Idealism

A former colleague and friend wrote a thought provoking piece on advertising and how we don’t always seem to get what we thought we would get when we joined the business.  Mommy! They won’t give me a big campaign!

After writing this comment to his piece January 14, 2011 1:56 AM , I got to thinking that maybe that may come off as sounding idealistic and possibly unrealistic. Then I thought “hang on a minute, isn’t that what we are paid for?”

Aren’t we paid to be dreamers and visionaries? To break new ground? To boldly go… blah, blah, blah? Isn’t it our job to overturn convention? To challenge the existing order? To confront deeply ingrained beliefs and turn them on their heads?

We are the ladies and gentlemen of magic and madness. We think the “unthinkable.” We do what the ubiquitous “they” said couldn’t be done. To paraphrase the legend, David Ogilvy, we don’t bunt, we aim out of the ballpark. Out there into the “company of immortals.”

So why is there this pervasive fear of doing good work? Yes, fear. That can be the only reason why a perfectly capable mind would sit around all day doing type changes and not spend some time thinking up astounding work.

I could call it laziness, but I won’t because the same creative is bemoaning their lack of opportunity and boredom, so they clearly think they can (and should) be doing better work, and yet, they are not.

I suggest (and this suggestion is hardly original), that we break out of expecting “good” briefs or “good” projects to fall into our laps. If there is nothing interesting to do, go do something interesting yourself. Pick your favorite watering hole and do a spec ad for them. Consult with the people on your team on how you can improve the copy. Tell your creative director what you are working on and ask him for help. Prostitute yourself to a photographer until he agrees to do the shoot for free (or beers, or weed, or whatever). Get your sister and her friends to be the models. Art-direct the fucker to death until you have something you can be proud of.

And then, put it in the bottom drawer and look for an opportunity to sell it. Tell your favorite Account Manager about the stunner you have made. Whip up a frenzy of enthusiasm with the media buyers. Promise the owner of the watering hole that it will cost him nothing to run the first insertion, but that if his business improves he should start thinking about a more permanent arrangement with your agency.

Now if the preceding two paragraphs make it seem like a lot of work, that’s because it is. And that, I think is why so many of us are afraid to make that commitment to great work that’s not included in your timesheets. Or to slave on something that may never see the business end of a printing press.

But here’s the thing; if you conquer the lizard brain and do it (because deep down you know it’s what you should be doing) you will know it was worth it, because you did something special. You did something you can be proud to put in your portfolio.

And then you can go back to the copy corrections on that brochure with a small smile on your face.

Me, idealistic? Hell yeah!

PS: A special thanks to my girlfriend who’s been nagging me to get back to writing. Yes, the lizard brain was bogging me down too. And a very special thanks to my friend and former colleague Teddy, who’s blog post yesterday got me thinking about this.

 

Advertisement