Rob Morrison is angry. A creative industry that doesn’t believe in its own creative talent has no future. Morrison wants advertising to have a future. Here’s what he says:
Did you notice the number of nouveau experts who came out of the woodwork during the pandemic?
You know, people who believed they knew better than the professionals. Who thought, because they have a social following, they had permission to contradict people who’d spent a lifetime studying viruses. We heard a chorus of “Masks don’t work” or “Lockdowns are Government control tactics” or (my personal favourite) “I’ve done my own research”. These idiots gave us hydroxy-chloroquine, ivermectin, and injecting bleach.
The biggest mystery was why anyone in Adland was surprised.
For years we’ve wrestled with people who appoint themselves as creative experts. Those who ‘show it round the office’ looking for allies. For me, in just the last few weeks, there’s been:
- The CEO who saw a TVC for his competitor and demanded we turn a 2min content video into a 30sec TVC
- The marketing director who threw out a hard-working brand platform because the CEO wasn’t ‘a fan’
- The brand manager, whose product was born out of hip-hop, who was too nervous to approve a hip-hop idea because it’s “too edgy”.
Then, of course, there’s my Hall of Fame expert:
- The head of marketing who declared, with a straight face, “The most important person in my business is my shareholder.”
Honestly, why do we still have to cow-tow to the over important and underqualified? Would you ask the factory foreman to approve the annual tax accounts? Would you get the logistics expert to proof-read a legally binding contract? No. You’re right. They’re not qualified.
So why do we let clients take the advertising home to show their partners before approving it? Why do we still feel we need to put up a billboard on the CEO’s drive home? Why do we quickly back away from the strategy, creative and results we know we’re delivering?
For years the rationale was “that’s the art part”. Agencies struggled to attribute results. We didn’t know for certain what was working and what was not.
But that’s not true anymore.
Now, we’re awash with data. We can prove awareness, and engagement, and conversion. We can track how many leads we generate, and how the business has benefitted. We can design a million charts to prove ROI.
So, why the lack of collective confidence?
We’re so worried about hearing “no” we’ve forgotten what we’re actually good at – convincing clients to say “yes”. Let’s remember that great work only happens when everyone is pointing the same direction. How do we fix it? By putting the management back in client management and making it everyone’s priority – no matter what your job title.
Or you could mix me another hydroxy-chloroquine, ivermectin, and bleach cocktail. Cheers.
Rob Morrison is a rarity in advertising – a grey-haired creative. Rob’s experience includes time as a Creative Director at Ogilvy, BWM (now Dentsu Creative), George Patts (now VML), Campaign Palace and Wunderman. He now runs his own consultancy – morrison.collective.
Here are two more opinion pieces from Rob Morrison:
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