I hear people complaining that there are no opportunities.
That no one will give them a chance.
That there’s no way out of their situation.
There’s nothing they can do and it’s not their fault.
Here’s a thing.
There have never been any opportunities.
No one was ever feeling sorry for themselves, when someone knocked on the door and said, “How would you like me to show you a way out of this?”
It doesn’t happen like that.
Never has, never will.
That’s like sitting around waiting to win the lottery.
It’s about hope.
And hope is putting the problem in someone else’s hands.
Hope isn’t very creative.
Robert Campbell and Mark Roalfe were a young creative team.
They had a job at an agency they weren’t happy at.
They wanted something better.
So what could they do?
Either leave the job, and the money, and take a big chance.
Then if they can’t get a job, wish they’d never left.
Or stay where they are, and hope someone knocks on the door with a better job offer.
Neither of those were good options.
So because they were creative, they created another option.
They pretended they were students and got Andrew Cracknel, then creative director of WCRS, to offer them a two week placement.
Then they took two weeks holiday from their job and, instead of going away, went to WCRS.
After the two week placement they reckoned they’d either have a job at WCRS, or at least still have their old job to fall back on.
How creative is that?
And how many people would have thought of it?
But that’s what really creative people do.
Come up with an answer where everyone else says there isn’t one.
They were so determined, they got the job at WCRS after two weeks.
Then they eventually went on to open their own agency.
It was called Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe, and they eventually sold it for a fortune to Y&R.
Instead of sitting in the old job moaning that no one gave them any opportunities.
Mike Stephenson and Derek Apse were a young team at BMP.
Absolutely all creative work at BMP was researched.
Scripts were made into crude animatics to show to groups of housewives.
These animatics were done on the cheap.
So a lot of good scripts never made it through research.
Creative teams sat around and grumbled about how many good ideas they lost this way.
An atmosphere of negativity set in.
People stopped trying so hard because they knew they’d lose their best stuff in research.
This didn’t make any sense to Mike and Derek.
They thought they should put the absolute maximum effort into making the animatics as good as possible.
That way, even if the script didn’t get made, they’d have a great little film for their reel.
And that’s what they did.
Absolutely every animatic they made was done with amost as much care and effort as a real commercial.
Little films that you could almost have run on TV.
They had such a great little reel, they used it to get a job at Lowe.
An agency where everything didn’t get researched.
And they used everything they learned making animatics to get a lot of really good scripts made.
And eventually one of them became a creative director, and the other a film director.
Instead of sitting around like everyone else and grumbling about losing their best scripts to research.
They saw an opportunity where no one else could.
By turning a problem into an opportunity.
Opportunities aren’t going to crop up.
You have to create them.
That’s what being creative is.
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So true Dave. And there’s a great opportunity at 1minutetosavetheworld.com to do a 60” second film about climate change for anyone who’s interested. Come on everyone - this is your chance to save the world!
Great piece of writing and very interesting ideas. Certainly true that the best changes are sometimes the hardest to make but can be hugely beneficial (and exciting). If good things come to those who wait, the best things come to those who are creative and determined. And ready to take a few knocks along the way. Thanks, Dave!
Thanks Dave.
Something to cheer us all up.
Dave, I disagree that not many people would have thought of taking a holiday from their job to do a placement elsewhere. I’ve heard it mentioned as an option many times.
The problem is, most contracts these days have clauses that would rule it out. You can ignore that, but you run the risk of being fired for breaking your contract (and everyone seems to know everyone else, so it’s not that unlikely you’d be found out).
Also, two-week placements aren’t like they used to be. I haven’t heard of anyone getting a job from one. The teams I know who’ve got jobs from placements were there for months and months and months unpaid, with no guarantees or reassurances, and just got lucky. But you can’t do that while you’ve got another job, can you?
