Adam Ferrier’s LIA Diary #1: From creatives to strategists – expanding the party in Vegas

Adam Ferrier, chief thinker and co-founder of Thinkerbell is representing Australia on the LIA Creative Strategy and Transformative Business Impact jury. Ferrier, along with many other New Zealand and Australian jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

Judging Day 0

My first (and only) boss in advertising, Mike Canturbury once said, when advising how to keep ‘creatives’ happy at work: “Give them a room with a view, allow them to come in late, and promise them level one of the rockstar lifestyle.”  I get it, ours is an industry full of trinkets and shiny things, aimed at ensuring we apply our creatively gifted minds to making ads vs anything else. However, as advertising evolves into everything and anything, the type of person that it takes to be ‘creative’ has changed too.

So now it’s not just the ‘creatives’ being offered level one of the rockstar lifestyle’. Flying into Vegas this week from all parts of the world will be judges with backgrounds in data science, strategists, PR professionals, film producers, media practitioners and so on. All here to crash (or expand) the ‘creatives’ party.

My point, for advertising to thrive, more people need to be invited to the party. People come into advertising to express their creative side, not sit next to a ‘creative’ person, or worse carry their bags.  Creativity takes many forms, and contributing to something creatively driven being put into the world requires a diverse range of skills.  All of that creativity needs to be recognised and rewarded and allow people to feel like it’s worth it.   Looking at the list of judges that diversity of skill is being recognised.

So heading into a week of multicultural, diverse conversation with some of the best advertising and brand thinking and tinking in the world feels like a luxury. To do it in Las Vegas feels like at least level one of the rockstar lifestyle.

To set the scene, judging starts tomorrow, we all stay at Encore @ Wynn (the top best in Vegas, named after the man who reinvented Las Vegas (and then got kicked out for dodgy dealings). There’s a bar in the casino called the East Bar where we unofficially meet, it’s next to an endless floor of gaming tables. Outside is the pool straight from a Palm Springs movie set.  The judging happens on oversized sofas in large casino styled conference rooms, and lunch is a lovely poolside buffet under a patio each day.  The rooms at The Wynn are as you’d expect only more opulent, gaudy and bigger.

If you get the chance to be a part of LIA or the Creative LIAisons, or to be a mentor in its year round mentorship program please do so.  If you get the opportunity to judge here, seize it. If you win at LIA you receive one of the most prestigious and undoubtedly most beautiful awards in advertising.