Costing creativity: the creative process versus the way agencies try and monetize it.

How in hell do you scope this?

From a business perspective, “creative process” is an oxymoron. Yet, every agency has one. In the age of projects versus client relationships, the process looks like hours worked. PM’s and AE’s must estimate how many people to put on a creative project and how many hours they will spend doing it.

With clients choosing agencies like restaurants and ordering a la carte off our menus, a neophyte might think it would be easy calculating the bill. Unfortunately, it is harder than ever.

From a creative perspective, the process defies accounting. The time frame for making creative was, is and always will be a guessing game, fraught with variables. How long does it take to come up with an idea – Two hours? Two days? Two weeks? And how long does it take to flesh out the idea? And how many ideas do you require?

When guessing how long a project will take to complete the guessers would ideally need to calibrate how different individuals create, which is unique. For example, Sally likes to work alone. Jack and Jill work best as a team and Bill, Fred and Mary love collaborating. And what about nights, when I like to write? If one calculated how many hours I play with a paragraph of body copy we’d be over budget on everything.

In the good old days, an agency had a relationship with a client (with a yearly nut augmented by media commissions), which allowed for expanding and contracting creative resources, contingent upon the growing or shrinking demands of each assignment. Therefore, creative directors could deal in real time, adjusting resources based on immediate needs, wants and capability variables. In a fire drill, we called in resources with impunity. On a pitch, we might give a bunch of newbies a crack. And so on. Though still a process, it was far more fluid and organic than what we have now. The creative department did not have finite budgetary limits.

As a manager, I’m all for tightening the screws and figuring shit out. As a creative director, I know it seldom works that way.

Oh, Manifesto! Why copywriters adore them. Why everybody should.

Crazy good!

For the past few days, even longer, I have been working on a manifesto for one of our (hopefully) new clients. Actually, I’ve been working on two. Even more actually, I’ve been working on manifestos for 25 years, since becoming a copywriter.

Nothing suits me more. For like many a creative soul, I am by nature a show off. And this is the way I can do it. I know I am not alone. Most copywriters get off on writing manifestos. At least they’d better. Writing such documents is at the heart of what we do, and can do, for our clients.

Most of you know what I’m talking about. For those unawares, a manifesto or mantra or anthem is the bringing to life in words the highest and most noble aspirations of its subject matter, aka the brand.

Yes, it is advertising copy but in the best sense of the word. Think Apple’s great script to the modern world: Think Different. Consider the lines that first and forever defined Nike to a generation: Just Do It. We know these iconic tags because we fell in love with the manifestos. Frankly, neither line would have lasted this long, or even gotten out the door, if not for their beloved manifestos.

The power and glory of a brilliant manifesto cannot be overstated. They raise the hairs on the back of your neck. They make CMO’s smile. They win pitches. Most of all they change things: attitudes, behaviors, even lives.

At least the good ones do.

Alas, we’ve all heard or, God forbid, written our share of shitty ones. They can be purple or redundant or both. They get long pretty damn fast. They turn into cheesy rip-o-matics. Yet, in a weird way, even the bad ones sound pretty good. They are like pizza that way.

Why?

Because we slave over them. Into these haloed paragraphs we put everything we know or think we know about writing, about persuading, about life. Here you won’t find speeds and feeds, racks and stacks or friends and family call free! None of that. For these are the best neighborhoods in Adland. No thugs allowed.

A TV commercial for Facebook? What’s not to “like?”

Weird yes but “we are not alone.”

I don’t know which ad agency, if any, created this ad for Facebook but I “like” it. A lot. In the news –somewhat controversially- for spending enough money to bail out Greece on a texting application, it’s nice to see Facebook doing a bit of image advertising that’s just plain fun.

Not that Facebook needs to build awareness but they could use a bit of freshening and, for me, spots like this do it. Instead of marketing some new feature, Facebook goes old school (how ironic is that?) and comes through with advertising about the very thing that made Facebook cool in the first place: community.

In this case it’s people who dig Sci-Fi. We see a bunch of geeks sporting costumes of their favorite Martians just being real and that’s about it. We hear the iconic theme music from 2001 A Space Odyssey. And then the wonderful tagline: “We Are Not Alone.”

It’s a great line. Clever in the obvious way it pays off the concept. Smart because it deftly highlights the original magic of social media (and Facebook in particular): the fact that there are a few billion people on earth and each one of us possesses interests and passions that both unifies and differentiates us.

Even if you like the spot, you could argue Facebook has no call to advertise. By definition, its users do that with every post.

Yet, I do think it’s time for some advertising. Not to get more users per se but to build its brand with all of us who do use it. Most of us aren’t going anywhere. But some of us are. Moreover, living on Facebook has become somewhat of a chore. We dutifully post images of our families and link content to our friends but the magic has subsided. Some of us have grown weary of the ritual.

And that’s what I like about this commercial the most. It reminds me of when going on Facebook was fun.

For today’s advertising agencies, sweating the small stuff often yields big rewards.

The other day I participated in a lengthy meeting about a cocktail party the agency is creating for one of its clients. A cocktail party. The team was discussing three concepts. The copywriter and the account executive got into a tussle over which concept to recommend to the client. It got fairly animated.

A cocktail party.

I had to smile. Since when did we become party planners? Since when did a copywriter give a shit about deliverables relating to one? Ten-years-ago-me wanted to yell: “For the love of God, it’s only a cocktail party!” Instead I lobbed a few jokes about hiring a magician or karaoke “the latest craze from Japan!” But I didn’t dare stop the debate. To paraphrase the copywriter: “This is our chance to do good work. These are the things that win awards.”

In fact, more and more it is these funky little assignments that yield the most interesting creative product. Apps, Twitter handles, ambient, street theater and, yes, cocktail parties are the low-hanging for many agencies. Not just ours. Juggernauts like BBDO and CP&B have long figured out it’s the whacky microsites, unusual videos and other oddities that drive buzz and garner acclaim. The Cannes Gold Lion for a fetching Facebook concept is just as shiny as the one given for press and broadcast. Plus, it has the added value of being ambient or digital, terms that make our industry gaga.

Still. Calling a video that gets 80 thousand views a viral sensation is a joke. 80,000 views are paltry compared to broadcast. Hence the development of another socially inspired, mouth-watering term: Engagement! 2.2 million viewers of a commercial on cable are not as valuable as 80,000 “engaged” people watching online.

There is more than a kernel of truth to it. The gurus aren’t completely high on fumes. Sharing and talking about something is buzz. And it happens to attract mountains of praise, albeit mostly from ourselves. Yet, we hire ourselves. Give raises to ourselves. Award ourselves. Therefore, an App that rates food based on fart smells gets a Clio. 32,000 people like it on “Facebook.” Adfreak does a piece on it. The creative team is among the “pairs to watch in 2013.” And so it goes…

PS: The Fart App or “Fapp” is all mine.