I agree. I would like to become a planner, but junior planner roles don´t abound. What do I do? I get myself a little book full of strategies and ask planners for advice on how to improve them (similar to creative book crits). The recruiting system may not be perfect, but it´s up to us to shape it.
i totally agree with the topic.
and i take the same attitude towards research as the second example.
the first example however is disgusting behaviour.
it shows complete disrespect to the people they worked with and themselves for that matter.
if you’re reading this as a junior team. don’t follow this example as good advice for the team that wants to move on.
it isn’t.
you’ll get found out.
and one day you’ll get bitten.
All you have to do is “focus on turning intelligence into magic”.
(the most charming ad man ever born)
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-68.html
Sol, there’s no such thing as a junior planner. If you want to switch disciplines into planning, the key is to become part-planner in your current role. So if you’re a creative, start taking an interest in research (go to the focus groups, work with the planner on the testing questions, feed into the methodologies) and the wider communication strategy.
Planning is something good, experienced ad people do regardless of their discipline. Creative director, senior media planners and account managers all ‘plan’ when they try to put together a client solution that’s more than just ‘their bit’.
Often, you’ll find that small agency environments are more likely to offer you this opportunity. Everyone tends to be a little more multidisciplinary there than in the large, typically siloed, agency networks.
Hope that helps.
ignore him sol.
alot of the larger agencies have graduate and junior planning recruitment systems in place. where you’ll get a chance to learn about what the job entails. they look for enthusiastic and clever people. it’s hard to get in, as planners tend to be the sharpest tools in the box, but aptitude goes a long way.
surf through some agency websites and ping off some emails to planning directors.
that said, planning is the great invented job of advertising. be careful before you take the plunge. one day, we creatives will get our power back. ha, ha hahahahahahahahaha. (strokes cat)
HM, you’ve told us in detail why you CAN’T do the work experience blag to achieve that particular goal (despite the fact that Campbell and Roalfe did it). How about telling us (or, better still, demonstrating) what you CAN do…? There are always many reasons for not taking action towards a goal (you can’t, you mustn’t, it’s not allowed, it might not work etc etc). To my mind, the point of the post is that truly creative people ignore all of that and FIND A WAY. And if it doesn’t work, so what? In Beckett’s words, “EVER TRIED. EVER FAILED. NO MATTER. TRY AGAIN. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER.”
Excellent point, Ant. Campbell and Roalfe made a highly creative breach in the wall and it worked at that time. Trying to step on their footprints would be… not exactly very creative.
So HM, there are two aspects you should consider:
- invent something that works TODAY
- invent something that works FOR YOU
Very few things in this world are inherently good or bad for everybody and it’s hard to believe that a strategy to get a job could be one of them. For instance, you’re asking about creative ways to get the job you want, while I put all my energy into trying not to get to the point of having to get a job – because I can’t be a traditional employee, I’m not cut out for it, I’m addicted to my independence. But that doesn’t mean getting a job is good or bad in itself. I’m also a vegetarian, but most people aren’t and many of them are at least as healthy as I am. Similarly, there’s no bullet-proof method you can apply in order to get a job. Thank God!
So let’s take a look at this concrete example:
“The teams I know who’ve got jobs from placements were there for months and months and months unpaid, with no guarantees or reassurances, and just got lucky.”
What does that say? To me it seems a great opportunity to do exactly the opposite: DON’T rely on placements, DON’T do work for free, DON’T accept to be part of this lottery. “When the world zigs, zag.” (still the most charming ad man ever) Being number 3456568231 in a beautiful, uniform herd is going to be counterproductive. If getting a job is what you want, then this is your first brief: “What is the most creative AND efficient way to get a job?” This is also very educative – comes to show why efficiency is vital in advertising. Either you sell yourself or you don’t. The problem you mentioned is related to quantity: there are many young people who’d like to get a job in a creative department. My advice: always fight quantity with quality. Do something so great/unusual that no one can ignore it. Never forget CDs are CDs because they have proved their creative nature. Don’t you think they find this crowd of placement-kids really boring? They need entertainment, surprises, revolutions. Never underestimate human nature and its weakness for excellence/novelty.
