What do the clients mean when they ask for ‘creative work?’
I remember a client telling me that she required us to produce creative work. I had just been appointed to an agency in South-East Asia having spent the previous 12 years working in Australia and I was eager to make a good impression with the marketing department of one of our largest clients. I politely asked if she would be so good as to explain what she meant by the phrase ‘creative work?’ I’m sure she was immediately convinced that I must be stupid, because shouldn’t a creative person know the answer to this obvious question? I assured her that I just wanted to clarify definitions, given that I had just arrived in the country. Her answer was a classic. She said, “You know the campaign and promotion for our ‘competitor’ that ran last month? Well, I want something like that, not the same of course, you’ll need to come up with your own ideas, you know, add a twist or something and change the colours.”
Many people just can’t see what all the fuss is about. Being creative is easy. Just find an idea and then change it a bit. Of course this is copying and it’s exactly the kind of simplistic thinking that Edward De Bono denounces when he writes that, “Everyone knows that instant judgment is the enemy of creativity.” Executives who think like this regularly preside over the execution of creative work and they need to be treated with the greatest respect for the difficulties that they pose. Some of them will never accept an idea that they didn’t think of themselves and pass on to you to produce. This is where creative leaders have to manage the client relationship. I suggest that you develop the client’s suggestions the best way that you can and at the same time research your own solutions to the brief. Sometimes you will be pleasantly surprised that the executive’s ego will allow another idea to see the light of day.
Others engage a creative agency or design group, knowing that they can’t design the work themselves, but they have a remarkably narrow view of what the design process can achieve. Once more the creative leadership needs to skillfully suggest the opportunities that may be available to the client. Clients are often risk averse and they think that their target audience and the community in general share this point of view, but of course the public will only react to what they’re given and they, like all of us, love to be surprised. Clients, when they’re briefing you, seldom think like this, but I believe they would like to. Remember Steve Jobs insight that, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” This isn’t creative arrogance. It’s the truth that design makes new connections and shows the world new things. Or as Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” I’m not saying that we shouldn’t listen to our clients and their customers: I’m advocating that we should not forget the cause we serve.