I recently had a client commit the cardinal sin when reviewing work. No, they didn’t try to Frankenstein two ideas together. Nope, they didn’t turn the punchy 4-word headline into a 15-word paragraph. And no, they didn’t demand we make the logo bigger.

Worse. They projected.

They took their personal point-of-view and changed the work to match. I won’t reveal exactly what the feedback was, but it wasn’t unique. You’ve probably heard something similar yourself in the last few days. My recent worst offenders include, “I just don’t like orange,” and, “No one’s watching commercial television,” and, “Everyone loves QR codes.”

Just because you do, doesn’t mean it applies to everyone.

It got me thinking. Projecting is almost unavoidable. We all do it. We look at our own experience, our own decisions and our own behaviour. The shows we watch. The YouTube rabbit holes we fall into. The songs on our Spotify playlist. We assume we’re normal.

But most people in advertising are anything but normal.

As creatives, we pay far more attention to commercial communication than our audience ever does. We can reel off years of Cannes Lion winners. We spot when a campaign tagline changes. We track when clients switch agencies. We can predict when a freshly hired ECD is about to clean out a talented creative department.

Normal people don’t do that.

A couple of recent personal examples. I was telling a story at a dinner party recently and used “Dumb Ways to Die” as an example. My ‘non-Adland’ guests looked bemused and said they vaguely remembered some song from when their kids were little. Sheesh, it’s just Australia’s single biggest Lion winner. Crickets.

I then had a flashback to a social creative showing me some ideas for a business-to-business campaign. They had co-opted “Salt BAE” – assuming everyone knew who he was. I assumed no one did. Chances are, we were both wrong.

I was even reminded of a client objecting to me using “lickety-split” in a headline. Why? Because, in a dark corner of the web, it didn’t mean “fast”, it had a specific, sexual definition. Ewwwww.

Why does it matter?

Because, when we’re trying to connect with audiences, we should be 100% focused on them. Instead, our thoughts get coloured by our personal priority. Influenced by the most important character in the mix.

Us.

So, what’s the answer? Collectively, we need to get out and about more. Get out of our upwardly mobile, slightly snooty, latte drinking city buildings and tree-lined suburbs. Get out west (or out east if you’re in Perth). Watch the top rating (but intellectually numbing) TV shows. Catch public transport. Hang out at a country pub.

Plus, we need to encourage casting the net wider for talent. It’s why Rocky Ranallo’s Western Sydney Ad School is such an important idea. Cost effective for students. Run all year. Great graduates who have something far more important than an Arts or Commerce degree. They have a different background and different perspective.

As a minimum we’d have a sample size of two.

Rob Morrison is a rarity in Adland – a grey-hair who’s still a working creative. He’s clocked up 5 years of OpEds for The Stable. He’s now Senior Content Writer at Dentsu Creative.

Here are two other opinion pieces from Rob:

Cover image by @darkroomsg on Unsplash