Thanks Dave. Really refreshing read.
And it applies across the broader industry, beyond creatives. We should all be in business for ourselves as well as our companies and by improving ourselves we should have more value to the company.
Times may have changed ref the two week placement idea and contracts etc. but a new creative strategy should be in place to achieve the same objective.
I’m re-inspired to do some re-invention!
HM,
The point isn’t to copy Campbell and Roalfe.
They did that over 20 years ago.
The point is to come up with something that is as new and fresh now as their idea was then.
Like Ghandi said “Seek not to follow in the footsteps of great men. Seek what they sought.”
Anca,
Thanks a lot for the John Hegarty link.
The best part for me is when he says BBH is an old school advertising agency.
Everything they do starts as a product demonstration.
Then they add the magic in the way they do it.
I think that’s what makes them great.
Ant,
if you haven’t seen it yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
it’s 20 minutes but really worth it.
great lecture.
i was just making sure no impressionable young minds don’t think that’s a good idea. and robert and mark weren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last to use that tactic.
however, what they did was still disgusting behaviour.
lets not skip over the point.
yes it worked out well and they’ve got lots of money, but should we just dismiss their behaviour as ‘creative’.
i hate the fact that ‘creative’ is used to dismiss a multitude of sins.
i’m a creative and i don’t act like that.
and i’d rather not be tarred with the same brush.
and ant. you must see why i’m saying you shouldn’t do that ‘blag’? there are lots of ways to jump ship, but you don’t have to be a rat to do it.
Hi hmmmmmm,
Let’s be clear, this is all subjective.
You don’t think what they did was creative.
I think it was.
What you call ‘impressionable young minds’ will listen to what we both say and decide for themselves.
hmmmmm
what’s disgusting about going after your dreams and taking your chances?
Exactly, Dave. That’s John Hegarty’s way of putting into practice his theory about agencies acting like brands and not like ophthalmologists who pretend they can also cure liver diseases or any other diseases that afflict human beings for that matter.
And what I’ve noticed is that, as always, fundamental problems either generate more and more problems, if not handled properly, or they prevent further problems if they are solved from the very beginning. If an ad agency doesn’t act like a brand, neither clients, nor possible employees treat it like a brand: clients don’t know what to expect and employees don’t know what to offer – of course, this combines with another problem (or generates it?): employees don’t act like brands either and I can’t agree with this attitude; why do people apply for jobs at agencies that have nothing in common with their principles/style? It’s funny that ad people act like accountants when “choosing” the agency they’d “like” to work for (“Anything goes.”) and once they get hired they suddenly start to act like great artists (“Please don’t modify my idea, I’m the creative brain here!”). Personally, I could never accept the coordination of a CD whose style has nothing to do with mine. For instance, since we were talking about John Hegarty, while I love everything he does, I can’t imagine myself working for him. But I could spend hours and hours listening to him, I agree with all of his principles – I just apply them differently (by the way, Dave, you could write a post on Principles vs. Style). And I’m working on an experiment: I’ll set up a business only meant to later provide the financial support for an ad agency that will have the freedom to choose its clients instead of accepting anything for survival. Yes, it may take two years, three years or five years, but I have the patience to see things happen. Naturally. When you enjoy the trip, the destination feels so close. But you do have to enjoy the trip. The basic principle: stay positive. http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/08/book-of-optimism-pg-211.html
Hi Riki. Cheers, yeah I’ve watched the Sir Ken Robinson talk. Absolutely brilliant. I actually showed it to my agency as part of an inspirational presentation I gave – and I’m still basking in the glory!
what’s disgusting about it riki is the way you go about it.
disrespecting the people you work with/for isn’t the way to do it.
