Gods of Advertising is on backburner so I can devote more energy to completing a manuscript as well as writing for my clients. Perhaps you? Services include copy writing, brand manifestos and creative direction. I’m passionate about helping clients develop powerful creative business ideas. Consumer or B2B, versatile in the trickiest verticals. This is my portfolio
Do you have a writing project you would like to discuss -professional or personal? I am also available to help other writers with their work, as an advisor, editor or mentor.
Connect here, via Linkedin or Steffan1@rcn.com – Let’s have a conversation!
I look forward to hearing from you!
Left side of my reef, featuring the big Sailfin tang I call “Moose”
I maintain a 180-gallon reef aquarium in my home. Try to anyway. The coral reef is the most complex, delicate and beautiful ecosystem in the world. Lighting. Filtration. Water parameters. Flow. Everything has to be calibrated and monitored in order to even passably mimic a real coral reef. One or two miscalculations and your reef crashes. Suffice it to say, this is not your father’s guppy tank.
Still, or maybe because of the challenges, I am an addicted reefer. I can easily spend two hours in twenty-four with my hands in the tank and even more online doing research. Nothing tweaks my nerd DNA more than scouring websites, gaping at corals, bidding on equipment, or contributing to a forum. Reef porn is real.
An ad agency has a lot in common with my reef. Though it can be more polluted (joke), the hallways and cubes of an agency ecosystem are populated by equally diverse and complicated organisms. Some species, like the showy creative, can in fact be very sensitive. While others, the account director for example, can be very aggressive. Given the two must live together the experience can be challenging. Certain aggressive species torment smaller creatures, nipping at their work, crushing them. Biting criticism takes its toll. The wounded creative hides in his cave, camouflaged by earphones, avoiding the persistent predator. If the biggest fish in the tank is a bully, everyone suffers. When the tank becomes mired in territorial disputes, the whole thing crashes. Sound familiar?
It doesn’t have to.
Last night I observed my cleaner shrimp nibbling parasites off a troubled yellow tang and I realized that there is wonder here. When all these myriad creatures work together, giving and taking in harmony, the results are truly breathtaking. The solitary superstar flashes brilliance. A school of darting Anthias shows the awesome power of collaboration. If the tank masters accept the occasional skirmish, providing nourishment to all, then the ecosystem will flourish.
I am now available for writing projects and/or a creative leadership role. Please contact me directly @ Steffan1@rcn.com or via Linkedin. I look forward to engaging with your ecosystem!
Experienced creative director, copywriter and content creator. Unleash the magic of the “Three C’s!”
February 5, 2019
Be it agency or client-side, creative leadership has meant different things to different people in different types of organizations. The following is meant to clarify what an experienced CD, GCD or ECD (aka me) could mean to your company right now and moving forward.
The primary purpose of creative leadership is to enhance the creative reputation of the agency, to be a creative advocate for the agency (and its clients), and to help the agency win new business and to grow organically. Any challenge threatening the above, I should be enlisted. Secondarily, but no less important, I assist in the development of strategy (conceptual and tactical) and welcome the collaboration.
Another way of looking at my process. Specifically:
Organizing Principle. I am interested in creative business ideas that drive our client’s business; what I call an organizing principle: a melding of strategy and hyperbole that puts a stake in the ground, demonstrating the power and potential of our client’s offering. An OP usually includes a manifesto that brings it to life, a poetic and powerful story that sets up the problem and delivers the solution. For every OP I expect proof of concept in formats relevant to the engagement, i.e. home page, product and solutions, advertising, templates, trade show booth, etc…
The Three C’s: Creation. Curating. Choreography.
- Creation: As a player-coach, rely on me for high-level concept development and first order copywriting.
- Curation: Finding the best work and making it better, combining and marrying assets to tell the best story.
- Choreography: Putting work together so it flows with the rest of our content and delivers maximum impact.
Pitching. As a creative face for the agency, I should play a significant role in pitches – not just creating the work in the room but also delivering it effectively.
Strategy. Ideally, I contribute on strategy (conceptual, digital, tactical, media) and look forward to helping pre-strategy and in the development of creative briefs.
Integration, Alignment & Resources. Helping to determine best fit for creative resources from the available talent pool.
If your organization (be it agency or client-side) is looking for a creative director and/or content creator, please contact me directly. I am available for contract, freelance or full time engagement. Let’s have a conversation! Steffan1@rcn.com
The other night I got to thinking about a debating class I once took at the University of Wisconsin. An article on the ages-old conflict between the Arab nations and Israel spurned the memory. Like gun control and abortion, the Middle East is a debating class chestnut.
