Smelling your own farts

Of course you think your idea’s great. It’s yours.

When I was a copywriter in a creative team, I soon learned to tell when my art director didn’t like one of my ideas. She’d say “Yes, or something.”

Me: “Dog sweaters, but for snakes.”

Art Director: “Yes, or something.”   

What that meant was “No.”  

The pungent truth about creativity

There’s a reason why the bedrock of any great creative agency is a team, not a bunch of individuals all working alone.  It’s why the old school art / copy team pairing works still works so damn well.  

Having to articulate an idea out loud and having it brutally appraised by your creative partner might be irksome and even sometimes humiliating, but it’s the fire where dross dies and nice ideas are turned into potentially iconic ones.

The moment you suspect you might have a brilliant idea is the very moment when you might need another person, who’s not so attached to it, to point out that you might in fact have huffed your own fumes.

Here’s my rule as a CCO:  I tend to stick to building on the ideas already on the table, rather than coming up with my own idea to put into the mix.  Because the more senior you are the more danger there is that the team will be afraid to tell you that your idea has about it a whiff of ordure. Or as we say in the South African streets, that it’s kak.

So I’ll occasionally suggest an idea but if everyone moves on quite quickly, then I know. And I don’t press it.

To my clients – and to all ad agency clients, everywhere: I know you sometimes feel that your agency creative people automatically turn our noses up when you come up with an idea in a meeting. You’re right  – we do. But here’s the thing – we do that to each other. Constantly.    

Because it’s too seductive to breathe in the heady fragrance of your own brainfart and assume you’ve just minted gold.   

So next time that genius idea strikes, don’t bask in it. Read the room.