if you’re contemplating something that puts you in that position then quit. quit then do the placement because you have the confidence in your own ability to get the job you want. don’t hedge your bets. that’s not brave and daring, it’s cowardly and sneaky. would you hire someone who’d done that dave? would anyone? i wouldn’t, because soon would come the day they did the same to me.
we have to have some moral standard people.
and it isn’t terribly ‘creative’ as the same tale of a ‘placement holiday’ elsewhere has been attributed to several teams, though, none quite as successful as you example.
i’d also like to add.
if you’re not happy where you are and look over the river to see the grass is so much greener.
then change the place you are in.
be the team that turns around the fortunes of ‘bland inc’.
that’s creative.
that’s making the situation work for you.
and you’ll receive fame and credit in greater measure.
Hmmmm – yes, I can see why YOU wouldn’t do that blag and I totally respect your stance. But your definition of being a ‘rat’ is clearly very different to mine.
hmmmmmm
let me get one thing straight.
what you’re suggesting is that everybody who’s not happy at their current work, must FIRST quit that job and THAN start looking for another job?
Hi hmmmmm,
“would you hire someone who’d done that dave?”
Absolutely.
riki,
no i’m not.
look around. get hired on your merit and your ideas.
if that doesn’t seem to be working and the only option seems to get into somewhere on placement and prove to them that you’ve got what it takes, then quit your current job and do it. take the plunge. be brave. be bold. and do it.
dave,
lets look at it the other way.
a team works for you at the moment.
they’re good. you like them. they take a 2 week holiday together, telling you that they’re going away together for a well earned break. you begrudgingly let them take the time off together(the agency being so busy at the moment)but they’re a good team and deserve the break.
so, they go on their holiday and everyone else has to work double time to cover the slack.
on their return they tell you that they have actually been working at “blank agency” and been offered a job, so won’t be coming back to work for you. but thanks for the two weeks pay whilst they were working for your rival.
now. would you think.
“how terribly creative”
or.
“bastards”
hmmmmm:
If they were good of course I’d hate them for leaving.
I always hate to lose good people.
But if they’ve earned two weeks break it’s up to them how they spend it.
If I find out, of course I might be pissed of and fire them.
That’s a risk they take.
I think you and I are disagreeing along Kant/Bentham lines.
Kant thought motives were way more important than results.
Bentham thought results were way more important than motives.
I’ll always go with Bentham.
well, i can see that no-one else believes that this kind of behaviour is negative.
which i think is a shame.
Hallo, Dave.
Are Dave and Dave Trott the same?
Or is some guy masquerading as you?
Hmmmmmmm: I disagree with you.
If Robert and Mark had been really ‘creative’- say, both had gone for surgery, just to get 2 weeks’ time off, then, yes, I buy your point about the 2 slacking off and others having to cover them.
But they didn’t, did they?
They used their vacation time to do a placement with Crackers.
Just wondering - by your token:
does that mean it is wrong to go and interview for another a. job while you are hired by an agency?
(assuming you used your vacation time to go for the interview)
b. Would you quit your job first then go for an interview?
c. Would it have been ‘fairer’ if Robert and Mark had been fired by the agency they were at?
For me, if they would allow people with 10 years’ experience to go on placement in the hope of a job - well, gimme the agency’s name.
And since I’m freelancing now, that should be Ok, I feel.
hmmmmm,
imagine this situation:
A team of young creatives that don’t like their current job but can’t afford to quit due to pure financial reasons. They can’t be sure they’ll get a job in no more than two weeks, so they don’t quit. And they don’t do the holiday/placement trick either, because it’s immoral. Their work becomes less and less valuable, because that’s what happens when you don’t enjoy the work you do, especially if your job is about creativity. Is that a moral attitude, are they being fair with their current employer?
hmmmmm,
I had a team that did something similar. and I didn’t call them “bastards”. instead I asked myself what I did wrong to give them a reason to leave.
even more. I met them few months later and we went for a couple of beers, had an honest chat and cleared things out. it turned out it was all my fault. they were giving me very clear signals that they’re not happy. I didn’t see them.
now, should I still blame them for giving up on me? should I blame them for deciding that they have enough of disappointments working for me? should I call them “bastards” for going after what they thought was better for them?
well, I think not. cause MY behaviour was negative, not theirs.
besides, I think you’re taking this way too personal. this is first and foremost business relation we’re in. not marriage, not friendship, not family. business.
in my case, before we were ‘the boss’ and ‘the team. now we’re friends.
big difference.
