Creative vs. Conservative

Based on the above anecdote, one might say that creativity can be very risky, but remember that any process completed without careful study of all the facts will almost always fail.

The question here is if clients are better served by “edgier” advertising. My answer would be an emphatic “yes, but with discipline.” If we had more creative ads executed with more discipline, agencies and clients would both be better off. This would be true even if the sociological and technological landscape of advertising had not changed so dramatically in the ’90s. It’s all the more important if we are to stay ahead of the curve for the next wave of changes, which are just around the corner.

The fact that ad agencies and clients can seldom agree on what constitutes “creative risk” makes this more complicated. The definition of “high risk” by the respective parties is often reversed by 180 degrees. Agency creatives would say that a too conservative campaign would submerge in the swamp of other mediocre advertising. Clients might say a campaign that is too outrageous will make them look foolish or flighty.

In fact, there is truth in both viewpoints. The only way to execute effective advertising is to develop a dialogue where the agency and client actually listen to each other. There is no simple solution to this “Republican versus Democrat” dichotomy, but a little mutual listening (and discipline by both parties) may actually produce some surprises for getting on the same page. Any campaign that gets approved as a result of creative capitulation over the issue of risk by either the agency or client is doomed to failure.