekly event with the local UNLV Basketball team, celebrity, athlete, or locally famous socialite, that would pull customers to Niketown to HAVE FUN. The place is built like a club and it could very well be a sales monster tool, all while the customer is not cheesed by old ad methods. So To Conclude, If you were to use me for my ideas and implementation and passion... If I were to use you as my clout vessel Your company, Your Ideas, Your advertisements would only progress, and companies that don't keep innovative, fail. (You DO, trust me I've seen your advertising). I would progress, and become the next YOU, to offer more and more people opportunities to create, and jobs for everyone helping them, and in turn bread for families all over the world. This is my calling, I am the global entrepreneur. And I love advertising, Can We Team Up? What do YOU propose?

He was hired on the spot.

Leo Burnett would be proud

For a few years Leo Burnett has put together a reel of work it expects to win at Cannes.



Lots and lots of great work. Great ideas executed brilliantly in most cases.

I really was caught by surprise by the Skittles ad and Scooter.

The winner at Cannes?

Go on Lad.

Take my name off the door

Leo Burnett the man, no the agency.

He delivers a smart and inspiring speech, as relevant today as it was emotional back then.



"When you lose the respect for the lonely man. When you forget that the lonely man is who is making Leo Burnett possible, allowing us to reach for the stars, that day you can take my name off the door"

Do you have it?

"it" is an amazing word.

It means everything and nothing. The difference between success and failure. Between accomplishment and defeat. And in my case, the difference between getting a job and not getting it.

When I was a younger version of myself and looking for a job in advertising I got a 3 month "trial" period at an agency in Dallas. I really liked the agency and the people and the things they stood for (true creativity and real thinking outside the box) so I desperately wanted to come on board.

After 2 months of brainstorming for every account they had, staying late, learning everything there was to learned about the business and the people, I was called to the Creative Director's office.

He has a brilliant creative, with the ability to make something happen out of any small idea you brought up to his attention. I admired him and I wanted to get a good report on my performance, so I walked in nervous and aware of the significance of the moment.

After a small talk about workload and common friends, he told me: Iñaki, we decide to bring you in full time. People like you, you work hard and you have potential to be a great creative. You know? you get it. Some people get it and some people don't. But you get it.

Wow, I thought. I get IT. I really had no idea of what that meant. "IT" whatever it was, I understood it. Great.

The thing is, 'It' means so much. It has taken me over 13 years to fully understand it, and I wanted to put it on paper for future generations to read it, process get it, use it and benefit form it.

In advertising and in creativity "it" means the creative process, the fragility of ideas, the exploration as a mindset, the conceptual world, the world of concepts and the concept as a driver of executions.

It means that you know that you are not alone and that your creative partner is your life partner. That you know that it takes time to do magic, no tricks, no magic dust, no mirrors, just old fashioned hard work and sweat.

It means that Accounst services has a job to do and that it is a nasty job. That is not your job and that they need to do their job so you can do yours. And you get this and expect them to get it too.

It means that clients are a mess, and unfair and hard and they don't get it. But they can afford not to get it because they are the client and the pay the bills, and the y don't care about creativity.

It means that you understand passions and egos and discussions and conversations and heated arguments and blown up talks and soft points.

"it" also means that you respect the process, the traffic department, conference reports, briefs and written directions. they are a pain but important and the lifeblood of an agency.

I didn't know I had all this in me, but my boss saw beyond and he hired me.

When we interview creatives I look for it. And I hope they have it.

It makes everything so much easier.

UPDATE:
I had been struggling to find an image that would compliment this post, but when I saw photographer Erin Hanson's site I knew I had found it.

This is a person who gets "it"

Design with purpose

I'm so happy I'm curious.

Without this father learned legacy I would have never clicked the 7 links I needed to follow to end up here: AN INTERVIEW WITH RALPH EGGLESTON, Production designer on Pixar's WALL-E.

I didn't know of course that Ralph Eggleston joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1992 where he served as Art Director of their first feature film Toy Story. Afterwards, Eggleston helped develop the treatment and screenplay for Monster’s, Inc. and went on to write, design and direct their 2002 Academy Award®-winning animated short For the Birds. In the role of Production Designer he helped envision the undersea world of Finding Nemo and was Brad Bird’s choice for Art Director on his Academy Award®-winning animated film The Incredibles. Before coming to Pixar, Eggleston’s early work in animation included character animation for the Family Dog episode on the television series Amazing Stories.