Hmmm you’ve upset the Trotterati. Personally, whilst I take your point, and can understand it if you’re working for a small business o an inividual, big companies wouldn’t think twice about sacking you if it makes some numbers on a sheet look better, no matter what rabbits you’ve pulled out. So why care about them? I speak from bitter personal experience of course.
i don’t see anything wrong with leaving where you work.
i don’t see anything wrong with interviewing for another job.
i don’t see anything wrong with telling your boss why its not worked out.
if no one here can see the fundamental moral and ‘business’ reason why we should not condone such activity, then there is something very wrong.
@anca.
if you’re not good enough to leave for pastures new under the steam of your book and finances mean you can’t leave for a job that might not happen. then what you need to do is work harder. make it happen for yourself. there must be someone at the agency you can learn from? be inspired by stories of teams that didn’t like where they worked, so they changed it through hard work. there are tons of examples of these. i’m sure dave could tell us a few stories about such a topic.
Success consists of equal parts creativity and chutzpah. Ideas aren’t worth the paper they’re written on if you don’t have what it takes to see them through.
@hmmmmm
That was not my question (even though you’ve just offered a good piece of advice). It was a yes-or-no thing: is it moral or not to keep your job even if you don’t like it and therefore your work is mediocre?
(And I don’t think that not being sure you can get a BETTER job in the next two weeks means you’re not good enough. Maybe there’s no opening at the moment. And don’t forget creativity is a subjective business and this is how you’re being judged.)
Hmmmm:
As you may know, in parts of the world, the employer ALSO has a responsibility to provide the workers with work.
So if the employer doesn’t provide work, is it wrong for the workers to go somewhere else to look?
Or do you think it’s more moral to stick around and get paid for doing crap?
And what Campbell and Roalfe did -
how is that different from a CD who looks at books even when he has a full department?
Not to be rude, but if you have a better idea that works, I would love to borrow it.
Even if that means I’m not very creative.
Re: your point on a team changing the agency for the better.
Ed McCabe:
To do great work, you need 3 things:
the clients who will buy the work
the agency management who allows such to be done.
and the creative people who can do the work.
Campbell and R obviously could do the work.
Shame the other 2 factors were missing.
Lastly, I think Dave already gave a very good example of people who didn’t liked where they worked.
Rainey Kelly Campbell.
They didn’t change the place they worked at.
They created a new agency.
Perhaps if the ad industry didn’t operate an exploitative placement system for entry-level creatives, experienced teams might themselves feel more inclined to treat their employers ethically.
I was fortunate enough to get an agency copywriting gig without going on placement, which explains why I’m such a pleasant chap and all-round good egg rather than a work-for-your-rivals-while-I’m-meant-to-be-on-holiday bastard.
sorry robin, i don’t want to keep repeating myself.
the principle of moving agencies is all fine.
there’s nothing wrong in moving and it’s a good thing to do if you’d like to figure out how different places work.
my problem was the way they did it.
like i said, there’s nothing brave and daring about what they did. it what devious and the cowards way.
simply dubbing it ‘creative’ and therefore acceptable isn’t good enough.
@Rick
True. I’ve always seen placements as a dirty business that shouldn’t be encouraged. And I could even accept its dirty nature if it were efficient. But it’s not. I see no fantastic explosion of highly creative work on the market, which means placements fail to create real competition but are very good at creating a uniform mass of obedient little angels that can’t sell anything to anyone.
Idealism and pragmatism always were odd bedfellows.
as were burt and ernie.
