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CREATIVITY AND
INNOVATION
TO BE HANDLED
WITH CARE
THOMAS DING,
STRATEGIC PLANNER,
Y&R MELBOURNE
“Creativity” and “innovation” are
delicate and important words, which
we misuse at our peril.
Let’s take “creativity” first.
Too often we use the word
“creativity” without qualifying it.
We fetishize it. We distribute shiny
trophies in its name, and we forget
what it means to ordinary people.
If you ask the proverbial man in
the street for examples of creativity,
he will tell you about authors and
screenwriters and comedians and
musicians and pastry chefs before
he gets to us ad men. And rightly
so. We are not artists. We are not
rock stars. Yet at festivals and award
shows like Cannes, it is easy to
forget that.
It is no wonder that when people
like Hamilton Nolan (author of the
recent Gawker polemic “Creative
Destruction: How Advertising Is
Swallowing the Creative Class”)
wander into our industry events,
they leave surer than ever that we
are all a bunch of arseholes. At
these events, as Nolan correctly
notes, “creativity exists in a bubble,
allowing it to be admired and
marveled at by peers without making
the dreary connection to its actual
societal function.”
It is the politest quote in the
article, but I recommend you read
the rest. There is no better place
than Cannes to be reminded of your
true place in the world.
After all, there are fewer
better examples of our own selfimportance
than the name we have
given to our annual, champagnesoaked
love-in. The moviemakers
have a stronger claim to the title
“Cannes Festival of Creativity” than
we do; ours should be renamed the
“Festival of Commercial Creativity” as
a matter of urgency. Not only would
it be more honest that way, it would
also give us more interesting things
to talk about.
What do I mean by that?
Well, in our business we try to find
things for our clients to say that are
unique and engaging, and we would
do well to apply the same rule to
ourselves.
We are fortunate that the tension
and conflict inherent in what we
do is interesting and relevant to
every single person alive today. In
Mad Men, it has inspired one of the
most successful television dramas
of all time, and here in Australia, the
thoughtful analysis of advertising
is also the subject of one of the
country’s most popular panel shows,
The Gruen Transfer.
Yet when we reduce it all to the
word “creativity,” we do ourselves a
disservice. We lose the tension and
the interest, and we end up with the
kind of banal propaganda and mutual
masturbation that distances us from
people in the real world. The very
people we purport to understand. The
very people we want to work for us.
Likewise, the word “innovation” is
a delicate one that is often handled
clumsily. You will likely hear it a lot at
this festival, so let’s take a second to
think about what innovation is and isn’t.
Contrary to popular belief in the
field of marketing, reducing the level
of sugar in your products by 5% isn’t
innovation, adding a customizable
cover to a mobile phone isn’t
innovation, and, striking closer to the
bone, finding a novelty use for a QR
code isn’t innovation.
In fact, many organizations have
entire Departments of Innovation that
should be renamed Departments of
Slight, But Ultimately Insignificant
Improvement. True innovation comes
from radical rather than marginal
thinking. And true innovation makes
or breaks companies.
Why does this stuff matter?
It matters because our clients
don’t buy ads and they don’t buy
creativity, they buy change.
In our business, creativity and
innovation must always remain the
means rather than the end. They are
the tools we use to solve the puzzles
we are given, and a proven driver of
business success (thanks to the hard
work of James Hurman and others,
that conversation is closed), but they
are nothing in and of themselves.
It is important that when you
are reviewing all the “creative” and
“innovative” work at Cannes this year,
that you do so with a critical eye.
If it didn’t change anything, it
doesn’t count. ■
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