Tuesday, September 6, 2011

A subject-object split.

If an alien creature were to fly down from the heavens and if it were alien enough to read advertising blogs, that creature would conclude an oxymoron.

That is, the best people, the most creative people, the smartest, kindest people in advertising are not the people who actually make advertising, they're the people who comment on it.

You see, everyone who does work sucks and everyone who doesn't actually make anything could have done light years better.

This attitude is endemic.

I've been working in the industry 27 years come December and I guess you could say I've enjoyed a fair amount of success. But the fact of the matter is this, I know that in any agency worth its ampersand, there are scores of creatives who are better than I am.

They know film techniques I can hardly fathom.
They think of ideas that would never occur to me.
They know the latest this and the latest that.

The trouble with them is simple however.
They don't know how to do the grievously hard work of shepherding the work.
They don't know how to make things accessible to clients.
They don't know how to challenge clients and win them over.

While they are creating castles in the sky, beautiful and elegant but ephemeral or un-sellable, I am doing what I do.

Facing the world with a dose of pragmatism.

And selling work that clients spend money on and agencies make money on.

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