It dawned on me how important that debating course was in shaping my career as an advertising copywriter. The ability to create a compelling and fresh argument from tired tropes is paramount to good copywriting. For most clients, the benefits and solutions within their respective categories are extremely similar, if not identical. Therefore, practicing our skills on classic debating topics is highly worthwhile. (By the way, most of this paragraph has been constructed in the form of a syllogism (if/ then/ therefore), a term and concept I learned in debating class!)
I recall one assignment in particular because of how it forced me out of my comfort zone. I was asked to compose an argument for the opposite side on an issue I felt strongly about. Though I believed in a woman’s right to choose I had to argue on behalf of pro-life.
It was an infuriating exercise, inflaming my youthful passion in so many ways. Which is also why it was such a valuable lesson. Forcing me to argue on behalf of something I was ardently opposed to was and is great preparation for a career in advertising.
Since then, I’ve had to write persuasively about countless products I know nothing about or will never use –everything from enterprise software to feminine protection. At Leo Burnett, I created numerous campaigns for Phillip Morris, selling cigarettes. I worked on a pitch for an online gambling entity. I don’t drink alcohol because it nearly killed me but I’ve written national campaigns for Johnnie Walker and Anheuser Busch.
Scenarios like these are not uncommon. For many of us they represent just another tricky day in Adland. Putting aside one’s moral compass may be harder for some than others but either way the value of classic debating skills is obvious.
Final aside: Now more than ever I think the above debating exercise would benefit everyone who took it, teaching empathy. Sadly, I’m guessing many would refuse to partake calling it emotional terrorism or some such.
Author’s note: a version of this article ran last week in Reel Chicago – If you have a writing project you’d like to discuss, by all means hit me up!
Those of us in the creative department have asked the question so many times it has become rote. The best answer is not an answer. Clients are difficult. Period. Especially when it comes to approving work. Therefore, we expect our work to be criticized. Revisions and changes are baked into the scope. It is assumed there will be rounds of creative. We are told that if we were in our client’s shoes we’d do the same thing.
But you know what? That’s bullshit. I am far from perfect but I am usually an accepting, flexible and even grateful client. When I hire someone to do a creative job –say an architect- I never give him or her the kind of scrutiny that is always given to new marketing campaigns. For example, a contractor shows me some designs for a room addition. I tell him which one I like, we discuss time and money, and I pay the man. Once in a while I have questions or a change is required. We address it in real time, during construction. We move forward. Even when it’s my money and my house I am seldom a hard ass.
Chances are you’re the same way.
So, why are advertising clients so freaking difficult? Why all the concerns, tweaks and rejections? I think the answer is fear. CMO’s and their get are terrified (sometimes understandably) of losing their jobs. Often my counterparts at the agency feel the same way. Every tree we plant must bear fruit. Or else!
Yet, endlessly hacking at the unplanted tree virtually guarantees a fruitless outcome. Death by a thousand cuts is no different than doing nothing at all. After months of revisions, the concept either dies in a meeting or, produced, it has been so severely compromised as to be ineffective in the marketplace. Everyone gets fired anyway. Another CMO comes in. Another agency. The process begins all over again. This is the definition of insanity.
Creating campaigns is thrilling. Yet, their yield potential is and always will be unknown. Hence the thrill. ROI is as possible as it is not. No one can be sure how an audience will react to an idea until the thing is out there. What makes a client nervous might very well be what makes the idea truly great. We all know the story behind the world’s greatest advertisement, Apple’s 1984. When it was screened to dealers everyone except its creators hated it. The agency, Chiat Day was told to fire-sell the media, which happened to be two slots on the Super Bowl. One insertion never sold. So the spot ran. The rest is history. The follow-up commercial, Lemmings was a failure. Still, was Apple really hurt by it? No. Being reckless and cavalier has never hurt the brand. Frankly, Apple could stand more bravery.
It’s 2018. Why is everyone still afraid of new creative? If a concept doesn’t work merely try something else. The “brand” will be fine. Belaboring over the blueprint is an old idea. And a bad one. The digital age is about iterating. Swipe right. These days, fear and inertia are scarier than any new idea.
Author’s Note: A version of this article ran last week in Reel Chicago On that note, I am available for select writing projects. Love to help. Let’s talk.
The Happy Soul Industry
The Last Generation
Gods of Advertising 