Creative See, Creative Bitch

As a freelance planner, over the last couple of years I've worked with a lot of great smalller agencies around town (ad/promo/design agencies). These guys tend to operate under the radar and are just focussed on doing a great job for their client and their clients brand. They don't get caught up in all the gossip and spear throwing that seems to proliferate in ad agency world.

Stuff like this.....

DDB's ad (Children See, Children Do) to address prevention of child abuse and the comments from creatives that follow it

I hope not too many clients read this kind of stuff, because it just doesn't look good. The bitchiness and random thoughts based on purely subjective opinions only appear to illustrate that the definition of a good ad will vary wildly according to the creative team working on it. Everyone's got a different opinion. So if it's a purely subjective opinion, then the Assistant Brand Manager can be just as right as anyone else in the room.

It's stuff like this that makes me think the ad industry is pretty bad at advertising itself. Confusing uber-flash web sites are another example.

The opportunity as I see it as that ad agencies need to take ownership of being the advertising experts. Take out as much random opinion as possible and back up major presentations with the reasons why a particular piece of creative will work. I understant the blog on Campaign Brief is not the vehicle for this, but I make my comment based on most creative work presented to me over 15 years.


Having said all that, am I any different to those opinion makers on Campaign Brief? Just because I've got a blog and some nice pictures on it, I'm still expressing my opinion when frankly it's none of my damn business.

So for the record, I think this ad is excellent. The message couldn't be clearer or executed any more powerfully. I'm pretty sure this would have delivered the brief spot on. See it once and it resonates.

And I don't even have kids. But I think I'm acting a bit more grown up around my cat.


DDB's "Children See, Children Do" TVC