Are Creative Directors Boring?

Russell Davies put up a blog post asking this very question.

"I'm sitting in the conference, a bunch of creative directors making the same speeches that creative directors have made since the dawn of time. Make it simpler. Help us sell the work. Tell me about the audience. And they all claim to be anti-process, but it's very clear that there are deeply rigid processes embedded in their status assumptions. Creatives are in charge. Planners aren't supposed to have ideas, just create space to have ideas. Clients are supposed to pay for it."

I love the fact that he's brave enough to say something like this. He's not a mean guy so it was probably more rhetorical musings than outright criticism. There are certainly a lot of comments and he refers to it ruefully at his Miami coffee meeting.

Talks at conferences usually cover the same old things.

The really fun speeches are when someone tells a story, with villains and good guys and timing pressures and failures dotted along the path to enlightenment. That's why it's always fun to hear stories about ethnography. I've got a few myself. Did I tell you about the time I took people on day trips to France? Or the interesting way some girls eat confectionery in the home? How about filming on the backs beside Kings? Another day perhaps.