Eggleston’s recent contribution for Pixar was as Production Designer for their cautionary tale Wall-E. Months after the film’s June 27th theatrical release, in October 2008 and January 2009, Eggleston discussed with me how he went about creating the futuristic environments for Wall-E.

The whole interview is worth your time considering he speaks about Pixar, the creative process and Wall•E. But these are some of my favorites.

In many ways Wall-E is a film about contrasts, not only from the point-of-view of its story, but also contrasts and contradictions within some of its design choices. The film opens with a portrait of a ruinous Earth inhabited by a diminutive robot. The second half of the film is contrasted by a high-end space resort full of overly-indulged humans.

As any of the great production designers would tell you, “Start from the character and then everything else will follow;” and it’s so true.

The script provided the most obvious jumping off points. Wall-E is a square whose only limitations beyond his imagination is what he can physically do. Eve was a circle (an oval, actually) who only did what she was programmed to do. Wall-E has a soul; Eve develops one.

Once the major design obstacles are laid out and agreed upon with the design staff and the director, I can jump back into the color script. Because we’ve done so much research and have begun understanding the world we’re creating, I can delegate to my crew a lot of what needs to get done. This allows me to get back in and focus on the emotional core of what we’re trying to say visually with color, value, and lighting, which usually takes me well into production.

Wall-E was the first time I’ve ever did it exclusively in Photoshop, digitally.

My creative process is “method painting.” I put myself in the place of the character and walk through the story. I’m trying to find colors that evoke an emotion based on everything I’ve absorbed up until that date, reading the story, hearing a pitch, research.

For inspiration for the movie we looked at the Mars Rover film and toured a cruise ship. We looked at Sea Lions for the blubber on the humans.

The key things to the design of Wall-E are his -- eyes, and the overall proportions of his body as it relates to his eyes. The first impression we wanted the audience to have is "child-like.” They were about to watch a whole feature starring a bucket of bolts; we needed to grab their hearts as fast as possible. We never wanted this to be a man in a robot outfit. I’ve seen many animated robots that were visually appealing, but I rarely believed in them, because they didn’t seem designed to do anything specific. Not so with Wall-E. He was designed by the Buy'N'Large Corporation to do one thing: crunch trash. Over the centuries of gathering trash, it seems he’s developed a soul and a personality.

Exactly, one of my goals on this film was to bleach out the whites. I wanted the audience to feel like they might need their sunglasses while they were watching the movie.

The three classes of the Axiom were delineated by shape, color, lighting, organization, and texture.

No, I don’t think so. I think it was the idea of the song and the contrast of the world you were seeing, the world of trash. So much of this film deals in contrasts and the song really grabs your attention quite well! Also, the director was in a High School production of Hello Dolly and had a soft spot in his heart for it. If anyone has video of this, I’d love to see it!

What advertising can learn from design.

For my entire career I've been an advertising creative. Driven by the dogma of creativity: The idea above all.

The truth is, I'm not sure any more.

I've always known that the ideas of the advertising creative had a purpose, and that purpose, to sell a product, could be achieved with clever and innovative creativity.

But I've seen and experienced lots of situations where we place the idea above the consumer, because we believe that the idea might be more important than the purpose itself.

After watching this video about IDEO and their creative process, I have to admit that we need to reconsider the value of an idea that doesn't deliver on it's purpose.



While design creatives mainly place purpose on function (does it work?), advertising creatives place it on the form. (is it creative?)

And while design finds a beautiful form for its functionality. Advertising is constantly trying to find functionality to its form.

We need to remind ourselves that the ideas we come up with, are design to be understood to provoke an action. Does it work? needs to find an answer in an action from the consumer, not with an award in your shelve.

When you achieve both, you have something worth talking about.

Creativity works better when engaging the brain to fill in the blanks. A mistery of sorts where our mind is engaged to figure out the message.
A big difference from a puzzle, where our brain is left without enough relevant information to get to the message.

I think that this is a big difference to keep in mind and a key point that changes the purpose of our creativity.

Ask yourself: Does it work? often enough and you'll find the right purpose to your idea.

Lots and lots of creatives are already doing this, resulting in great work that deliver amazing results for the brand and the consumer.

I just think that we need more purpose driven creative. More design thinking and less creative for the sake of being creative ideas.