The One On Creative Directors And Universality Of Ideas

“Ideas are universal,” goes the adage. (Pun intended).

But are they really?

My experience has shown me that not just any run-of-the-mill idea is universal, only the great ones. They captivate us as a whole, embodying a universality of understanding and as we all know, are the ones that Clients love and will jump through hoops to ensure happen. Now how many concepts have we come across that achieve that? I have seen some that are universally entertaining but not universally understood, or are universally understood but not universally entertaining. I have also come across what I thought were great ideas that did not see the light of day because of a condition called myopathy, but I shall go into that another day. For these reasons, I believe majority of ideas to be subjective.

“Subjective to what,” I hear you ask?

And the simple answer is, to our environment and that, based on the argument being bandied about that Uganda is the most diverse country in the world, shouldn't it follow that because we are so diverse, then the more diversely and universally appealing our ideas should be? Given the communication complexity of our diversity and the necessity to hit all the right emotional touchpoints with a single piece of advertising or PR campaign, why then are we not the industry’s game-changers? Unless, of course, we contend that our diversity is also so incredibly unique in that each of its components is unlike any other in the world. And therein lies the conundrum.

"Unless your advertising contains a big idea,
it will pass like a ship in the night."

And then we have the Creative Directors. Now, I have come across 'qualified' (mostly white) CDs who have a warped understanding of what a great idea truly is (or any idea, for that matter), and remain perpetually fixated on ego trips and job titles rather than the task at hand. Some have been known to unashamedly and completely abdicate their ideation responsibility with egregious pronouncements like, “I do not think I can participate in this brainstorm because I am not the target audience.”  I also know of another (actually, it might be the same chap... I forget) who had difficulty with the phrase ‘target audience’ and would insist on generating and presenting these fantastic ideas, and I intentionally use the world 'fantastic' because they hardly ticked these key reality boxes, the Holy Grail of any successful advertising campaign:

1. Relatable (target audience?)
2. Translatable (when translated do they still apply?)
3.  Memorable (does the target audience understand and remember ANYTHING about the creative?)
4.  Sustainable (is it an extension of the larger communication strategy? Does it invite interaction and wider comment? Does it have the legs to stand alone as well as run alongside and/ahead of competing ideas?)

Then of course there is also the issue of the ‘qualified’ CD. Does one qualify to become a CD? Is it an academic thing? Is it an experience thing? Can a good CD possess the basic academic qualifications, be enormously experienced but still not qualify for that vaunted position? I am mostly baffled because I have come across CDs who, on paper, appear academically qualified for the role, but who simply do not take the role seriously, or are absolutely clueless on the whole. Their idea of brainstorming can be a gross time-wasting exercise, rife with leadership issues and procrastination, seasoned with a complete lack of clarity of the process or, as happens most times, the project altogether.

I therefore submit that it is not the skin colour of a CD, but the competency of the ‘qualified’ to possess the leadership skills and that elusive creative vision that ultimately separates the proverbial boys from the men. Put the shoe on the other foot and it does not help a teensy-weensy bit when local agency owners—a term used very deliberately here, because merely bankrolling an agency nary makes one an advertising man (or woman)—have deep-seated self esteem issues to a point where they believe that only a white CD can do the job; worse, give their agency the ‘credibility’ they so crave. Thankfully, this mindset is now restricted to a diminishing minority as the industry slowly comes to a belated realisation that skin colour maketh not a radioactive Creative. It’s ideas, stupid.