Glenn Dalton: ‘Thinking from home’ – We’ve been doing it for years
By Glenn Dalton, executive creative director, Hardhat.
What is it about having a shower and having an idea? Something in the water, or just some time to yourself?
With COVID-19 social distancing policies in full swing, and working from home the new norm, we’re now having to ask our kitchens, couches, bedrooms and balconies to step up and provide the same kind of creative inspiration our bathrooms have always given us.
Thing is, to those of us in advertising, this isn’t anything new – we’ve been ‘thinking from home’ for years; we just haven’t really timesheeted it.
After a day of ‘work’ there’s usually the evening of ‘thinking’.
A laptop on the kitchen bench, a notepad on the bedside table and phone full of half-thought voice ramblings are all par for the creative course. So too are the hundreds of ‘What-do-you-think-of-this’ dinner chats our poor partners have to role-play through.
Yep, home is where the idea is. And so it will be, even more so, for the next who knows how long?
As our clients navigate through unprecedented changes and adjust to a new crazy-normal, they have and will continue to call on us, their creative agencies for big ideas to help get them through. And while we can’t be there with them, we will be there for them – in our creative cocoons we call home. Thinking. Solving.
Sure we might be a bit blurry on Zoom, or drop out on a Google Hangouts. We may have a dog on our laps or a kid tugging at our legs, but we’ll be there trying the best we can to help out in every way possible.
To all the agencies working on challenging briefs right now – all the best. May you crack some huge ideas. And I’m not talking about the award-winning ones, I’m talking about the more important ones: the job-keeping, economy-ticking, even life-saving ones the world needs right now.
See you in the shower.
16 Comments
Nice GD. Hope you and the other Hardhatter are holding up okay.
Thanks for this Glenn. Love the sentiment at the end too. Well the bit just before the end.
Point taken GD but,
Lets just for the moment exit this slightly self obsessive bubble we all live in. What we do is NOT important. We just sell goods and services to people they , for the most part, dont need.
If anything, sit at home, do your work and take time in the shower to ask yourselves . . . is there a better way to help the community?
That is the take home from this event.
Lets all get some perspective and realise we are unimportant. Thinking about the next great pitch is obsolete right now…wake up everyone.
Consumption based Advertising is unimportant,
ECD on the Balcony
As a supermarket client I can see you’ve totally missed the point. It’s not about ads, it’s also about acts. And we rely heavily on our agency partners for ideas that communicate beyond a 30 sec product and price slot. Plus any great idea communicates through the line into community support and beyond, even supporting our team member network. Especially when our customers need us so badly at this point. Good stuff, GD.
You lost me at ‘ I’m a supermarket client’
There’s plenty of other ways to get food .
Are you the same client that pedals useless plastic shit to our children?
You sound like a fun person.
Spot on GD
So very true.
So true! I do all my best thinking on my bike, it’s the only really time I have with no distractions (other than not being run over!)
Love the sentiment, but how many clients are asking for ideas to be solved at the moment? Big or small?
Is it possible to solve an idea? Maybe you need a bath, not a shower?
Clients are asking agencies for many things right now: support, understanding, strategic thinking and creative ideas to get through this crisis. They’re reviewing tone of voice and media schedules, reducing things like outdoor spend and looking into radio. They’re moving planed outdoor events online, and they’re planing for more positive brand activity when the recovery starts.
If your clients aren’t asking your agency these questions, maybe you should be asking yourself, why not?
next up…..clients ask for cheaper productions and rates. yay back 2008
… shame that many agencies these days think you’ve got to be tied to your desk, not thinking of great ideas but making ‘decks’. For fuck’s sake, suits are meant to be the salespeople in our business.
It’s not just ad folk. Professionals in every discipline have been getting work done from home for years. We’re ideas people sure, which is kind of sexy in some superficial sense. But we’re not unique when it comes to out-of-office inspiration being scrawled down on the back of an envelope. Lawyers craft arguments. Radiologists report on scans. Accounts figure out how to restructure a family trust so someone can afford a Tesla. It’s great to read an article like this because it’s warm and reassuring. But honestly, creative professionals rely on face-to-face collaboration more than most other professionals. So while we’ll be fine cracking briefs at the crack of dawn, there’s still gonna be a lot of adjustment. But I’m with you GD, we’re trained for this.
Pity you took a bit of flack for your post. It’s a goody well intentioned and written.