Weren’t Burt and Ernie in separate single beds? Just shared the same room.
…not that I’m being pedantic.
no, i’m sure they went brokeback.
Thanks Hmmm for clarifying.
Sorry I didn’t get your ‘objection’. Until now.
Without trying to ask for a definition of ‘what you think creative is’ and emulating Bill Clinton’s ridiculous ‘depends on what you mean by ‘is”.
To you, it is ‘cowardly’ and ‘devious.
To me - and I suspect quite a few others - is shrewdness.
I’m not even saying the ends justify the means.
But I honestly don’t get your objections.
Would it make you feel better if:
a. Mark and Robert had been fired by the agency they were vacationing from?
b. Crackers hadb’t offered them the job?
The Trojan horse - the original classical one, not the computer virus - was devious.
But it was, at that time, a stroke of genius.
trojan horse is a bad example.
that’s like saying hitler was ‘creative’.
how about this example. something you may all feel more passionate about.
you’re a professional footballer. you don’t like playing for port vale. you wanna play for united.
you don’t want to try and get port vale into the premiership/europe and play your best every match so that united will want you. you have a more creative approach.
you feign injury and are signed off from playing for 2 weeks.
you go for trials at united stating ‘you’ve never really played before’.
the trial is a success. you go back to your old manager/team/fans and tell them.
the fans create a new chant in your honour.
will that chant be about being a shit or be about being a creative individual who now plays for a much better team?
The point here is not whether we like the ‘creativity’ just whether it is ‘creative’.
I think we can safely say it was creative. Next.
I think that’s a great point John.
Creative isn’t synonymous with nice.
Carravagio was very creative, and a murderer.
Leni Riefenstahl was vry creative, and glorified Hitler.
Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs, Mohammed Ali, John Lennon, Brian Clough, George Lois, Paul Arden, Charlie Saatchi, Frank Lowe were all very creative.
But they didn’t always play by the rules of fair play.
Whereas Bill Bernbach, John Webster, David Abbott, John Hegarty were also very creative and did play by the rules of fair play.
So whether we like something or not is a seperate subject to whether it’s creative.
Hmmmm
But Campbell and R DIDN’t fake injry.
They used their vacation time.
Or is your grief that they claimed to have no experience when they already worked?
Re: Hitler - I don’t like him but be historians regarded him as an “evil genius”.
So, the genius is there - just misused.
What about Finkie who pretended to be old so he could land the CDP job.
Was that, to you, deceptive?
Thanks.
i can’t be bothered any more.
i just didn’t want teams shitting on their colleagues to try and get a better job.
which was the one bit of advice a junior team sitting in my department took from the article.
i’m going for a lie down.
But M & R didn’t shit on their colleagues.
Their WCRS placement was on their own time.
No one can deny that Hitler created a very powerful brand.
OK, what if two guys took their holiday time off, and went to work for another agency, with the sole objective of gaining ideas which they would then take back to their original agency in order to advance their careers? Presumably everyone would agree that was immoral?
So, what if our pair hadn’t gained a position at the new agency at the end of the placement, and had returned to their original agency, full of the ideas, practices, contacts etc they had gained? Immoral? And rather more likely?
It’s not on, really, is it?
I suspect hmmmm’s unhappiness was R & M claiming to be students.
Rather than anything else.
Of course if anyone goes to an agency with the intention of poaching clients, then it is wrong.
But the average creative person is more interested in his book.
And do we really think Robin would allow someone to go into his agency and walk out with his clients?
I didn’t say “clients” - I said “ideas, practices, contacts” - which are all of value to creatives.
Becoming recently unemployed I’m realizing that the same applies to having the gumption/myopia of an entrepreneur rather than the pathetic waiting for someone to hire me.
Also: a recent SALON article points out some reckoning for Don Draper and the old boys who thought they were the creative types of ‘62-63:
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2009/08/11/mad_men_advertising/