Jess Wheeler: Sometimes, our job is to get out of the way. And why ideas are a bit like eggs.
In his latest blog post on Death to Shit Ads, Jess Wheeler, Creative Director at SICKDOGWOLFMAN, compares nurturing an idea to a childhood exercise where kids were tasked with keeping an egg intact. From conception to execution, creatives are the ones left “holding the egg,” defending it from an onslaught of feedback, revisions, and roadblocks. But sometimes, the best thing you can do to protect an idea? Get out of the way…
I dunno if every kid did this, but when I was in primary school it was a common ‘parenting exercise’ to give a group of kids an egg to ‘keep alive’ for a period of time. Funnily enough, looking back, I probably see less parallels now as a father raising two kids than I do as a Creative Director looking after ideas.
Babies, despite essentially being potatoes with arms and legs, are pretty resilient and malleable. But ideas, ideas are incredibly fragile. The longer they have to travel, the more hands they pass through, the more fingers that poke at them, the more bumps in the road they weather, the more likely they are to break. And as much as ‘ideas can come from anywhere’ is a modern catch cry of the marketing business, only creatives really know what’s required to keep an idea alive.
Sometimes a client might ‘send through an idea of their own’. Sometimes a strategist might ‘throw a few thought starters in the brief’. Sometimes an accounts person might come up with a ‘suit idea’ in the brainstorm. But after that, they walk out of the room. And even if one of these ideas end up sticking – only one person gets left holding the egg. The creatives.
Now I’m not being disparaging here, it absolutely takes a village to keep an idea alive, but what I am saying is that creatives are the ones who have to carry the egg throughout the entire process. From concepting, to stress testing, to executing, to presenting, to presenting up the line, to presenting up the line again, to presenting to global/hold co, to research, to media, to production, to post and so on and so on and so on. No one else is there from incubating to hatching. (I’m really stuck with this bloody egg metaphor now, aren’t I?)
Whenever a really good idea makes it through one of the early stages, say the initial presentation, some of the people on the periphery of ‘ideas’ begin to celebrate. But a seasoned creative always has the same feeling. ‘God, somehow we have to keep this thing alive now.’
And that’s because until we see the damn thing on a TV screen or a billboard or a phone – we know it’s on death’s door. Every day from this point forth, our life will be spent protecting and defending this idea from being poked, prodded, kicked and ending up visibly damaged or extinguished entirely. (Sometimes, I don’t know what’s worse, tbh.)
And, over the years, especially as a Creative Director, I’ve come to realise that sometimes the best thing you can do – is get out of the way.
In many cases, it’s what everyone needs to do. We all get in the way sometimes. Agencies can get in the way of their own work. Production companies and directors can get in the way of their own work. Media and research agencies can get in the way of their own work. And, yes, marketers, you too can get in the way of your own work. Often, it’s with the purest and most positive intentions – but we’re all guilty of it.
Rather than leave their fingerprints on everything at every opportunity, the best operators I’ve seen in this business in any aforementioned touchpoint are ‘path clearers’. They look ahead, far down the road, for anything and everything that might get in the way of the idea and begin moving shit out of the way. Stakeholders. Media plans. Research. CEOs. Budget constraints. They strap themselves to the front of the idea, teeth bared, knuckles white, prepared to bulldoze through any obstacles that might get in the way. Continue reading on Death to shit ads…
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